But there's nothing. Just silence and shadow and the distant drip of water from a damaged pipe.
I move faster, my weapon raised, every instinct screaming that something has gone terribly wrong.
Then my flashlight beam catches something on the floor.
Bodies. Three of them.
Petrov is slumped against the wall nearest the door, his weapon still in his hand, his eyes open and staring at nothing. There's blood pooling beneath him, spreading across the concrete in a dark mirror. But he didn't go down alone—two of Sergei's men lie crumpled nearby, one with a bullet hole in his forehead, the other with three rounds in his chest.
Petrov fought. He took two of them with him before he fell.
I stand frozen, staring at the bodies, at the blood, at the safe room door beyond them.
The door that should be sealed and impenetrable.
The door that's been blown off its hinges, the reinforced steel buckled inward, the frame twisted and blackened from explosive charges.
Bianca.
The name echoes in my head like a scream. Like a prayer.
Anna.
I move toward the ruined door, and I already know what I'm going to find. Already know that the worst has happened, that while I was fighting in the gardens and killing men at the gates, Sergei's real team was down here. Taking the only thing in this world that matters to me.
But I have to see it. Have to know for certain.
I step over Petrov's body, push through the shattered door, and enter the darkness beyond.
Chapter 21 - Bianca
The monitors show me war.
I sit in the chair Misha placed me in, my hands gripping the armrests, watching his world burn. On one screen, muzzle flashes strobe in the darkness near the south wall. On another, men run through the gardens, shadows chasing shadows. The audio feeds are a cacophony of gunfire, shouting, explosions that make the speakers crackle with distortion.
And somewhere in that chaos, Misha is fighting. Killing. Maybe dying.
Anna sits beside me, her hand finding mine in the darkness. She hasn't said much since Misha sealed us in here—just watched the monitors with the same grim focus I feel, her jaw tight, her breathing carefully controlled.
"He's good at this," she says quietly. "Better than anyone."
I don't know if she's trying to reassure me or herself.
My free hand drifts to my stomach. Flat still, unchanged. No evidence of the life growing inside me except the nausea that keeps rising in waves, the exhaustion that presses against my bones. Morning sickness doesn't care about war. Biology doesn't pause for violence.
I haven't told Anna about the baby. Haven't told anyone except Mrs. Novak, who got me the test. The secret sits heavy in my chest, another weight alongside the fear.
"Your father is out there," I whisper silently to the life I can't yet feel. "He's fighting to keep us safe."
"What?" Anna glances at me.
"Nothing. Just thinking out loud."
She squeezes my hand but doesn't push.
On one of the monitors, I catch a glimpse of him. Misha, moving along the south wall, his weapon raised. Even on the grainy feed, I can see the lethal grace of his movements, the cold efficiency with which he dispatches an enemy who steps into his path.
The man I slept with. The man whose child I carry. A killer in his natural element.
