He heads for the hallway, and Boris follows, leaving me alone in the kitchen with my trembling hands and a dead phone and six years of words still ringing in my ears.
I said them. Every single one. The words I swallowed through the slaps and the silence and the middle-of-the-night phone calls that used to leave me curled on the bathroom floor. I said them out loud, to his face, while he listened.
And I didn’t apologize.
I never thought I’d say any of it.
The tears come then. Not from sadness or fear, but from something so enormous I don’t have a name for it. Relief, maybe. Or grief for the years I spent carrying those words likestones in my pockets, too afraid to set them down in case the sound gave me away.
And so, I breathe out and let myself cry just long enough to feel the weight leave my body.
Then I wipe my face with the back of my hand, pick up my phone, and walk toward the hallway where Pyotr’s voice is already rising.
Bogdan is running toward Finland, and we’re not done yet.
33
Pyotr
Dmitri picks up on the second ring, which tells me he’s been waiting.
“Tony traced the call,” I began right away. “Cell tower northwest of Vyborg. Bogdan’s headed for the Finnish border.”
“How far out?”
“Based on the tower ping, maybe forty minutes from the crossing. Could be an hour if he’s sticking to back roads. I’m willing to bet he knows we have cameras, plates, and every surveillance tool Tony can throw at a moving vehicle.”
Dmitri is quiet for three seconds. I count them because I know this man, and three seconds of silence from Dmitri Kozlov means he’s running the math on every outcome before he opens his mouth.
“Federal warrants?” he asks.
“Tony got the paperwork to the attorney two hours ago. Fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy. But processing takes time,and the border doesn’t care about pending warrants. If Bogdan crosses into Finland before those warrants hit the system, extradition becomes a diplomatic headache that could drag on for months.” I press my knuckles against the counter. “Years, even.”
“He knows that.”
“Of course, he does. It’s the only play he has left. Finland is his exit ramp, and he’s speeding toward it right now.”
Boris is standing across the kitchen with his arms folded, listening to my half of the conversation. We’ve already discussed this, and the nod he gives me when I glance over confirms he still agrees.
“What are you proposing?” Dmitri asks, though I suspect he already knows the answer.
“We intercept before the border. I take Boris and a team northwest, and Tony feeds us coordinates in real time while he tracks Bogdan’s phone. We cut him off somewhere between Vyborg and the crossing, on one of those rural stretches where there’s no traffic and no witnesses.”
Another, longer pause. I hear the creak of leather, probably Dmitri settling deeper into his chair at the compound. “What that means for us is a narrow window, when nobody is riding to Bogdan’s rescue, and nobody will ask uncomfortable questions about what happens to him. But that window closes the second Bogdan sets foot on Finnish soil. After that, he becomes an international incident, and international incidents invite the kind of attention I cannot afford right now.”
“Then let me move,” I say.“Every minute we spend on this call is a minute he’s closer to that crossing.”
“How many men do you need?”
“Boris has four here in the city. Eduard and Marat can meet us on the road with three more. All of us against a cornered man who watched his empire collapse twelve hours ago and has nothing left to lose. The last time I underestimated Bogdan, he stalked Daria and Kira to the train station and scared her half to death. I won’t make that mistake twice.”
The mention of the train does what I intend it to do. It proved that his obsession overrides self-preservation.
Dmitri lets out a slow breath. “What about Daria?”
My gaze drifts down the hallway toward the bedroom. Floorboards groan under her feet as she paces back and forth. That phone call with Bogdan did something to her. I could tell the second it happened.
“I’ll leave one of Boris’ guys posted at the apartment door.”
