A sharp inhale.
"Ivan—someone is protecting that pipeline. Whoever it is has access."
Another pause.
Then his voice returns, colder than I remember, yet unmistakably him.
"Maksim," he says. "You should not be calling this number."
"I know."
"If my father discovers?—"
"I know." I interrupted him, sensing movement in the corridor outside—faint but real. We can't afford fear right now. "Listen. Sergei told you Boris was finished, but that's not true in practice, regardless of what it says on paper. Don't trust the silence; it's just a different kind of threat."
The line held.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
"I believe you," he said. "I've seen... inconsistencies. Accounts that should be dead are still breathing. People who should be gone are still moving. I couldn't prove it without revealing my hand."
"Then you know where to look," I replied. "Follow Warehouse Seven. Track the cipher. Find out who's keeping it alive."
"I will."
A pause.
Then, softer than I expected from the heir Sergei wanted to restore.
"Are you safe?"
The question pierced through me.
After three months of cold, bitterness, and being overlooked like furniture, he asks if I'm safe—as if it matters.
"I'm surviving," I said. "That has to be enough."
"It isn't." The familiar edge in his voice echoed the same refusal that pulled me off the walkway when I urged him to leave without me. "I'm coming for you. I promised."
"Survive first," I insisted. If I let him chase me before he disconnects the live wire, Sergei will kill us both. "Find the hand behind the cipher. End it. Then you can come."
"Maksim—"
Footsteps drew closer. A door hinge creaked. Dmitri was returning, or someone else was drawn by the comms room indicator.
"I have to go," I said. "Be careful, Ivan. Trust no one."
I ended the call before he could argue.
The silence that followed was immediate and brutal.
I placed the satellite phone back in its cradle. The red indicator resumed its slow blink as if nothing had happened—as if the room hadn't just become the most dangerous place in the building.
I retraced my steps quickly, the lock clicking behind me as the corridor swallowed me back into the facility's dull rhythm.
By the time Dmitri returned to the monitoring station, I was back in my chair, face blank, eyes fixed on the screens that showed nothing.
I didn't move. I didn't reveal anything.
