Chapter 48

…Fuck.

Their location had been exposed.

The mercenary sent by the Watchmen probably didn’t know the exact address of the cottage where Cherriot was staying, but he had unquestionably followed the trail as far as Big Fox.

When? How did they find us?

Alexei had assured him that all traces of Yuri’s vehicle vanished the moment they hit the highway. They couldn’t have tracked the car. Discovering anything beyond that would require high-level government assistance. Yet, it made no sense for an official with that degree of clearance to be involved; if they were, they would already have the precise address.

Did they track Cherriot’s phone GPS? I don’t remember exactly when I made him turn it off, but it might have been around here.

No, that explanation fell flat, too. If they had been capable of tracking the GPS, they would have arrived days ago.

As he mentally retraced their steps for any missed loose ends, Yuri formulated a plan: return quickly, swap vehicles, destroy Cherriot’s phone, and relocate. Urgency tightened his chest, but a crisis demanded ice in his veins, not fire.

He clenched his fist hard, forced his fingers to relax, and drew a deep breath. Reality had come crashing down the instant his dreamlike interlude with Cherriot ended—as though mocking his naive hope that everything might pass quietly.

It had happened too fast to allow for reflection. Yuri slipped the tracking neutralizer into the liquor-store bag and skirted the outer edge of the complex until he reached the far end of the parking lot. Once inside his car, he tossed the bag onto the passenger seat and punched the combination into the hard case resting on the floorboards.

The lock released with a heavy click.

Inside lay a Glock 19 and three boxes of 9mm ammunition. Yuri briefly surveyed the matte-black weapon, an instrument he hadn’t needed to hold in a very long time. He loaded the magazine swiftly, tucked the pistol into his waistband, pulled his shirt down to conceal the print, and fired up the engine.

Leaving the parking lot, Yuri constantly alternated between his rearview and side mirrors, scanning for a tail. The road back was almost entirely empty. The few cars that did appear behind him eventually signaled and turned onto other routes. Still, he couldn’t relax. A skilled professional might deliberately hang back, waiting to reappear later. Returning directly to the cottage would be reckless.

Yuri refused to leave even the slightest threat lingering near Cherriot, so he chose to accept a longer, circuitous route. He picked up his phone to warn Cherriot that he’d be late. Only then did it strike him—they had never exchanged numbers.

Alexei was the only one with Cherriot’s contact information. Because Yuri and Cherriot had been inseparable since the escape, Yuri had never thought to ask. More accurately, the very concept of asking for someone’s number was deeply foreign to him.

I can ask him when I get back, Yuri thought, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. We need to be prepared for this. And if I’m ever going to visit his real home, I’ll need a way to reach him. If I break this tail properly, nothing will happen to him. Yes.

Pressing harder on the accelerator, Yuri pulled up his messages to find Heather’s number as a backup. Because his circle was so small, her name sat directly beneath Alexei’s. Her last text, letting him know she had arrived safely after leaving the hotel, was dated seven days ago.

Keeping one eye on the rearview mirror, Yuri dialed. Heather answered before the first ring could even finish.

— “Yuri! Have you been okay? I’ve been worried sick since that day. Alexei told me some weird rumor about you having the time of your life, though.”

Despite the heavy conversation they’d shared in the elevator a week ago, Heather sounded bright and welcoming. The claim that she had been worrying about him sounded strange in his ears.

“I’m fine. Heather, I apologize for cutting straight to the chase, but I need you to call Cherriot for me. Right now.”

— “What? Huh? Aren’t you two together? Hold on!”

Though clearly flustered, Heather moved instantly. Yuri had noticed this trait before: for all her ordinary cheerfulness—which could sometimes border on exhausting—she became remarkably sharp in an emergency, executing tasks without hesitation.

He heard the rustle of Heather lowering one phone and tapping the screen of another. Faint, ambient office murmurs drifted through the line. Yuri continued to drive, cutting through the quiet backroads while watching his mirrors.

When she came back on the line, her silence spoke first. It wasn’t the answer he wanted.

— “Yuri, his phone is dead. Come to think of it, it’s been off every time I tried to reach him over the last few days. What’s going on? Are you guys staying in separate places?”

Ah, fuck. I told him to keep it off in case they tried to track him.

A deep furrow cut between Yuri’s expressionless brows. Blue veins stood out in stark relief against the back of his hand on the steering wheel.

“No. We’ve been together the whole time. I stepped out briefly and wanted to check in, but I realized I don’t have his number.”

— “You’ve been attached at the hip for days and never exchanged numbers?”

Heather had laid a finger right on the bruise. Yuri was suddenly struck by the stark realization that leaving Cherriot alone for even an hour was a critical error. How could he have been so recklessly optimistic? What possible grounds did he have to assume the world would pause while he ran an errand? Cherriot could afford to be careless.

Yuri, of all people, could not.

“Yes,” Yuri said, his voice flat. “I should have asked.”

Sensing the sudden rigor mortis in his tone, Heather intentionally softened her voice.

— “Hey, if you’re together 24/7, it’s an easy thing to forget. You’re on your way back to him now, right?”

“Yes. I’m heading back.”

He was about to hang up when Heather stopped him.

— “Wait! Can you ask Cherriot something for me when you get there? I was looking into this at Alexei’s request, but I haven’t been able to reach Alexei for two days either. Is there some weird ghosting trend going around? Anyway… Alexei told me the Hell’s Watchmen aren’t hunting Cherriot over some petty personal grudge. Someone hired them. I tried tracking the money trail. If it had been laundered through standard illicit channels, I would’ve hit a wall, but they used a front company. I couldn’t crack the whole structure, but I found the point of origin. The funds moved through three different offshore accounts, but the wire started in Boston.”

A piece of jigsaw puzzle clicked into place in Yuri’s mind. “Boston is where Cherriot’s family home is.”

— “Ding-ding-ding. Correct. If you know that already, you two really have gotten close. That’s not the kind of history you find on a casual Google search.”

The realization offered a strange, fleeting warmth, easing a fraction of the coil wrapped around Yuri’s chest. He let out a low, slow breath. Remembering the quiet intimacy of the past few days, his voice dropped an octave.

“We get along well. He’s easy to be around.”

— “Huh?” Heather let out a startled, breathless sound. “What was that? Yuri, you sound… different.”

“… I don’t. Heather, I have to go. Keep your head on a swivel. Tell Alexei to get you an escort to and from the office.”

— “T-Mac is already driving me! He insisted on playing chauffeur for a while. Am I putting him out too much?”

Yuri pictured T-Mac’s slick, smiling face. The man’s cowardice was legendary given his massive build, but his survival instincts were unparalleled. He would keep her safe.

“If anything, T-Mac is probably the one making your life difficult.”

— “No, he’s actually hilarious! I feel like I’ve gained a weird bodyguard-friend. But seriously, Yuri… you be careful too.”

“I will.”

Just as he went to cut the call, Heather hesitated, her tone turning tentative.

— “Um, Yuri? I’m sorry to keep dragging this out, but I feel like I need to warn you. Cherriot is too sweet to ever think like this, but… the Boston connection makes me really uneasy. The Goodnights are old, massive money up there. And where there’s a fortune that big, blood sport usually follows. During my dig, I found out Cherriot’s extended family is entirely estranged. His mother was the daughter of a Canadian farmer, and the high-society side of the family absolutely loathed the marriage. So…”

Yuri understood the unspoken implication instantly. Cherriot had glossed over his family tree, but the roots were clearly rotten with old malice. He wondered how much grief his beautiful, smiling companion was hiding behind those bright eyes.

Cherriot had mentioned that Anna Karenina was one of his favorite books.

Unhappy families are all unhappy in their own way. Yuri began to suspect that Cherriot’s fondness for a novel centered entirely on the slow, systemic destruction of a wealthy family wasn’t a coincidence at all.

“You think a relative is holding the knife.”

— “I do,” Heather sighed. “And here’s the motive: Cherriot’s trust fund bypasses his parents’ generation entirely. It’s astronomical, Yuri. We’re talking nearly three hundred million dollars in stock portfolios, real estate titles, and liquid assets tied up in a GRAT. That doesn’t even touch the payout from his father’s life insurance policy.”

It was a theory built on a single geographic clue, but Yuri knew with absolute certainty that almost every atrocity on earth began with a dollar amount. He had watched perfectly moral men butcher their own consciences the moment a life-changing sum of money was dangled in front of them.

And it didn’t even take millions. Yuri had spent his life among monsters who would slit a throat for a few thousand bucks.

— “Just… watch who he talks to, Yuri. If a relative suddenly comes crawling out of the woodwork, they have three hundred million reasons to want him gone. I can’t bring myself to break his heart with this, so I’m putting it on you. I really hope I’m just being paranoid, but…”

A fork appeared in the road ahead.

Turning right meant a direct shot back to the cottage on the route he knew. Turning left would add a massive delay but would guarantee he shook any potential tail. Yuri glanced at his rearview mirror one last time. The asphalt behind him was completely clear. Torn between the desperate urge to get back to Cherriot and the cold tactical necessity of absolute security, Yuri jerked the wheel to the left.

If the mercenaries knew the exact cottage, they wouldn’t be shaking down locals for information. But now that Yuri had been spotted, leading them back to Cherriot’s doorstep was a death sentence.

For the first time in a decade, Yuri offered a silent, bitter request to a God he had long since abandoned. If You are up there, leave my miserable life out of this. Take me, but let him live.

“It will be fine,” Yuri muttered aloud as the call disconnected. “No matter what, I’ll protect him.”

He would pull the world apart brick by brick if it kept Cherriot safe. After his mother’s death, Yuri believed the fire inside him had gone permanently cold. But the embers had just been waiting for a spark. His soul asked him exactly how far he was willing to go to protect this man.

Yuri didn’t even have to think about the answer.

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