The car outside Leo's building turned out to be nothing — a delivery driver idling too long while checking an address, gone by the time Alexander's security team arrived. But the twenty minutes between Leo's text and Viktor's all-clear call were some of the longest of Elena's life, and by the time she got Leo on the phone, hands still shaking, she understood something about fear she hadn't fully grasped until that moment: it didn't care whether the danger was real. It cost the same either way.
"I'm fine," Leo said, for the fourth time. "Seriously, Elena, it was a Grubhub guy lost on Elm Street."
"I know. I heard Viktor." She sat down hard on the study's leather sofa, adrenaline draining out of her all at once. "I just need a minute before I can believe it."
"Take your minute," Leo said,
