She woke at three in the morning to shouting.
Not the raised voice she'd occasionally heard through closed doors during one of Dimitri's business calls — but real shouting, sharp and urgent, in Russian, accompanied by the sound of running feet in the corridor.
Jane sat up. Her room was dark save for the glow of snow-reflected light from the windows. She pulled on her jumper and stood at the door — locked, as always after ten — and pressed her ear to it.
The sounds resolved: voices, the crackle of a radio, the distant, muffled thump of something happening outside. Her window showed nothing unusual, but the east side of the estate was hidden from her view.
Twenty minutes of anxious waiting. Then footsteps in the corridor — heavy, deliberate, familiar in their unhurried certainty.
Her door unlocked.
Dimitri stood in the doorway, and Jane's breath caught because his shirt had blood on it.
"It's not mine," he said immediately, reading her expression with that uncanny accuracy he'd developed in the past weeks. "One of my men. He's being seen to."
Jane let out a breath. Then immediately caught it again on the next realisation. "What happened?"
"Intruders. Two men. The east perimeter." He was controlled and even, reporting it like a logistics update. "They've been dealt with. But it means the timeline has changed."
"What timeline?"
"For getting you home." He looked at her steadily. "The people I've been dealing with in London — they've located the estate. Not precisely, but close enough for them to send scouts. It's not safe here anymore."
Jane absorbed this. "What does 'not safe' mean, precisely? For me?"
"It means we're moving tomorrow. I'm taking you somewhere else while the London situation is finalised." He paused. "I'm sorry. I know this is — I know."
She looked at him. There was tiredness in his face that she hadn't seen before, and something that was trying very hard not to be worry. She thought about what Natasha had said about him not knowing how to hold things.
"Where?" she asked.
"Italy. A property on the coast. It's secure. Warmer." He paused. "More comfortable than here."
"Is there also a library?"
Something softened in his expression by the smallest degree. "Yes."
"Then fine," she said. "But I'm picking the books to bring."