Halina didn't flinch. Instead, she deliberately tapped a brass paperweight against the mahogany desk—three rhythmic clicks—then pointed two fingers toward the ornate cornice near the ceiling where the receiver nested.
Damyan understood instantly. The feral tension in his stance altered, snapping into a venomous, theatrical posture.
"You're still on Kasprzak’s payroll, aren’t you?" he snarled, raising his voice so the microphones would catch every drop of acid. He crossed the room, slamming a flat palm onto the desk beside her terminal. "You drag your heels, you snoop through Marek's private correspondence, and you report every breath I take back to the south tower! Admit it, Voroń. You were sent to put the rope around my neck!"
Halina pushed her chair back, rising smoothly to meet his glare. Her lip curled with clinical contempt. "If I wanted you hanging, Pan Borowicz, you'd already be swinging from the rafters. Piotr Kasprzak pays for results, but you bought my exclusive retainer. I don't break contracts for sentiment, and I certainly don't botch them for amateur theatricals. Keep shouting. The tabloids outside the gates can almost hear you without a megaphone."
Damyan leaned closer, teeth bared, shadowing her body from the wall's direct sightline. Under the cover of his broad shoulders, Halina slipped a pen across the yellow legal pad between them.
She wrote six words: *Private server wiped. Dynastic encryption key.*
Damyan stared at the ink. The mock rage in his posture froze into genuine stillness. He reached out, took the pen from her fingers, and scribbled underneath in hard, jagged strokes: *Who?*
She took the pen back. *Only someone who knew Marek's nursery verses. It's inside the house.*
His throat bobbed. For three seconds, the mask slipped entirely, showing the hollow, exhausted creature underneath the billionaire's tailored suit. He met her gaze, no insolence left in him, only a raw, desperate acknowledgment that they were standing on a sinking barge surrounded by sharks. He nodded once—a silent, fragile pact sealed in graphite and paranoia.
"Get out of my sight, Hyena," Damyan shouted aloud, striking the desk once more for good measure. "Before I have security throw your luggage into the snow."
"Gladly," she snapped back. "Try not to indict yourself before breakfast."
She turned on her heel and walked out, her heels clicking cleanly down the marble corridor toward the eastern wing. But the quiet didn't last.
By nine the next morning, the sound of heavy utility vans rumbling over the gravel driveway shattered the estate's isolation. Halina stood at the second-floor terrace, espresso cup untouched in hand, watching camera crews from RTV Radecz unpack heavy tripods in the inner courtyard, beneath the brutalist concrete fountain.
Footsteps rustled behind her. Serafima appeared, wrapped in an oversized mourning shawl of charcoal cashmere, eyes swollen and glistening with engineered grief.
"Halina," Serafima murmured, pressing a lace handkerchief to her lip. "Forgive me. I couldn't bear the silence any longer. The public thinks Damyan is a monster because he's hiding behind your legal wall. I called them here. I have to speak for him. If I show them my sorrow, if I beg them for patience... they might soften the coverage."
Halina looked at the girl. The wine stain on her own laptop keyboard from yesterday was still drying in her room. Now, an unauthorized press conference, twenty cameras, and a weeping sister ready to throw Damyan to the wolves under the guise of an emotional plea.
"You called the media without consulting your crisis strategist?" Halina said, voice silky smooth.
"I'm his sister," Serafima whispered, her lower lip trembling with masterclass fragility. "Blood comes before public relations, doesn't it?"
"Of course," Halina said. "Let’s go down together. You shouldn't face them alone."
Ten minutes later, the paved grounds became a pit of barking reporters, boom poles and recorders thrust forward like bayonets over the iron railing. Damyan was nowhere in sight—Halina had ordered the house staff to lock the library study doors from the corridor side under the pretense of security protocol.
Serafima stepped up to the hastily erected bank of sound pickups. The cameras flared. She drew a ragged breath, leaning into the wind. "Members of the press... please. My sibling Marek was the light of our household. Damyan... Damyan has always been troubled, prone to dark rages, but I cannot believe—I refuse to believe he meant for it to end in blood—"
Halina stepped directly into the camera frame.
She didn't gently guide Serafima away; she gripped the girl’s shoulder with fingers like steel vices, stepping between her and the primary lens of the national syndicate. With her free hand, Halina adjusted the central recorder stem, snapping the dynamic instantly.
"Quiet down," Halina said.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the din like a cleaver through suet. The courtyard fell dead silent.
"Panienka Borowicz is overcome with grief and has been under medical sedation since Marek’s death," Halina projected, clear and icy, each syllable perfectly articulated for the national broadcast. "What you are witnessing is the predatory cruelty of vultures circling a family home during active mourning. Damyan Borowicz is not hiding. He is in the chapel inside this estate, sitting vigil beside the memory of the dead, refusing to turn this tragedy into a circus for your evening ratings."
Serafima tried to pull back, but Halina’s hand remained clamped on her collarbone, pinning her in place as a prop of helpless distress.
"Let me be unmistakably clear," Halina continued, staring down the main camera lens with ruthless authority. "Any network that exploits a traumatized young woman’s grief-stricken delirium to manufacture salacious narratives against the head of Borowicz Industries will face immediate, multi-million zloty defamation suits before the evening broadcast finishes rendering. Get your equipment off this private property. Now."
She signaled the perimeter security detail with a sharp nod. Two burly guards, confused but reacting to the command in her voice, stepped forward and began herding the press back toward the iron gates.
Halina turned, steering Serafima inside through the tall glass patio doors. As soon as the latch clicked shut, cutting off the noise of the shouting journalists, Serafima violently wrenched her shoulder free.
The tearful, fragile girl vanished entirely. Her features hardened into a blank mask; her posture straightened, cold and rigid as granite.
"You overstepped," Serafima said, her voice dropping an octave, devoid of any tremor.
"I did my job," Halina replied, smoothing her lapels. "I protect the principal. You were about to confess his guilt on live television under the guise of sisterly pity. It was sloppy, Serafima."
Serafima took a step closer, until she was mere inches away. Her eyes were completely flat, void of warmth, like black glass.
"You think you're very clever, Hyena. You think you can control this house because Damyan writes you checks." A thin, razor-sharp smile touched the corners of her mouth. "You have no idea who you're dealing with. Marek thought he was clever, too. He thought he could audit my trusts." She reached out, smoothing an invisible wrinkle on Halina’s lapel with chilling familiarity. "Be very careful where you put your paws. Scavengers get put down just like mad dogs."
Before Halina could answer, the exterior gates rattled open again with an abrasive screech.
Not the media.
Three unmarked black sedans, followed by two marked Radecz Metropolitan Police cruisers, came tearing down the long driveway, tires throwing wet gravel against the pristine lawns. The sirens wailed once—a sharp, mechanical whoop that echoed against the concrete pillars of Zalesie.
Halina's phone buzzed hard against her hip. She pulled it out. An emergency court notification flashed on the screen from her contacts at the district magistrate's office.
*Arrest warrant signed for Damyan Borowicz. Fratricide in the first degree. Officers en route to execute.*