“Canceling all her meetings last minute,” I mutter. “Texting me some halfway-clever excuse about meeting a supplier downtown for ‘last-minute paperwork.’ Ubering across the city. Stopping at a fucking gun store.”
Arseny grins, not even trying to hide it. “To be fair, it was a boutique gun store. Very upscale. Yelp gave it four and a half stars.”
Timur snorts behind us.
I don’t take my eyes off Bella. “You laugh like amateurs.”
“She’s not like us,” Arseny says after a beat, quieter now. “Normal people don’t know they’re tracked through their goddamn Starbucks app.”
Below, Bella tugs the hem of her hoodie lower, checking the street like she actually thinks she lost her tail. I almost admire the effort. Almost.
“Where’s Irina?”
Timur nods toward the second monitor. “Five minutes out. Alone.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “Irina’s never alone.”
The Old Marina Car Park is half-rotting under the spring sun, that weird Californian warmth that makes the asphalt smell like burned rubber and salt. Broken lights dangle from rusted poles. Seagulls circle overhead, bitching about nothing.
Arseny taps his earpiece. “Viktor’s men are stationed at the exits. Dmitri’s team is shadowing Irina’s car.”
I nod once, slowly. Every move calculated. Every door covered.
And still—
I hate this.
Hate watching her walk into the jaws of it like some stubborn, reckless little idiot who doesn’t know the world she’s fucking with.
At 10:15, we tracked her buying a small Sig Sauer P365 from that boutique store. Legal, yes. Smart, no.
And now?
She’s got it tucked somewhere. Probably in that stupid crossbody bag she thinks passes as “casual but cute.”
“She’s armed,” Timur confirms through the comms. “Saw her adjusting her strap five minutes ago.”
“Does she even know how to shoot?” Arseny asks, deadpan.
I grind my molars together.
Irina emerges from the shadows near a crumbling concrete pillar, moving low, deliberate. No flashy scarves, no designer drama. Just a black jacket, black jeans, hair pulled tight—the uniform of someone trying not to get noticed. She glances around once, sharp and twitchy, before fixing her gaze on Bella.
Bella sees her. She stiffens, then starts walking toward her.
“Ears on?” I ask.
Arseny shakes his head. “Interference. Parking garage’s eating our signal. We’re blind.”
Blyad. Fucking perfect.
From our vantage point on the third-floor stairwell, I watch them circle each other warily. The signal crackles in and out—broken words bleeding through.
“How can you do this to your own children?” Bella’s voice punches through, raw, angry.
My heart clenches so fast and hard it’s stupid. Instinct. Rage. Fear. It punches through me before I can stop it—seeing her down there, standing her ground for my children like she’s already one of us.
And if anything happens to her—if I lose her—there won’t be a goddamn thing left to salvage.
