"I remember everything my patients tell me. It's part of the job." She looked up at Kirill, meeting his gaze directly. "I also remember other details. Names she overheard. Patterns she noticed. Things that might not have meant anything to her but could mean something to you."
Kirill studied her for a long moment, that unnerving assessment he did with everyone. Most people looked away. Keira didn't.
"Tell me," he said.
She did. For the next twenty minutes, she walked us through everything she'd learned from the survivors she'd treated—not just the woman who'd described these locations, but others who'd shared fragments of information over the years. Guard rotations. Delivery schedules. The names of low-level operatives who'd let details slip. The particular cruelties that marked Petrovic operations versus others.
I watched her transform as she spoke. This wasn't the woman who'd kissed me yesterday, or the one who'd shared her grief about her mother this morning. This was Dr. Walsh—clinical, precise, her mind organizing information with the efficiency of someone trained to find patterns in chaos.
And I watched Kirill transform, too. The suspicion that had marked his interactions with her was giving way to something else. Not warmth—Kirill didn't do warmth—but respect. The recognition of a useful ally.
"The woman who escaped," Kirill said when she finished. "The one who described the locations. Is she still in contact with you?"
"No. She relocated after our sessions ended. Somewhere out west, I think. She wanted to get as far from the East Coast as possible."
"But she might have more information. Details she didn't share, or didn't think were important."
"Possibly. But I won't put her at risk by reaching out. She's built a new life. She deserves to keep it."
I expected Kirill to push. Information was currency in our world, and he wasn't known for sentimentality. But he just nodded, a single sharp movement.
"Understood."
Keira blinked, clearly surprised. "Just like that?"
"You've given us more than we had. I'm not going to compromise a source for marginal gains." He gathered the documents, straightening them into a neat pile. "I need to make some calls. Cross-reference what you've told me with our own intelligence. See if anything connects."
He left without another word, the door clicking shut behind him. Keira stared after him with an expression I recognized—the slightly shell-shocked look of someone who'd just survived a Kirill assessment.
"That went well," I said.
"Did it? I couldn't tell."
"Trust me. If it hadn't gone well, you'd know." I moved to stand beside her, looking down at the photographs still spread across the desk. "You impressed him. That's not easy to do."
"I wasn't trying to impress him. I was trying to be useful."
"Why?"
She was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the edge of one of the photographs. "Because I spent the last two days feeling helpless. Hiding in rooms, waiting for other people to solve my problems. I don't know how to live like that."
"Most people in your situation would be happy to let others handle things."
"I'm not most people." She looked up at me, and I saw the steel beneath the exhaustion. "I built a life from nothing once. I can do it again. But not if I'm just a passenger in my own story."
I understood that. More than she probably realized. I'd spent my whole life being the charming one, the easy one, the brother who smoothed things over while Demyan made thehard decisions and Kirill handled the violence. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be something else. Someone who acted instead of performing.
"You're not a passenger," I said. "Not anymore."
"No?"
"No. You're a partner. Whether you wanted to be or not."
Something shifted in her expression. A softening, maybe, or the beginning of trust. "Is that what we are? Partners?"
"I don't know what we are. But partner seems as good a word as any."
She almost smiled at that. Almost. "I suppose it does."
