The word came out harder than I intended. Both brothers turned to look at me—Konstantin with something that might have been guilt, Nikolai with that cold assessment that missed nothing.
"Don't," I repeated, quieter. "I know what I did. I know this is my fault."
The silence that followed was agreement enough.
I thought about the phone in my pocket. The plan that was either salvation or disaster, with nothing in between.
"We're going to accept Anton's terms."
The words dropped into the room like grenades.
Konstantin stopped pacing. Nikolai finally turned from the wall, something flickering in those dead eyes—confusion, maybe, or the first spark of fury.
"What?"
"We accept. Tell Anton we'll return to Russia. Surrender everything. Board the plane at dawn."
"Have you lost your fucking mind?" Konstantin was in my face now, close enough that I could smell the vodka on his breath, the sweat of fear and rage. "We don't run. We don't surrender. We—"
"We get them back."
"By giving up everything we've built? By—"
"Trust me."
The words stopped him. Stopped both of them.
Trust me. Such a small phrase, carrying the weight of everything we'd been through together. Every operation, every crisis, every moment when the three of us had stood against odds that should have destroyed us.
I'd never asked for blind trust before. Never needed to. My plans were always transparent, always laid out in briefings and strategy sessions and the particular choreography of brothers who'd learned to think as one.
Not this time.
"I'm working on something," I said quietly. "I can't tell you what. Not yet. Not until I know it's real."
Nikolai's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because if Anton has anyone watching us—anyone listening—the surprise has to be complete. If he suspects, even for a moment, that we have another play . . ."
I let the sentence trail off. Let them fill in the implications.
Konstantin's jaw worked. The particular struggle of a man who wanted to hit something but was forcing himself to think instead.
"You're asking us to walk into what looks like total surrender," he said slowly. "Based on something you won't tell us."
"Yes."
"And if your something doesn't work?"
"Then we're exactly where we'd be anyway. Except the women are safe."
That landed. I watched it hit Konstantin first—the acknowledgment that whatever happened to us, surrendering meant getting Maya back. Getting all of them back.
Nikolai was harder to read. He'd gone still again, that particular stillness that meant calculations I couldn't follow, assessments happening behind those grey eyes.
"Sophie," he said finally. One word. His wife's name, carrying everything he couldn't say.
"She'll be at the exchange. They all will. Anton wants his victory—wants to watch us board the plane while he gloats. He'll have them there."
