The world tilts.
Air leaves my lungs in a sharp, soundless rush. My hands start to shake so badly that the page rustles like it’s alive.
“No,” I whisper. It comes out thin. Disbelieving. “No—”
Reed didn’t just know.
He signed off on the transfer. Approved it. Redirected my father into Markov’s orbit like a chess piece. A controlled move. A setup.
He didn’t just lie about my father’s death.
He delivered that lie to me. Looked me in the eye while I broke and told me to move on.
My throat closes.
I lift my head slowly, like it takes effort just to exist in this moment. Konstantin is right there—close enough that I can feel the heat of him, the tension in his body.
“Did you know?” I ask.
My voice barely sounds like mine.
“Did you know when he came here? When he told me—” I can’t finish the sentence. The words snag and tear.
He shakes his head immediately. Once. Firm.
“No,” he says. “I suspected. Nothing more.”
My nails dig into the edge of the desk. I don’t trust myself to move.
“I knew something was wrong,” he continues quietly. “His story was too clean. Too rehearsed. But this—” He gestures to the file. “This part? I didn’t have it yet.”
A beat.
“It was Mike,” he adds. “He pulled the financial trail this morning. Found the signature. The falsified transfer.”
I close my eyes.
Reed’s face flashes in my mind. The sorrow. The soft voice. The way he said my name like it was sacred.
Rage blooms—hot, violent, choking.
“He watched me fall apart,” I whisper. “He held my grief in his hands and fed it back to me like poison.”
Konstantin doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t defend himself. He doesn’t soften it.
He steps closer.
“I should have stopped him from speaking to you,” he says. “I won’t make excuses for that.”
I open my eyes again.
Something in me has shifted. Not shattered—hardened. The grief is still there, but it’s no longer alone.
It has teeth now.
“I believed him,” I say. “I mourned my father because of him.”
The realization lands fully then, and I don’t pretend I’m strong enough to stand through it alone.