The drones would be shipped to Dubai. Not to Revenant’s warehouse. To the Markovs’.
I grinned.
The car sped toward the airport, the city giving way to roads and open ground, but my mind was already moving faster than the scenery.
It had taken a lot of time, planning, and maneuvering, but things were finally falling into place. We’d planned to position the drones slowly. Quietly. Wait for the perfect angle to maneuver them into play and use them against Revenant at the opportune moment.
That timeline was gone now.
We needed to accelerate.
We needed to hit first.
I pulled my phone back out and typed one more message to Katya.
Get everything you can on the tower layout. We’re not negotiating. We’re breaking them out.
Her reply came seconds later.
Good. I’m tired of letting Revenant win.
I smiled, just a little, then tucked the phone away and let my eyes close as the car hummed down the road.
The youngest Dragunov might not be the scariest or the smartest, but when someone messes with my family—and the woman who burrowed her way under my skin—I become the most dangerous of them all.
Right now, Revenant thought they were in control.
But they’d just given us the perfect weapon.
And they had no idea it was already pointed directly at their throat.
CHAPTER 5
St. Petersburg, two weeks ago…
Katya
Snow fell sideways in St. Petersburg, battering the tall glass face of Revenant Headquarters like the city itself was trying to warn me back. The storm howled across the Neva River, white flurries dancing and spiraling in the wind, but inside the lobby it was warm. Maybe a little too sterile, too polished, a smidge too bright, but at least I wasn’t cold anymore.
My boots clicked against the marble tile, the sound too loud in a place built to soften noise. The receptionist smiled with an overly polite and practiced kind of warmth, the kind that said she wasn’t allowed to do anything else. She scanned my ID, nodded with her approval, and directed me to the elevator with a quick little gesture.
“Sixteenth floor, Ms. Volkov,” she said. “He’s waiting.”
He. Not a name. Not a title. Justhe.
The Revenant higher-up who had summoned me personally.
Most people would feel honored.
I just felt… wary.
I’d worked with Revenant for well over five years at this point. Long enough to see the inside of their operations, long enough to watch the collapse of my home through screens and tactical briefings, long enough to understand just how carefully they crafted their language. They never lied, at least not exactly.
All this time, I thought I had been fighting for freedom.
I’d been naïve.
The elevator purred upward. I smoothed my coat out of habit, shoulders pulled back tight, my chin held high. No matter what else I’d lost in the war, discipline was something I could still show the world.
