I watched them notice it. Watched Maya's body language shift from tired but relieved to alert, then afraid. She grabbed Frank's arm. They started walking faster.
"There were others," Maks said. "On foot. Paralleling them. Watch the left side."
Shadows detached from shadows. Three men, maybe four, moving with the coordinated precision of professionals. They'd been waiting. Patient. Letting Maya walk into their kill box.
The van accelerated.
They ran.
The footage was grainy, security camera quality, but I could see everything I needed to see. Maya sprinting, Frank beside her, both of them knowing it was hopeless but trying anyway. The van pulling alongside. Side door sliding open like a mouth.
Men appeared from everywhere. They'd been herding her, I realized. Pushing her toward this exact spot, this exact moment. Professional work.
Frank tried to fight. Kid threw a punch that connected with nothing, went down when someone swept his legs. Mayaturned back—of course she turned back, my stupid, brave, compassionate woman who couldn't let anyone suffer—and they had her. Two men, one on each arm, professional grips that controlled without bruising.
Then one of the men stepped up to Frank.
I knew what was coming. Had seen this exact scenario play out a dozen times in my own work. The calculation was simple: the target was secured, the witness was a liability, loose ends were expensive.
The gun came up.
Frank's head snapped back. Dark matter sprayed against the building behind him. He dropped, straight down.
On the screen, Maya's mouth opened in a scream I couldn't hear. Silent footage, silent death, but I could see her face. Could see the moment something shattered inside her—the same break I'd seen in soldiers who watched friends die, in civilians who witnessed violence they couldn't stop.
They dragged her toward the van. She fought them, I could see that much. Got an arm free, swung wild, connected with something. But there were too many, and they were prepared for hysteria. Prepared for victims who watched murders and came apart.
Ninety seconds. Start to finish, the whole thing took ninety seconds.
The van door closed. The vehicle pulled away, unhurried, nothing to see here, just another delivery truck in the pre-dawn dark.
"I lost them in a camera blind spot on Atlantic," Maks said. "Working on finding them again."
I stared at the frozen image. The spot where Frank had died. The empty street where Maya had been a person and become cargo.
They'd executed a twenty-one-year-old kid because he'd helped her. Because he'd noticed her bruises and asked if someone was hurting her. Because he'd been kind.
And Maya had watched. Had screamed while they held her. Would carry that image forever—assuming she lived long enough to have a forever.
"Track that van." My voice came out wrong. Not human. Something scraped raw and rebuilt from darker material. "Find where they took her."
"Kostya—"
"Now."
Maks went silent. I could hear him typing, working, hunting through the city's electronic eyes for the vehicle that had swallowed my entire world.
The tablet showed the empty street. Frank's body was gone now—someone had come, cleaned up, made the scene disappear. Professional work. No evidence. No witnesses. Just another person who'd vanished in the night.
My foot pressed harder on the accelerator. The SUV screamed through Brooklyn's empty streets, and somewhere ahead, Maya was in a van heading toward people who would take her apart piece by piece.
The monster had been cold before. Controlled. Now it was something else entirely—not hot rage, not cold calculation, but that terrible space between where men became capable of anything.
"I've got the van," Maks said suddenly. "Queens. Industrial area. They went to ground at a private clinic. Kostya, it must be the harvesting site."
Harvesting. The word landed like a knife between my ribs.
"Address," I said. "Now."
