And then silence.
The kind that scratches at the back of your neck.
I don’t like this.
Igor doesn’t ghost me. Not unless he’s trying to make a point… or something’s already happened he doesn’t want to say yet. Either way, the quiet is too long. Too surgical. It feels arranged.
I pull out my phone again, double-check the signal jammer. Working. Comms are clear. Dima’s posted at the door. Lev’s checking the roofline.
And Boris is parked three blocks out, engine running, armed to the teeth with a burner laptop and a Glock that’s seen more war zones than most men in this city.
If this goes wrong, it won’t be for lack of preparation.
But quiet like this never means safe.
Quiet means planned.
I put the phone away.
Lev comes down the stairs from the upper catwalk, rifle strapped across his back, chewing the last bite of a protein bar like this is any other Tuesday. His boots thump across the metal steps, then fall silent when they hit the concrete. He doesn’t speak until he’s close.
“All clear. No movement on the east side. Crows scattered fast when I climbed up. Nothing else.” He eyes me. “You get a reply?”
I shake my head once.
Dima shifts near the rear exit, his back to the wall, hand resting loose near his holster. He’s listening, even when he pretends not to be. I see it in the way his chin tips every few seconds. Marking the noises thataren’tsupposed to be there.
I glance toward the holding room.
Viktor’s still in there. Alive, pacing.
He’s quiet now, but Lev heard him throw up earlier. Said it sounded wet. Not nerves—fear. Real, chest-hollowing terror. The kind of fear that doesn’t come from a beating. It comes from knowing you walked into something bigger than you understood.
I check the time again.
12:13.
Then the phone buzzes in my jacket. I pull it fast, thumb over the screen.
Igor Vetrov: I’ll meet you there. Don’t move him.
Nothing else.
No acknowledgment, no threats, no ETA. Just seven words and a full stop.
Lev leans in to peek. “So heiscoming.”
“Apparently.”
“Alone?”
“Doubt it.”
Dima doesn’t say anything. He moves back toward the corridor, slower now. Hand fully around his weapon.
We’ve been in this world too long to assume anything. If Igor shows up in person—anddidn’t call ahead to bark orders like usual—it means two things:
Either he wants to see Viktor’s corpse with his own eyes.
