Page 175 of Mile High Ex's Dad
25
VIKTOR
By the timeI get back to the mansion, I’m holding myself together by habit alone.
I should still be at the hospital. Every part of me knows that. I should be beside Sienna’s bed, waiting for her to wake properly, ready to tell her anything she asks, ready to walk her back to the NICU the second the doctors allow it.
I should be there because that’s where my mind still is, despite the drive back, despite the lawn, despite the wreckage waiting for me here.
But Yuri called, and whatever was in his voice left no room to ignore him.
So I came.
The grounds are almost unrecognizable now. A few hours ago they were dressed for vows and photographs. Now the wedding has collapsed into a scattering of broken details: chairs overturned and then righted badly, flowers trampled into the grass, staff moving with that strained, overcareful energy peoplehave after a disaster when they still don’t know whether they’re cleaning up a mess or disturbing evidence.
It all feels obscene to me.
Not because a wedding failed. Weddings fail. People humiliate one another every day and then blame the flowers. What happened here was something else. Something uglier. Something that reached beyond embarrassment and into violence.
I find Yuri in the study. He’s waiting for me, standing beside the desk with a file open in front of him, and the look on his face tells me before he speaks that whatever he has is worse than I’m expecting. That is not easy to achieve today.
I close the door behind me and say, “What happened?”
Yuri is already at the desk, one hand on the mouse, the monitor turned half toward the room. He doesn’t answer right away. That alone tells me this is bad.
I shut the door behind me and look at him. “Yuri.”
His face is tight in a way I don’t like. “You need to see this.”
He presses play.
For a second all I can make out is the back garden path, the image washed flat by the security camera. The shot is from behind the side wing, angled toward the hedges and the old service gate. The timestamp puts it in the middle of the chaos, after the shots, when everyone was running and shouting and trying to make sense of the lawn.
Then two figures come into view.
A man in a dark suit.
A woman moving quickly toward him.
They stop in the shelter of the trees. He turns. She goes to him.
And he pulls her into his arms.
The air goes out of me all at once.
No.
No.
I step closer to the screen, as if distance is the problem. As if the image will change if I look hard enough. The woman lifts her face for half a second and the angle catches it clearly.
Anna.
I stare at the screen.
Then I look at Yuri. “What the fuck?”
He says nothing.
