Ethan's POV
The house doesn't sleep.
It never has.
It waits.
I stand alone in the central hall long after Raina disappears behind reinforced steel, long after the perimeter resets, long after the night pretends it has gone back to normal.
Normal is a lie people tell themselves when they don't want to look too closely.
I look closely.
Every screen.
Every feed.
Every sensor pulse.
Nothing moves without permission here...but I know better than to trust silence. Silence is where men plan.
Mike joins me without a sound, his steps familiar, measured. The sling is gone now; painkillers and discipline have done their work. His eyes are sharp again, alive with the same question burning in mine.
"How long?" he asks.
"Hours," I say. "Maybe days."
He exhales through his nose. "They won't wait."
"No," I agree. "They'll circle."
That's how it always goes. The moment you show strength, the weak scatter and the clever take notes.
I turn away from the screens and walk toward my office, the one place in this house where I allow myself to sit still and think. Mike follows, shutting the door behind us.
The necklace rests where I left it...inside a matte-black containment tray, lights dimmed, sensors active but unobtrusive.
It looks harmless.
That's the problem.
I sit slowly, elbows resting on the ivory desk, hands clasped together. I don't touch the necklace again...not yet. I've learned the cost of impatience.
Mike watches me for a long moment. "You didn't tell her."
"No."
"You won't."
"No."
He nods once. He knows me well enough not to argue. He also knows what this means.
"She's connecting the dots," he says. "She remembers Russia."
"I know."
"And Kabir."
I don't respond immediately.
Kabir's name still does that thing..
tightens the air, shifts the balance. He was my friend. He was her husband. He was the first man I watched step too close to a fire he thought he could control.
He was wrong.
Kabir used to talk too much when he drank. He spoke in half-truths and riddles, like men who believe knowledge makes them powerful.
Once..
years ago...we were sitting on the hood of his car, city lights bleeding into the night. He'd looked at me then, eyes sharper than usual.
"If anything ever happens," he said, "you take care of her."
I laughed. "You plan on dying young?"
He didn't smile.
"She doesn't belong in that world," he continued. "And once someone notices her… there's no undoing it."
I thought he meant jealousy.
I didn't understand then that he meant inheritance.
Mike clears his throat. "You're quiet."
"I'm thinking," I say.
About Raina's eyes when she realized the word Da wasn't abstract.
About the way she stiffened when she understood I didn't just call for help...I invoked a debt.
I didn't want to drag her into this.
But the truth is brutal and simple:
She was already in it long before I touched her.
"I'm going to need you to prepare the secondary team," I tell Mike. "Not the usual people."
His eyebrows lift slightly. "You sure?"
"Yes."
"That's… an escalation."
"So is breathing right now."
He gives a grim smile. "Fair enough."
He turns to leave, then pauses. "Ethan."
I look up.
"She trusts you," he says quietly. "More than she should."
I lean back in the chair, stare at the ceiling for a long second.
"I know."
That's the weight.
Trust isn't protection.
It's leverage.
And I refuse to let the world use her trust against her.
When Mike leaves, I finally reach for the necklace.
Carefully.
Respectfully.
The metal is cool against my skin. Too cool. It absorbs heat like it's alive.
I turn it over slowly, studying the way the stone catches the light...not greedily, not hungrily, but expectantly. Like it's waiting to be recognized for what it really is.
I don't need machines to know this thing is a key.
Not to a vault.
To a person.
Or a lineage.
Or a secret someone died to keep quiet.
My jaw tightens.
I think of the voice on the phone...the one that answered me without hesitation, without questions.
The one that said Da like a verdict.
A promise answered always demands payment.
I knew that when I made the call.
What I didn't know was how quickly the world would begin collecting.
A soft alert chimes on the console.
Incoming.
Encrypted.
Not from Mike.
Not from Italy.
Not from Russia.
I don't open it immediately.
I stand instead, walk to the window, and look out at the dark stretch of land beyond the estate. Somewhere out there, men are already moving pieces. They always do.
Behind me, in a steel room designed to withstand war, a woman is trying to sleep with the weight of her past pressing down on her chest.
I close my eyes.
I have loved Raina in silence for too long.
I thought silence would keep her safe.
I was wrong.
Now love requires something else.
I open the message.
Two lines.
No sender ID.
"You activated the old channel."
"We'll be watching how you carry the name."
No threat.
No demand.
That's worse.
I delete the message and straighten.
If the storm is coming, then so be it.
I will not let it take her.
Even if it takes everything else.
Even if it takes me.
I turn off the office lights and head toward the corridor where Raina is sleeping, my steps slow, deliberate, heavy with the truth I can no longer avoid:
I didn't just step back into the dark.
I accepted a throne I never wanted.
And the world is about to find out who stands beside me.