I turn the door handle.
Click.
I’m moving before the latch releases.
Hallway. Dim and narrow and smelling like old cigarettes. A guard stands at the end, one of Luka’s men. He’s watching the corridor with his arms crossed, bored but alert.
He sees me and straightens.
“Mrs. Volkova?”
I don’t stop. I channel every ounce of icy entitlement I’ve watched Roman deploy for the last weeks. I walk straight toward the guard. Shoulders back. Chin up. The ice queen.
“Get out of my way.” Russian. Clipped.
His eyes flick to my throat. To the bruises ringing from two days ago when Dmitri tried to strangle me on the yacht deck. The purple has gone yellow at the edges, but it’s still vivid, still ugly, still the kind of mark that makes men flinch.
“Ma’am, I can’t let you—”
“The boss is vomiting blood in the bathroom.” I step into his space, invade the way Roman does when men stand between him and what he wants. “His wound opened. He needs antibiotics and clean gauze, and if I have to explain to him why his wife is standing here arguing with you instead of getting medicine, I promise you he will make what happened to Pavel look merciful.”
The guard’s face goes pale. He was on the extraction boat. He saw what Roman did to Pavel.
“Do you need an escort?”
“I need you to stay here and make sure no one disturbs him. He’s in pain. He’s angry. And if you wake him before I get back—” I let the threat hang, watch it land. “Use your imagination.”
He steps aside.
I hit the stairwell door. I don’t run until the steel clicks shut behind me.
Then I sprint.
Down three flights. My breath tears at my lungs, and the USB digs into my hip with every step, a weight of evidence, a burden of betrayal that I’m taking with me whether it destroys us both or not.
Ground floor. Side exit. Morning light that blinds.
Luka’s emergency documents are in Roman’s jacket pocket. I find them while I’m scanning for a taxi—three passports, three nationalities, my photograph in all of them with names I’ve never heard. Maria Konstantinova. Anna Bergmann. Yelena Markovic.
Thank you, Luka. Thank you for being paranoid.
A taxi idles at the curb, dropping off a tourist in a sun hat. I don’t wait for her to finish. I wrench the back door open while she’s still half-out, throw myself inside.
“Airport.” The word comes out ragged. “Double the fare if you go now.”
“Hey!” The tourist stumbles backward. “What the hell—”
“Go.”
The driver sees the cash in my fist and the expression on my face. He hits the gas.
We peel away from the curb just as the hotel doors explode open.
Roman.
Barefoot. Towel around his hips. Chest heaving with the effort of running on a wound that’s barely begun to heal. Two of Luka’s men are chasing him, shouting, trying to grab his arms,but he shoves through them and staggers into the street, and his eyes find the taxi with the precision of a sniper scope.
He knows exactly where I am.
