Convergence
Anton:
Silence sounds different when someone you love disappears into it.
I love you, and then nothing. Just my breathing, the hammer of my pulse, and the empty space where her voice should be.
I didn't say it back.
The comms stayed open through everything. Every word Kirill spoke. Every threat. Fee telling me she loved me while that ghost dragged her into the dark.
Everyone heard.
I need to say it back to her while I have her in my arms.
I pull the phone from my pocket with steady fingers that don't match the chaos inside me. The screen shows nothing, no transmission from her pendant.
Come on, Solnishko. Let me find you.
This business has taught me to compartmentalize. I've lived through hell before. But this, this is different.
Years of killing, and not once have I felt this.
The fear isn't for me, it's an acid burn spreading through my chest. Fee is the first person I've loved who's in danger because of me.
Katya's death destroyed me, but it wasn't my doing. If something happens to Fee...
My thumb hovers over the screen, refreshing the tracking app every three seconds. Nothing. The pendant should be transmitting unless he's found it.
There's a dark pit opening inside my chest where my heart used to be. What matters is that I get the woman who brought me back to life.
What matters is that I'll kill Kirill and anybody who poses any danger to her.
My phone vibrates. The camellia pendant pulses on screen, a small blinking dot moving southeast through Providence's industrial maze.
"ProvPort container district. Kirill's heading for the waterfront."
Alexei's foot crushes the accelerator, the engine roaring as we barrel toward the docks.
The dot keeps moving.
"Alexei, faster. Ruslan," I say into my earpiece.
"Already moving." His voice comes through sharp, engine noise behind him. "Yuri's stable. Eden says to stop worrying and go get your woman."
The tracking dot turns east toward the water. Private boats. Time slipping.
"When I find him..." The dot pulses, distant and desperate. "I want him to suffer. Not quick."
"It'll be my pleasure. What else do you need from me?"
"I need your death potions, Ruslan. The ones that keep a man alive through what should kill him."
The tracking dot continues moving, each blink a reminder that Fee is getting farther away with every passing second.
"Understood." Ruslan's voice is ice cold with promise. "Already packed them. Anything specific you have in mind?"
"Something that lets him feel everything. I want him conscious for every second."
