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When the phone vibrates in his hand, he flinches hard enough to jostle the entire table, sending a clatter of silverware echoing throughout the room. Then he freezes, just for a beat, as his eyes flick down to the caller ID.

Whatever he sees drains the color from his face. His jaw clenches so tightly, I can hear the faint click of his teeth meeting.

“Papa?” I ask quietly.

He rises from his chair abruptly, the legs scraping against the marble floor with a harsh metallic screech. He mutters something under his breath that’s too soft for me to catch then steps away from the table, his movements brisk and tense.

I twist in my seat, watching him disappear through the open doorway.

As soon as he’s out of sight, his voice floats faintly back toward me from the hall in a low and urgent tone that sounds almost frantic.

Something cold settles in my stomach.

I’ve never seen him look like that. Extremist acts like this never have him this rattled. In fact, more than a few times, he’s used it to his political advantage. He’s never been one to scramble or waste time fumbling over an opportunity to look like a hero in the eyes of the Moscow people.

Political optics don’t make him look like that.Guiltdoes. Fear of someone more powerful than him coming around to collect some kind of bargain he never intended on honoring.

His footsteps fade as he retreats deeper down the hallway to the private study wing where his office is, his voice growing fainter until it disappears altogether behind thick, soundproofed walls.

The news anchor continues droning in the background: “Authorities have not released details of the explosive device but sources indicate precision and planning consistent with?—”

I press my trembling fingers to my temple, trying to ease the pounding ache that’s been there since the blast.

A part of me wants to follow him and put my ear to his door to hear whatever truth is hiding behind it, to understand his terrified silence this morning, but another larger and stronger part of me already knows.

I don’t need to hear the conversation. I don’t even need confirmation of who had been calling because that text message yesterday had been proof enough.

My father has had dealings with the Devil for a long, long time. Dealings whispered about in hallways I was never allowed to walk down, sealed behind doors I was never meant to open or listen against. Secrets traded in currencies far darker than rubles or political favors.

These were the kind of arrangements that lived in the shadows, that slithered through the cracks between legitimate power and the monsters who made the real decisions in Moscow’s underbelly.

Ones he’d rather die than admit to. Ones he’d rather get buried six feet under than ever let touch the pristine surface of his public life.

My hand tightens around my fork until it rattles against the porcelain plate. The metal shakes so violently that for a moment I think I might snap it cleanly in half. I force myself to set it down before I do something stupid like fling it across the room out of frustration or let it slip from my fingers entirely and clatter onto the floor, drawing even more attention to myself from the waitstaff.

I don’t ever want to think about any of it. Not the blast, not the chaos, not the text message that warned me minutes before everything went to hell. But the more I try to push it away, the more it claws its way back into my mind.

Because why wouldhe, someone likethat, have anything to do with a campus bombing?

His empire is built on fear and obedience, not theatrics.

He doesn’t waste time in the world aboveground with the rest of us, where the shiny, polished Moscow most people see is. His attention is rooted in the dark places, the slums, the black markets, the ports crawling with contraband, the hidden gambling rings where fortunes and lives change hands within the same breath.

His world is rot and shadows and blood.

So why bomb a university? Why target a place full of students and professors and people who have nothing to do with him? To what end? What motive would someone likehimhave to pull off something like that?

There isn’t one.

Not one that makes sense, anyway.

He’s never been the type of man to concern himself with the surface world unless it threatened something he owned. Unless someone forced his hand. And if he knew about the bombing—and that has been slowly becoming more and more likely by the second—if the message on my phone was not a coincidence or an accident and had actually beenhim,then the conclusion is sickeningly, horrifyingly clear. He warned me for a reason.

But why?

I’m nothing more than the daughter of a prominent politician. There’s nothing to gain from keeping me alive.

A cold sweat breaks out across my back despite the heated floors humming beneath my feet. I drag in a slow breath before flattening my palms on the table to keep them steady.