“Good,” I tell him. “Get Kolya’s on standby. I want half his team watching the interstate exits and the rest sweeping warehouses along the southern route. If they find even a trace of Hope, they do not move until I arrive.”
Anya folds her arms tighter. “Ray will use her as leverage.”
“He will try,” I answer. “He knows Sage matters to me. He will think Hope buys him time.”
“Then he does not know you,” she says, her tone quiet but certain.
I almost smile at that, but the expression does not hold.
She glances at Sage again, the faint rise and fall of her chest reflected in her eyes. “She is strong,” Anya murmurs. “Do not forget that. She will fight for her sister as hard as you will.”
“I know,” I tell her. “But she is not the one Ray needs to fear.”
For a moment, none of us speak. The machines fill the silence with their steady rhythm. Anya turns back toward me, trying to reach what’s left of the brother she remembers.
“Whatever happens next,” she says quietly, “do not shut us out again.”
I hold her eyes for a long moment. “You are here now. That is what matters.”
Nikolay glances between us, his usual restlessness fading. “We are with you,” he adds. “All the way through this.”
I clasp his shoulder, a brief, solid gesture that says everything words cannot. “I know,” I tell him. “And when this ends, we walk out of it together.”
He gives a small nod, his expression resolute. “Then we finish it for the family, as a family.”
Anya steps closer and touches my arm. The gesture is gentle but grounded, more soldier than sister. “Bring Hope home,” she says. “Whatever else happens, do that.”
“I will.”
When they leave, the silence folds back around me. The lights dim on their own, bathing the room in a soft glow. I lower myself into the chair beside Sage’s bed and watch the monitor pulse in calm green intervals. The hum of the machines fills the space between us.
Sage stirs faintly, a soft sound escaping her lips. I lean closer, every nerve wired to the motion.
“Hope…” she murmurs, the name no louder than a breath.
My throat tightens. I curl my fingers around hers and press my thumbs into her pulse until the rhythm steadies me the way nothing else ever has. “You will have her back,” I tell her, my voice tight with promise. “We are going after Ray to find Hope. I will not rest until she is home.”
23
SAGE
The first thing I hear is the unbroken rhythm of a monitor. A low, mechanical heartbeat that isn't mine but still tethers me to the world. The second is the sting behind my eyes when I open them. The light is too bright, and the air too clean. Hospital air.
My throat burns when I swallow. There's something sharp at the edge of my ribs when I breathe too deeply, and my wrist throbs beneath the bandages. I shift, and pain ripples through my side, piercing enough to bring everything back in fragments.
Gunshots. Headlights. The sound of metal. Being airborne, then landing with a thud.
I turn my head, wincing as the movement sends a dull ache through the back of my skull. The room is pale blue, the sterile comfort designed to quiet panic but never quite succeeding. A vase of white lilies sits on the small table by the window, their scent faint but familiar. The petals are pristine, untouched by the violence that brought me here.
There's an empty chair beside the bed. Luka's coat is draped over the back of it, the fabric still shaped by his shoulders. Hispresence lingers in the air, along with the expensive cologne and the faint trace of gun oil. I touch the coat with my good hand, fingers brushing the stitching along the seam. It's still warm.
The wool is soft beneath my fingertips, finer than anything I've ever owned. I trace the lapel, following the line down to where the fabric folds against itself. The warmth radiating from it tells me he sat here for hours, maybe all night. The thought creates a strange sensation in my chest, something that wars with the fear and anger churning inside me.
A soft knock sounds at the door before it opens. A middle-aged, calm nurse steps in. Her scrubs are a muted teal, and her hair is pulled back in a practical bun.
“You're awake,” she notes gently, checking the monitors. “That's good news.”
My voice comes out rough, scraping against my throat like sandpaper. “How long?”
