“I’m not asking for permission,” she scoffs. “I’m telling you I’m coming.”
“This is a tactical operation.” Boris’ voice drops to the register he uses when he’s done being polite. “You have no training, experience, or business anywhere near a building full of armed men.”
“I know Bogdan better than anyone in this room. He’s a coward. He’ll fight your men because that’s what cornered men do. But Bogdan doesn’t just want to survive; he wants to win. And winning, to him, has always meant proving I can’t function without him. If he sees me standing there, he won’t shoot. He’ll try to talk, convince me this is all my fault, and that I should come with him. Every second he spends running his mouth isa second your men can close the gap, and you could snag him without a single bullet.”
“Might,” Boris repeats. “You want me to risk the operation on might.”
“I want you to consider the possibility that we can end this without a bloodbath.”
Boris turns to me with a look that tells me I need to handle this. I understand the look, but I also understand her.
“Daria,” I intervene, “no.”
She whirls on me, and when her eyes find mine, I see the stubbornness that’s kept her alive for three years under Bogdan’s thumb. “Don’t you dare. Don’t tell me no, like I’m a child who wandered into the wrong room. I survived that man for six years. I know how he thinks, how he panics, and what makes him fold. None of your men know that.”
“She has a point.”
Boris shoots me a look that could strip paint.
“She does not have a point,” he argues. “She has a death wish dressed up as strategy. One stray bullet or wrong step, and we’re carrying a Kozlov out in a bag, which is the opposite of my job description. I didn’t drive here with a tactical team to babysit a civilian.”
“I’m not a civilian,” Daria snaps. “I’m the reason you have a target. Everything you know about Bogdan’s network came from me. I handed you his operation because I trusted you to end this. Now I’m asking you to trust me enough to be there when it happens.”
“Trust isn’t the issue,” Boris fires back. “Logistics is the issue. I plan for variables I can control. You are a variable I cannot control.”
“Then give me rules, and I’ll follow them.”
Boris folds his arms across his chest and fixes her with a glare that has broken confessions from men twice her size. “You want to know what happens to people without combat experience in firefights? They freeze. They panic. They run in the wrong direction and take a bullet meant for someone else. I’ve watched it happen, and I will not be the one who puts Dmitri’s cousin in a box.”
“Then keep me out of the firefight. Put me in a vehicle at a safe distance. If shooting starts, I’ll stay locked inside. But let me call him before your men go through the door. He always answers when he thinks I’m begging. Give me two minutes on the phone. I’ll tell him I’m there to negotiate, which he can verify by looking out a window. That’ll keep him distracted while your team breaches.”
Boris shakes his head. “Pyotr. Tell her.”
I look at Daria. Every mark Bogdan left on her body, nightmare she carried alone, and phone call that drained the blood from her face run through my mind. Then I think about Kira, safe in Moscow with Alexei’s wife, waiting for her mother to come home.
“She’s not going inside,” I declare.
“Thank you,” Boris breathes.
“But she can come.”
Boris drops his arms and gawks at me like I’ve lost my goddamn mind. “Excuse me?”
“She stays in the armored car, a hundred meters back from the perimeter. She calls him before we breach. If he doesn’t answer or the situation goes sideways, she stays locked in the car until we’re done.”
“This is insane,” Boris growls. “Dmitri didn’t authorize?—”
“Dmitri told me to end this. He didn’t specify how.” I hold Boris’ stare. The man trained me when I first joined the organization, back when I was still carrying Syria around like a second skeleton. I respect him more than almost anyone alive, but I won’t back down on this.
“Think about it,” I continue. “Bogdan is cornered. His uncle just cut him loose, and he doesn’t know that yet. He’s going to panic when he finds out. A panicked man with a dozen guns pointed at him does something stupid. But a panicked man who picks up a call from the woman he spent six years controlling stops running or watching his exits. He starts talking because Bogdan wants to win. And winning has always meant proving Daria can’t function without him. Every second he wastes trying to convince her this is all her fault is a second your men are moving into position.”
I can see Boris running the scenario, weighing risk against reward the way he’s done for the past thirty years. He works his jaw, looks at Daria, and then back at me. “Dmitri will have my fucking head if he finds out I let his cousin ride with us.”
“I’ll make it clear that I made the call, and I’ll answer for it.”
“You’re damn right you will.” Boris turns to Daria and points one thick finger at her. “You ride in the armored vehicle. You do not exit that vehicle for any reason. You speak when spokento over comms and not a second before. If Pyotr tells you to duck, you duck. If he tells you to run, you run. If he tells you to stop breathing, you hold your goddamn breath until he says otherwise. Are we clear?”
Daria nods.
