"I'm going now. Track me."
"Kostya." His voice sharpened. "Wait for backup. If this is Brand's people—"
"Then they've had her for three hours." The words came out serrated, each one cutting. "Three hours to drive her anywhere. Three hours to start—"
I couldn't finish. Couldn't say what they might have started. The monster howled in my skull, but I held it steady, kept it focused.
“Maks is going to track her. We need to move fast.”
"Understood. I'll have units converging in fifteen minutes," Nikolai said. "Just—don't die before we get there."
The line went dead.
I looked at the kittens, still pacing, still distressed. Zmeya had stopped attacking my ankles and now sat perfectly still, watching me with those too-knowing eyes.
"I'm bringing her back," I told them. A promise. A vow. The only thing keeping me from shattering.
The SUV was in the garage. I was behind the wheel in ninety seconds, engine roaring to life, tires screaming against concrete as I took the turn too fast. The pre-dawn streets were empty, dark, indifferent to the war that was about to begin.
My hands didn't shake on the wheel. My voice hadn't trembled on the phone. I was beyond fear now, operating in that cold space where the only thing that existed was the objective.
Get her back.
Whatever it took. Whoever had to die. Whatever pieces of myself I had to burn away.
Get her back.
First place to check was the warehouse on 4th.
The city blurred past my windows, and somewhere ahead, Maya was in the hands of people who saw her as inventory. As parts to be sold. As meat.
I pressed the accelerator to the floor and let the monster slip its leash.
Maks had the footage on my screen before I was halfway to the warehouse. Tablet propped on the dash, his voice in my ear through the Bluetooth, walking me through what he'd found. The man could hack half the city's camera systems in the time it took most people to make coffee.
"Compound cameras first," he said, and the footage loaded. Grainy night-vision green, the east service entrance. Timestamp: 3:23 AM.
She moved like a ghost across the screen. Deliberate. Unhurried. Dressed in dark clothes with my jacket swallowing her frame. She'd waited for the seven-minute gap when guards rotated, slipped through like she'd been planning it for days.
"Smart," Maks muttered. "Too fucking smart."
I didn't respond. Just watched her walk out of safety and into the dark.
"Street cameras next." The image shifted. Different angle, different location. Maya moving through the industrial district, keeping to shadows but not running. Purposeful. A woman on a mission she believed in, heading toward someone she'd decided needed saving.
"She reached the warehouse at 3:47 AM." Another camera change, this one catching her squeezing through a gap in the chain-link fence. "Stayed inside for almost an hour."
An hour. Had she found Frank? Had someone taken her from inside?
"She left at 4:43 AM." The footage showed her emerging from the side entrance, not alone this time. A young man beside her—early twenties, dark hair, the kind of face you'd forget five minutes after meeting. Frank. The kid she'd risked everything to save.
They were walking back toward the compound. Toward me. She'd done what she came to do and was bringing him to safety.
She almost made it.
"This is where it goes bad," Maks said, and his voice had changed. Softer. Warning me.
The timestamp jumped to 5:03 AM. Different camera, maybe three blocks from where they'd been walking. A black van appeared at the edge of the frame, moving slowly, predatory. Following.
