The victory over Kozlov was a strategic masterstroke, but it left a vacuum, and nature—especially the viperous kind—abhors a vacuum. For three days, there was only silence from Liliana. It was the most unnerving development yet. Demetri’s security around Nora was tightened to an almost suffocating degree. She was a ghost in the Obsidian Tower, her world shrunk to its impenetrable walls and her foundation offices, which now felt more like a fortified command post.
The silence broke on the fourth day, not with a rose or a video, but with a single, typed letter delivered by courier to Demetri’s office at Volkov Holdings. Anya brought it to the penthouse that evening, her face a mask of professional neutrality, but Nora saw the faint tremor in her hand.
Demetri took the letter, his expressio
