Back in his apartment, the Golm finds calm in the purple glow after killing Michael Harris. Fresh from a shower and wearing a robe, he enters his private svatyn and lights three votive candles before a shrine he has built to Sasha Vesna, whom he considers his sole purpose.

Gazing at Sasha’s photograph, the Golm recalls the origin of his devotion: years earlier in a Russian mental institution, Sasha was being brutally beaten by a night nurse named Malvina. Unable to endure the abuse, he intervened and killed Malvina by breaking her neck, then vanished without being seen; Sasha was unconscious and never learned what happened. From that moment, he believed their souls became intertwined and he vowed to protect Sasha forever while remaining unknown to her.

The Golm frames his recent violence as part of that protective mission. He reflects that Brigita Gessner abused Sasha’s body and mind, but Michael Harris ’betrayed Sasha’s heart’ by pretending to love her while deceiving and spying on her.

He replays Harris’s death from twenty minutes earlier: the Golm suffocated the unconscious man with a plastic bag, telling him Sasha would be less harmed by his death than by learning the truth about his betrayal. As Harris died, the Golm addressed him as if his spirit were hovering nearby, insisting that everyone in Sasha’s life betrayed her except him, then whispered to Harris the same bedtime words Sasha had used: Spokoynoy nochi, milyy (Good night, sweetheart).

With this part of his plan complete, the Golm notes the pieces now in place: Harris is dead, Sasha is safely locked away, and Robert Langdon has been diverted by a note meant to send him searching for Katherine Solomon. He is certain Langdon will not find her at Pet9n Tower, and he recalls Gessner’s earlier confession under torture that the people she works for will do anything to silence Katherine, who does not realize the danger she is in.