I hit the doorway at full sprint and stop.
Anya stands in the center of the lab—not hurt, no blood, no visible threat—but she’s frozen.
In her hands: a thick envelope. Expensive paper.
The blood has left her face in a wave I can almost watch moving, draining downward until even her lips look grey, until she’s gripping the envelope with both hands and her whole body is trembling.
“Solnyshko.” I cross to her in three strides, holstering the gun. “What happened?”
She doesn’t answer.
Just holds out the envelope with hands that shake so badly the paper rattles against itself, and I take it because she can’t hold it anymore.
The cover shows a molecular structure I recognize instantly.
MX-42. Her nightmare was made real and printed on cardstock.
Below it, in an elegant serif font, PRIVATE AUCTION LOT #1: MX-42 PROTOTYPE — COMPLETE SYNTHESIS BIDDING OPENS: MIDNIGHT (MSK) STARTING PRICE: €300,000,000.
“Blyad.”
Seeing it formalized, printed on expensive stock with photography that makes chemical warfare look like art, something in my chest cracks.
“When did this arrive?”
“Five minutes ago.” Her voice sounds hollow, distant. “Courier. Said it was urgent.” She laughs once. “I thought it might be supplies.”
I open the envelope.
Inside, a glossy catalog. Twenty pages. Professional photography. Each page details a different aspect of her work—chemical structure, synthesis pathway, mechanism of action, projected mortality rates, delivery methods, and military applications.
Someone took mass death and gave it a fucking marketing department.
Then I see it. Page seven. The synthesis documentation. Bottom right corner, barely visible:A.N.V.
Her initials. Her handwriting. Her notes on documents she created in good faith, believing she was helping, believing she could save lives, believing I wouldn’t use her brilliance to build the exact thing she feared most.
I did this.
I flip to the attendee page, and my stomach turns to stone. Vadim’s name sits at the top. Below him, Dmitri Volkov of the Chechen Syndicate. The FSB sent an anonymous representative. Sinaloa Cartel’s arms procurement specialist. Al-Nusra Front. Three private collectors whose identities are protected by thekind of legal architecture that only exists for people wealthy enough to buy governments.
Every fucking name on that list has resources to manufacture at scale.
Every fucking name has the willingness to use it.
“He used my notes.” Anya’s voice cracks. “Those are my files. My formatting. My—” She slams her palm against the workstation, scattering vials. “He didn’t even change my fucking headers. He just took everything and—”
Her hands shake for three more seconds. Then her jaw locks, and something shifts behind her eyes—fury.
“Thatmudak.” Her voice comes out low and vicious in a way I’ve never heard from her before. “I’m going todestroyhim.”
“Get in line,solnyshko.”
“No.” She wheels on me, mercury eyes blazing with the kind of rage that makes my cock twitch even though this is absolutely not the time. “I don’t want him dead. I want himruined. I want every buyer in that room to pay three hundred million euros for something that doesn’t fucking work. I want Vadim to watch his empire collapse because the genius chemist he tried to sell figured out how to burn it down from the inside.”
I catch her before she can pace away, my arm hooking around her waist and pulling her against my chest so hard she gasps. Her heart slams against my ribs—or maybe that’s mine, I can’t fucking tell anymore where she ends, and I begin.
“Be calm.” My hand fists in her hair, tilting her head back so she has to look at me.
