Page 57 of Ruin
"Cassius Wolfe." The voice that answers is heavily accented, amused, like the speaker is enjoying a private joke. Russian. "I am Kirill Zhukhov."
I gesture for Vincent, who's been hovering nearby like a concerned parent, to start tracing the call. "What do you want?"
"To congratulate you on your taste in women. The judge's little girl has grown up beautifully, has she not?" His laugh is like broken glass scraping against concrete. "Tell me, does she know who she is sleeping with? Or does she still believe her parents died by Russian hands?"
My hand clenches around the phone hard enough to crack the case. "Get to the point."
"The point, myfriend, is that secrets have a way of surfacing. Especially when they are so... educational. I have photographs, you know. From that night nine years ago. Very clear images of a young man in a mask entering the Deveraux home."
The blood in my veins turns to ice water. "You have nothing."
"I have everything. Police reports that were mysteriously buried. Witness statements that never made it to trial. Evidence that your father's organization killed two innocent people and let mine take the blame." His voice drops, becomes almost conversational. "How long do you think she will stay loyal when she learns you are the monster from her nightmares?"
I think about the surveillance footage. Her reaction to discovering the truth.
"What do you want?" I ask.
"Your territory. Your operations. Your woman, perhaps, when she’s finished grieving." He pauses, letting the threat sink in. "I will give you twenty-four hours to consider my terms. After that, certain information becomes public knowledge."
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone, calculating possibilities.
Zhukhov isn't bluffing—Russians never bluff about evidence.
He has something, photographs or documents that could destroy everything.
But more than that, he understands exactly how to break me.
Through her.
Vincent approaches me, tablet in hand. "The call was bounced through six different servers across three continents. Untraceable."
"He has evidence. From that night."
"Impossible. We destroyed everything. Your father was very thorough about the cleanup."
"Not everything. There must have been witnesses we didn't know about, records we couldn't access, evidence we didn't think to hide." I move to my desk, pull up building schematics on my computer. "How's your Russian, Vincent?"
"Rusty but functional. Why?"
"Because we're going to war. And I need to know everything about our enemy before they make their next move."
The afternoon crawls by as I plan, but my attention keeps drifting to the surveillance feed from her office.
I told myself I wouldn't watch. That lasted eleven minutes.
She's been staring at her phone for ten minutes now.
I watch her start to type something, pause, delete it. Start again. Delete again.
Her jaw tightens each time, like she's arguing with herself about who to call and what to say.
Lionel checks in at two.
She declined lunch. Sent her assistant to the quarterly review meeting instead of attending herself. Asked security about private elevators—ones that don't require keycards.
By three, I'm watching her browser history populate on the mirrored feed.
