Dwale stepped inside John's room at precisely seven in the morning with a folder in his hand. John had expected him. They had talked the evening before and when Dwale had offered to drop by again to continue the conversation, John had agreed immediately. There was no guarantee he would get the offer again, and he knew he would have plenty of new questions once he got the chance to consider the information he already had.
It had been enough time to have breakfast. Enough time for a quick shower in the tiny bathroom. Enough time to find his equilibrium again after he had watched Alex outside the small window.
Alex had looked – all right. Better than John could have hoped for, given the situation. He had arrived with Yermalov, and none of the students had dared to approach him. There had been curious looks, John had seen as much before they had left for the morning run, but even with the world outside muted by the thick walls and window, Yermalov was still very obviously a man who did not tolerate disturbances in his class. That had offered a small degree of protection to Alex as well.
Alex had kept his arms wrapped around himself until the class had started. It could have been explained by the early morning chill but John knew his son's body language and the meaning was both obvious and unsurprising. Wary and tense; not necessarily afraid, but on unwanted and unfamiliar grounds and with no one to help him. No one but Yermalov, it seemed, and Alex clearly kept as close to the man as he could without drawing unnecessary attention.
John wanted to scream. He wanted to hit the glass until it – impossibly – shattered beneath his hands, he wanted to tear open the door, he wanted to do something, and he knew he couldn't. The glass was solid, the window too small, the door both locked and armoured. Three had planned his game well.
John wanted to do a lot of things. In the end he didn't and merely greeted Dwale courteously; the only thing he could do.
"Good morning. Coffee?"
"Please," Dwale said, willing to be courteous in return.
John let it set the tone for the meeting and poured a cup for his guest.
"I would offer breakfast but …" A gesture at the mostly-empty desk completed the sentence.
"… Breakfast here waits for no one," Dwale agreed. "I hope the service was acceptable."
"Excellent as always," John said honestly. "The standards of Malagosto's kitchen always complemented the Countess' lessons well."
Dwale put the folder on the desk to join the papers already there. John had been given no computer, no electronics at all, which meant that everything from class schedules to accounting reports had been left for him on paper. It was a bit of a mess but nothing John couldn't work with.
"I found several reports you may be interested in," Dwale said. "Students whose graduation assignments went wrong but who survived and succeeded in spite of it. Their experiences may be of interest to you."
John had mentioned it the night before. The lack of any sort of detailed interviews from graduated students. Malagosto looked at statistics, at survival and success rates, at the general feedback from the students and instructors and those who worked with the graduates … but no one had sat down and really asked those graduates, after a month or a year, what they turned out to lack in the field. Where their education had failed them. By then they would be deep in the messy business of corporate terrorism already and picked up what training they needed on their own, and SCORPIA's attention would have turned to the newer students.
John flipped through the first few. Standard reports but more detailed than usual, and nothing was redacted. Names, locations, dates, mission objectives, everything was there.
The implications were obvious. Dwale had no issue giving those reports to John, because either he would fail Three's test and be disposed of, or he would become an instructor at the school again. Either way, it wouldn't matter that he saw potentially confidential information.
Operative: Lyra. Novosibirsk, 16 June 1991. Mission objective -
Operative: Talwar. Nairobi, 3 November 1993 -
Operative: Sarissa. Montreal -
The names meant nothing to him but they didn't have to. What he needed was details, and those reports promised just that.
"Thank you," he said and meant it. Both for the information and the meaning behind it. Dwale hadn't needed to find those reports. Based on when he had left the evening before, it had probably cost him actual sleep to find them. That he had still done it meant that he wanted John to succeed, which in turn meant that Three's offer was likely genuine. That if John could make himself useful enough, Three would in turn use his own influence and persuasive abilities to ensure John and his family's survival.
Dwale nodded. Glanced at the papers and John's notes, then back to John himself. There was a flicker of genuine curiosity in his eyes. Genuine, or skilfully faked, but John suspected the former.
"You have a preliminary idea, I expect?"
There were plenty of situations where John would have said nothing. Now, at Malagosto and surrounded by surveillance and any number of enemies, he saw no reason to lie. That wasn't mentioning the very real possibility that Dwale's evaluation would have something to say in his future survival, too. Three trusted Dwale's judgement. That sort of trust did not come easily.
"The school has a problem with experience," John said bluntly. That had been the gut feeling he had come away with after his first talk with Dwale, and the documents he had gone through so far had only strengthened that impression. He expected the new files would only support that case further. "Both from the students and the people who screen the candidates. The average number of students in class has been steadily increasing over the past decade. Not fast but the trend remains. Currently it's at nine. The time they spend at Malagosto has decreased over the same period. By less, but somewhere, somehow, on average a month of training got shaved off. Classes and training got optimised over the years, that accounts for some of it, but the curriculum has been expanded as well. More students and a larger curriculum doesn't mesh well with a shorter time to learn it in."
Dwale nodded, conceding the point. "Malagosto, in its early years, was an experiment. Students were nurtured in a different way. Over time, classes grew and the curriculum was adjusted to suit demands. With those adjustments, SCORPIA broadened the search for candidates, too. The standards for newly accepted students have increased over the years. As a result, the percentage of failed students has remained roughly stable."
"All of them lost profits. People who could have paid back the cost of their schooling and made SCORPIA a very decent profit over the course of their exclusive contract. I suspect that some of these were preventable, too," John said. "Not all of them, but some of them should have been caught in the screening process and never allowed on the island. Some of them just needed a bit more time and experience and should have been spotted and given that month or two extra. They weren't, though, because there is no central, standardised screening process, and no experienced operatives to help approve them who might have a better idea of the real world requirements. Fifteen years after the school was founded, Malagosto still finds her students mostly through serendipity. Through word of mouth or fortunate encounters or former students who find potential prospects through their work. For an organisation as streamlined and profit-focused as SCORPIA, that's a shit way to run it."
Had he pushed it too far? John wasn't sure. He had several long seconds to wonder, and then Dwale smiled. A little wry but genuine. A bit of the personality behind the shield that was a requirement for anyone who was around Dr Three on a daily basis.
"Your file did state that you were known to be unusually blunt with the executive board at times. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that hasn't changed."
"I would never have been able to get as far as fast as I did otherwise." Blunt and honest to match Dwale's words. It cost him nothing to admit, not now when the strategy wouldn't work again, anyway. "Was I skilled? Sure. There were others who could have become just as skilled with the right training and time. But the Board is surrounded by people terrified of speaking up, picked for their obedience and ability to follow orders without question. It was a gamble but it worked and got me the attention and favour I needed."
"I think we've all wondered sometimes how you did it," Dwale mused. "Risky, though."
"A calculated risk," John agreed. A heartbeat, and he continued. "I was young and stupid and invincible. The danger was a drug in itself. Now, with a family? The risk would have been too much. But we didn't have Alex or Matilda back then, and I was too blinded by the thrill of it all to consider the consequences it would have had for Helen if I had gambled too much and lost."
Dwale made a sound of agreement. "Malagosto's students are usually in their twenties and with little or no close family for a reason."
Young, impulsive, stupid; thrill-seekers with nothing to lose and everything to win. John knew the profile.
Which brought him to another question.
"'Usually'," he agreed. "But not always. Did the general age requirements get lowered? Cossack was on the limit of it and one of your students out there looked even younger than him. Once you start recruiting teenagers, the risk that they don't have the ability to keep up increases exponentially."
"It does," Dwale conceded. "Sometimes, there are exceptions. Unusually talented students like Cossack and -"
"- Nile," the youngest of the students introduced himself.
Alex remembered him from the night before. Up close, it was obvious that the white areas of his skin weren't old scars or anything, they just … didn't have any colour. He was also really, really young. Alex wasn't good at guessing ages but he was pretty sure Nile was still a teenager. Like Alex himself, he probably still belonged in school. A normal school, not somewhere for killers.
Jamie, Alex realised, hadn't been much older when he was at the school. He had always been the cool older brother to Alex. It wasn't until now, staring at Nile, that he realised how young Jamie had been.
It was the first time any of the students had talked to him. Alex had arrived with Yermalov for the morning run and no one had been willing to talk while he was there. He had clung to that safety through the whole class.
Half an hour of exercise later, Alex had been too exhausted to do anything but grab a shower. His lungs had burned and he had side stitches and his arm had hurt from the bruises and needle marks both, but he had completed the same run as the rest of the students. Yermalov hadn't said anything when he had escorted Alex back to his room but Alex got the impression he wasn't displeased, at least.
Now Alex was on his own. Yermalov was with the other teachers at a separate table and Alex found himself entirely alone in the middle of a class of people training to be killers.
Like Jamie, Alex's mind added treacherously. Like dad.
If the doctor hadn't lied, at least, and Alex didn't think so. Everything made too much sense for that. Everything he hadn't realised never added up right before.
Nile smiled. It was warm and friendly and Alex was absolutely sure that nothing about it was real. He still forced himself to smile back.
SCORPIA saved you. That is the story you will remember.
He had managed all right with the teachers at dinner. He had been polite and attentive and mostly let them talk and that seemed to work well enough. He could do that again.
"Alex," he said. Nile had only used one name and Alex mimicked that now. Even if everyone seemed to know who he was. Nile nodded and Alex knew he had figured it out, too.
"Hunter's son." It wasn't a guess. It didn't sound unfriendly, either. It made Alex wonder what everyone else had been told. They all acted like he belonged there. Like he was welcome. Like his dad was welcome, too. Did everyone else believe the story Doctor Three had created? That his dad had always worked for SCORPIA? Or did they just go along with it like Alex did because they didn't have a choice?
With the ice broken, it seemed like Alex had lost the last bit of the protection Yermalov had offered.
"How do you like the school so far?" another of the students asked. He was older. Mid-twenties, maybe, but Alex wasn't sure. He sounded American, though, and almost enthusiastic. "Your dad taught here once. He was one of the best instructors SCORPIA has ever had. He trained Cossack."
Another weird name for what had to be Jamie. Another one Alex didn't like. But then, he didn't have to. He just had to stay safe for as long as he could, and if the people around him idolised Jamie as much as Alex himself did, that would make his goal a little easier.
"It's – a little scary," Alex admitted honestly.
The breakfast on his plate, beautifully arranged and enough to feed him several times over, probably tasted great. Alex got nauseous at the thought of it but still forced himself to eat a bite of fruit. At least to give himself a tiny break to think about his answer.
Calm, connect, capitalize.
These were people who obviously thought highly of Jamie and his dad. It was the same school, the same training, and they would probably have to live the same sort of life as Jamie and his dad, too. Always lying, always being someone else, always hunted. This place was a nightmare to Alex but to people like them … maybe it was the first time they could actually be honest about what they did and what sort of people they were. He could use that.
"It's – weird that people suddenly know my dad and – Cossack like that," he continued quietly, catching himself before he could say the wrong name. "It's always been a secret. I was never supposed to talk about stuff I learned. About the shooting lessons and self-defence training and how to remember a new identity and – everything. It was always a family thing. No one else could know. And now there's a whole school like it, with classes and instructors and everything."
"It's a little overwhelming at first," the enthusiastic student agreed. "You've always known that the only way to survive in this world is to keep your trap shut and suddenly you're in the assassin Ivy League and being graded on this stuff. I'm Julian, by the way."
"Pleased to meet you," Alex responded automatically. It bought him a few seconds to think about his reply as well. He had guessed right, then. The lack of secrecy at the school was a big thing, at least for some of them. "I think overwhelming is right. Even if it wasn't supposed to be a secret, there wasn't really anyone I knew who would get it. I don't think anyone else at school learned to shoot when they were six or had a safe-room in the basement or trained what they were supposed to do if they had to leave in a hurry."
"Useful things to know," Nile agreed, "but few children learn. I was seven when I first held a gun. The recoil was awful but it was a large gun and I was a small child. With a better weapon for your size and a teacher like Hunter, you will never need to unlearn the bad habits some develop."
There was an edge to the last sentence, almost a taunt, but it wasn't aimed at Alex. He recognised it for what it was. He had been young when they left Geneva and the sort of school where politics really mattered but he recognised a power play when he saw it. None of the students around visibly reacted but Alex was sure it was aimed at some of them.
He took a careful sip of the juice by his plate and considered his next move. He didn't want to get involved in that kind of politics, and he really didn't want to know what would happen if one of the other students lost their temper. He had to trust that it would be okay and that they wouldn't keep someone at the school who was a risk like that, but he didn't know and his mum and Matilda's safety relied on his good behaviour. He had to play along.
Calm, connect, capitalize.
Alex's eyes drifted back to Nile, or more accurately to the two sword-handles he could see over Nile's shoulders. Alex had first seen them during the morning run and hadn't been able to ignore them since. They looked like samurai swords but not as big. Maybe half the size based on Alex's best guess. Smaller than the swords Alex had seen in museums but definitely not small. He couldn't even begin to imagine how Nile kept up with all the physical training while he had those things strapped to his back. Either he was really good at it or really determined. Maybe both.
Alex's curiosity nagged, and people liked to talk about themselves, his mum had told him that. If he needed someone to like him or to stay on someone's good side, let them talk about themselves. Pretend to be interested for as long as he had to. In school, he had been able to get people to talk about football or cars or TV or whatever else they liked. Here, even he knew that it was dangerous to share too much personal stuff but they still talked and they were still social. It was obviously just about other topics instead. Weapons and training and politics and homework and anything else that was safe enough to discuss.
Alex bit his lower lip slightly and tried to make just the smallest bit of his nervousness show.
"… Can I ask about your swords?" he said and tried to put the same awe and fascination into his voice that he had the first time he had seen Jamie shoot.
Nile's smile warmed. Alex wondered if he had expected him to ask about his skin. Alex imagined he probably got asked about that a lot.
"These are just for practice," Nile replied. "The blades are dull. Professor Yermalov won't allow me to use them in the field unless I can prove they won't be a liability. If I can pass his classes while I carry them, he'll approve them in the field. He hasn't taken them from me yet, so I think I've done all right so far. It can be awfully hard to tell with him."
Alex could imagine. Yermalov had seemed strict but not actively mean so far, but it was hard to read him when he looked perpetually unhappy about something. He had also been a lot harsher with the adult students than with Alex himself. If he had been satisfied with anything they had done, Alex hadn't noticed.
"The real ones are Japanese," Nile continued as enthusiasm crept into his voice as well, "and I learned to use them two years ago. I practised what I could but I didn't have a real instructor until I arrived here. They are called wakizashi and -"
Nile happily spent several minutes explaining the details and logic behind his swords and when that topic wrapped up, the conversation around Alex easily moved on to the merits of them and different types of weapons in general. The talk flowed easily, a steady stream of words as one comment followed the other, and Alex felt his tension ease a little. Enough that he managed to finish his breakfast, at least. He could just listen. He didn't have to join in and he wasn't sure what he could have contributed with, either. He didn't know half of what they were talking about, and right now it seemed safer to pretend be cautious and quiet but smart and well-trained than to open his mouth and prove to everyone how little he actually belonged in their classes.
… Their classes. For a blissful second, Alex had forgotten about those. He still hadn't done the reading for the day and the moment the teachers started to ask him questions, they and everyone else would realise that he had no idea about any of it.
At the teachers' table, Binnag got up. She laughed at something Ross said, then smiled and left. She had told Alex to call her Jet but he didn't dare, not even in his own mind. Not when she was one of his teachers. He didn't dare slip up.
Her class was the first one of the day. She had written the textbook, too, and – how was he going to do this? Yermalov's class had just been physical training and Alex liked to move and climb and learn martial arts. That had been something safe and normal. Binnag's class had an entire textbook just about poisons and Yermalov had told him about the greenhouses, too.
Alex wanted to throw up. The smell of breakfast was too much and too heavy, the juice too sour and the food in his stomach too heavy, and – he had to keep moving. He didn't have a choice. He clenched his fists and felt his nails dig into his palms and focused on breathing until the awful sense of nausea went away enough that he would focus on other things again.
He could do it. He could. He had to.
The students got up, still talking a little among themselves. Alex followed along as they left.
Up ahead, Nile slowed down slightly until he kept pace with Alex. He moved the same way Jamie did, graceful and silent like the dancers Alex had seen at school once. Jamie could move through the house without a sound if he wanted to. His dad could, too. They never did, because it seemed to bother his mum, but he knew they could. He was sure Nile could do the same. It made it hard to forget that this was the same place where Jamie had been a student and his dad had taught.
"You'll be all right," Nile assured him in a low voice when the rest of the students were a few steps ahead of them. "The classes are practical and the teachers are used to new students. Pay attention to the lessons and the rest of us and you'll be fine."
It was good advice. Alex got the unspoken part of that just fine, too. He hadn't been quite as subtle about copying the rest of them during breakfast as he had hoped but at least it seemed like Nile approved. He also seemed to understand that Hunter's son or not, Alex was entirely out of his depth. Maybe because he was young, too. The oldest of the students looked like they were Jamie's age. Nile probably looked like a kid to them, too.
"I'll try," Alex said quietly, because there wasn't much else he could do.
Nile nodded. Up ahead, the building with the student accommodations loomed. In half an hour, Alex had to be ready for Binnag's class. He wanted to throw up again.
"The teachers want us to do well. There are punishments for failing, of course, but they all want us to succeed and survive. Sometimes, it's easy to forget what this place actually is," Nile confided. "Some days, it feels just like a very exclusive -"
"- Private school," Rothman said. "Venice has a perfectly acceptable international school. Nothing like Alex's school in Geneva, of course, but a respectable institution nonetheless. Private tutors and home schooling is an option, too, but it would be cruel to keep a social child like Alex away from other children."
It had been shortly before noon when Julia Rothman had appeared like a force of nature, taking over the room through sheer presence alone and chatting like they had always been friends. Helen, with no other choice, had gone along with it.
Matilda's play mat had materialised with the rest of their possessions that morning and it was now spread out on the hardwood floor for her to play on, the best Helen could do to protect the place from an enthusiastic young child.
With Matilda in familiar clothes, playing with familiar toys and ignoring her mum for a moment, Helen could almost imagine they were just visiting one of John's wealthier friends from Geneva. Almost. Then she would spot one of the suspiciously fit security people and be reminded of the truth of the situation again.
"The school in Geneva was an investment," she said and slipped into the same mindset she had learned as Caroline Morrison. The small-talk of the wealthier circles; the right schools and their children's futures and whatever charity they had decided to get involved in as a hobby. "It was expensive, of course, but it had a reputation to match the tuition."
"More than just a school," Rothman agreed. "A place to build networks and connections that can last a lifetime. We both had to claw our way to something more agreeable. It's a privilege to give the next generation the support we never had."
It was hard to imagine Julia Rothman, the only woman on SCORPIA's executive board, as anything but the powerful figure that could command a room with her presence alone. It was certainly hard to imagine her as Helen remembered herself; alone and powerless and on the brink of exhaustion as days and months and years passed by. Rothman had done well for herself. It was never the life Helen wanted for her own family but she could still see the appeal in that sort of influence and the agency it offered.
"I always hoped we would be able to stay," Helen said, a deliberate confession she was sure Rothman had already figured out. "Give Alex and Matilda a much better start in life and as many opportunities as possible for their future. Those connections would have been priceless."
"Set them up for life." Rothman sounded amused. Amused but approving. Maybe at the thought that Hunter's harmless wife would be so calculating. Helen was used to being underestimated. "A good school, a good education, a good marriage."
It sounded cynical when she put it like that. Helen shrugged. She didn't feel ashamed about those hopes and certainly not around someone like Rothman, who had done that and worse for financial stability. If Alex or Matilda married for love and their partner happened to come from money … well. That was just a bonus, wasn't it?
"John certainly did his part to help fit into those social circles," Rothman continued. "Half a year, and he was firmly embedded in insider trading, stock market manipulation, and whatever other little hobbies his new social circle got up to. A very profitable side business. It covered nicely for his other income, I imagine."
Helen didn't ask where Rothman got that information from. She doubted it was hard to find out for someone with SCORPIA's resources.
"He was always a social chameleon. Charming, charismatic, able to fit in anywhere. I smoothed over any cracks in the cover and fixed any mistakes that might have been caught. A charming man is much less suspicious with a loving, attentive wife by his side."
Rothman offered a wry smile in return. "He had a remarkable career with SCORPIA for a reason. Skills and the right personality is a powerful combination. Even we were probably less suspicious than we should have been. He had a wife at home, after all, trapped in England and with little money to support herself. There were none of the usual warning signs of an undercover agent."
Until they had found out about him, anyway. Until nine years on the run had finally ended when the consequences of MI6's mistakes caught up with them.
Helen closed her eyes briefly. On the play mat, still reassuringly close to Helen, Matilda was carefully covering a piece of paper with every single colour of marker she had.
What could she say to that comment? I'm sorry? It had not been her decision and even if she wanted to, it was hardly her apology to make. John had simply done his job.
It was also a reminder of what she was up against. Rothman and Three seemed to consider Alex and Matilda more valuable alive and unharmed than dead, if only as living proof that Hunter had always been SCORPIA's, but there was no guarantee the rest of the Board could be persuaded to see the logic behind that as well. She couldn't rely on John, not when he was the very reason for the animosity of the Board in the first place, which left her with precious few resources.
The pragmatic approach, then. John had spoken at length about the people in charge of the behemoth that hunted them. All male apart from Rothman; intelligent men with the arrogance that came with power and influence, little to no capacity for empathy, drive and ambition because no amount of money and power was ever enough, cut-throat politics, and ever-shifting alliances. They were a horde of predators more than anything, willing to turn on each other at any sign of weakness, and that made them somewhat predictable. Enough that she could work with it, at least.
She had known men like them before. Much less dangerous and influential, but still doctors and professors in powerful positions who could make or break a career with a word.
SCORPIA wanted to sweep Hunter's betrayal under the rug. Hunter's wife would be perfect for that. Competent but agreeable and harmless. Familiar with SCORPIA's world but trained for self-defence and to protect her family, not as a combatant or operative. Willing to remain at Hunter's side for her family's sake but slowly wilting under the stress of never having a home or a steady future. Enough medical training to be a potential assistant at Malagosto's small clinic or to handle what administrative work Dr Three's people did not have time for, but with no ambition other than to see her children thrive and grow.
It would be a balancing act but it wasn't impossible. Being useful would keep her alive and would help protect Alex and Matilda. Everything else was secondary.
Rothman clearly interpreted her silence as fear, because when she spoke again, her voice was warm and reassuring like the best of friends.
"We hardly blame you, Helen. You remained faithfully by his side but the choice to join MI6 was his own, and John Rider is hardly one to be dissuaded once he has made up his mind. A proud, stubborn man. I can't imagine you had much say in this whole mess, either."
Helen allowed herself a sigh. "The risks were awful and I never trusted Alan Blunt."
A heartbeat, enough to give the image of hesitation, then -
"And what was the alternative?" she continued softly. "Divorce? There was a prenup in place, I would never have seen a penny. I would have ended up alone in a tiny apartment somewhere with nothing to my name and the loneliness where my husband should have been. I still ended up in a tiny apartment in an awful area in the name of John's cover but at least I had the hope that John would return to me alive and well. And … there was a degree of protection in that as well. I was married to a murderer, but I had waited faithfully for him. Maybe I had an awful taste in men but that loyalty was worth a degree of respect."
Rothman made a low sound of agreement. "Divorce can be such a messy business. Widowhood is much simpler."
From a woman whose fortune was founded on her dead husband's business, the words were no surprise. It was undoubtedly the approach she would have chosen in Helen's situation. Life with John away had not been easy but … Helen had loved him enough to accept it. Loved him enough to follow him when their old life was no longer safe. Still loved him now, after almost a decade on the run.
She could have handled a divorce but she would never have had Alex or Matilda, then, never have had the family she had dreamed of, and she would take John's terrible choice of career any day if the result was their children.
Their children.
A reminder of another thought that had kept her awake that night. Not just Alex and Matilda but Yassen as well, several time zones away and entirely on his own. Had John managed to warn him? Helen didn't even know that much. They hadn't been left alone for a moment and had no chance to talk at all. John had been on his own for a few, brief minutes in Matilda's room. Nothing more.
Had it been enough? She had no idea and her heart clenched at the thought. It didn't seem like they were actively hunting him but Helen was well aware that it was only a matter of time. Yassen was too skilled for SCORPIA to allow him to remain at large and freelance with Hunter back in their grasp. No one had asked her about him but they might simply have decided John was the better source of information and asked him instead. If John hadn't managed to warn him, Yassen would be completely ignorant of everything that had happened. At best, he would return to Helsinki and simply find them gone. At worst, SCORPIA would hunt him down and he wouldn't know until it was too late.
Helen took a slow breath and the slight shift caught Rothman's attention.
"Helen?"
Low and pleasant and so genuinely concerned that Helen could almost delude herself into believing it.
Was it better to say nothing? To hope that they would write Yassen off with their primary target firmly under control? But SCORPIA never forgot and while it might be a risk, she had to try. For the skittish, abused twenty-year-old she had first met and the man he had grown into.
"Yassen," she said and Rothman nodded.
"Cossack. He always had the potential but the killer instinct wasn't quite there. John took a raw diamond and shaped him into a rare jewel."
An exceptional asset for SCORPIA, maybe, but a fragile, young man to Helen; the traumatised child that had finally learned to trust again, and she couldn't just stand aside and let SCORPIA's machinations destroy that. Not if she could do something to stop it.
"He was barely twenty when we took him in. He was a child when he learned about John's betrayal, not even out of his teens. He was terrified of the consequences if the Board decided he had been an accomplice, and he had nowhere else to go. He's no threat to you, not with us here in Venice."
Not with John under SCORPIA's thumb. Not with Alex and Matilda in Julia Rothman's care.
Rothman made a low hum. Careful. Considering. It might have been agreement. It might not. Helen had no way to tell.
"We have a team closing in on his location as we speak," Rothman said, calm and casual like they weren't discussing Yassen's life, and Helen's heart skipped a beat. "There was always the concern that two killers of Hunter's calibre would be too much to control, and it would be enough to keep Hunter alive, but perhaps that decision was too hasty."
Fear settled, cold and nauseating and overwhelming, and the images were too easy to see. Yassen hunted down with no idea that he had even been compromised, every escape route cut off until it was too late -
- assuming, of course, that Rothman told the truth, and Helen had no reason to believe she didn't. It might be a lie. It might be true. Another thing she had no way to know.
"Faced with the choice between your husband and your children, the choice was always easy. I suppose it would be unfair not to offer the same choice now," Rothman mused. "John or Yassen, then? We hardly need both alive."
Helen couldn't think, couldn't even breathe for agonising seconds. Everything was suspended in a haze of raw, icy terror, and she was vaguely aware that her hands trembled in her lap.
One breath. Another. On the play mat, Matilda had torn her way through several sheets of paper with the purple marker and left wet bits of purple paper in her wake, utterly unaware of the conversation taking place beside her. Something about it sharpened Helen's focus again and forced her mind back into gear.
As far as she knew, John was still at Malagosto. A single phone call, and he would be dead, and she would never see him again. And Yassen, young and traumatised and with so many losses in his past, and -
- how was she supposed to choose?
Rothman's smile was understanding and sympathetic and all steel, and Helen knew she would be offered no mercy at all. She was useless to SCORPIA if she couldn't handle the pressure. The only way she would remain alive and with Alex and Matilda was if she proved she wouldn't be a liability. That she wouldn't be in the way of Rothman and Three's plans.
She had loved John for a decade and a half, had started to dare to imagine growing old with him, and the thought of a life without him was both incomprehensible and something she had always known was a risk. Yassen wasn't hers by blood, he was skittish and distrustful and had never stopped hovering uncertainly at the edge of their small family, but he loved Alex and Matilda with everything he had, and he was the person Helen had always trusted to take care of them if something happened to her and John, and she loved him like her own.
Her priority had always been their children. That had always been the understanding. That had always been the way John wanted it, too. He knew the risks he had signed up for, and Helen's priority had been to shield their children from the sort of life they had never chosen and … it had worked. For almost a decade.
She closed her eyes briefly and didn't ask forgiveness, not for a decision she made with clear, deliberate intent.
"Yassen," Helen said and her voice was far steadier than she could ever have hoped for. "And John would expect nothing less. My children will always come first."
"It takes a strong woman," Rothman murmured, low and sensual and approving, "to condemn their husband to death."
Death. Helen desperately wanted to hug Matilda and never let go but didn't dare disturb the fragile peace, and -
- would they at least be kind enough to make it quick? She remembered stories about Dr Three and the thought that this was what she might have sentenced John to was terrible and overwhelming.
"Fortunately, that will not be necessary," Rothman continued, all business again. "We have not sent anyone for Cossack. John managed to warn him, so I imagine he's already a continent away if there is any truth to his reputation. By the time we find him, I expect the situation with Hunter will have resolved itself one way or the other."
A test. It had been a test.
Helen just nodded and didn't trust her voice. A test. To see what she would choose when it came down to it and – had she passed? Had she failed? Was there even a right answer? Was this going to be her life now, juggling SCORPIA politics to protect her family? She had known SCORPIA politics were lethal. She hadn't understood just how much.
Rothman offered her a warm smile. "For now, though … would you like to visit Alex? I think we can trust you and Matilda just fine for an afternoon."
And Helen, overwhelmed and grateful and still dealing with the bone-deep horror of I sentenced my husband to death could do nothing but nod and hope it was a reward and not a punishment in disguise.