CHAPTER 5: SANDRO
589 Words
Nikolai Petrov sent a dead bird. Not metaphorically, literally. A crow, wings pinned open, in a box on my front steps at four in the morning. A card inside that read:
Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials.
Luca brought it to me at four-fifteen with the brightened look he always got when violence was imminent.
"Want me to send something back?"
"Not yet."
"Something that also flies—"
"Luca."
"Symmetry," he said. "That's all I'm saying."
By six I had the picture. Petrov had been quiet for eight months. Waiting. The marriage had given him his window, and he was moving on the northern supply routes while we were looking inward.
I had to go up there. Two days. Maybe three.
I found Isabella in the library.
She looked up and read my face in approximately two seconds. "Something has happened."
"Petrov. He's moving on the northern routes. I need to leave this morning." I held her gaze. "I need you to stay in the house."
The shift was immediate. She didn't move. Didn't raise her voice. But something closed — the way a room changes when a window shuts.
"I see," she said.
"It's not about trust—"
"You don't need to explain it."
"I'm explaining it anyway."
"Sandro." Quiet. Precise. "You've known me less than a week. You have no reason to trust me. I'm not asking you to." A pause. "I'm asking you not to dress up a cage as something else."
The word landed. I sat down. "Tell me what you'd do. If I said go wherever you want for two days. Specifically."
She stared at me. Decided it might be a trap. Answered anyway.
"There's an archive in the city. Property records my father's lawyers have been blocking for two years because some of what's in there he'd prefer stayed buried." She held my gaze. "I'd go. Spend four hours. Come back."
"Why would you come back?"
Something moved across her face. "Because I live here now." Simply. Without self-pity. "And because I'm not finished yet."
"Finished with what."
"Understanding you."
The library was quiet.
"I'll arrange access," I said. "Elena goes with you. Back before eight. Both nights."
She nodded once.
I moved toward the door.
"Sandro."
I turned.
She was still in the chair, morning light on her face, looking spiked with something she hadn't managed to put away in time.
"The music last night," she said. "What were you playing?"
"Ravel. Pavane pour une infante défunte."
She was quiet a moment. "Pavane for a dead princess."
"Yes."
Something moved through her expression — concern, or its close relative — before she caught it. "Come back in two days."
"I intend to."
"I know you intend to." She met my eyes. "I'm saying — come back."
I looked at her for a long moment.
"Two days," I said.
I left before the silence could mean anything else.
In the hallway, Matteo was waiting. I kept walking as he fell into step beside me.
"The archive," he said.
"She can go."
"Sandro." He grabbed my arm. First time in years. His voice dropped. "There's something in those records. Something you need to know before she finds it."
I stopped.
"Giovanni didn't just block her access to protect himself," Matteo said. He glanced toward the library. "He blocked it to protect her." A pause. "From the truth about how this war actually started."
I looked at him.
"What truth?"
He met my eyes.
"The kind that changes whose side she thinks she's on."
- Writer
