“He’s alive. Hit in the shoulder. Transported to the hospital.”
Anya lets out a slow breath, keeping her reaction quiet. She looks at me the way she always has, direct and unfiltered, seeing more than most people ever do.
“You think it’s Arkady.”
It isn’t phrased as a question. It’s an observation based on how my security perimeter has changed, how my men have repositioned, and how the house feels like it’s waiting for impact.
I don’t confirm it verbally. But I also don’t deny it.
Anya steps closer and touches my arm once, a brief contact that doesn’t attempt comfort so much as connection, the reminder that she’s here and she understands what’s coming.
“You’ll handle it,” she tells me.
“I will,” I confirm.
That’s the full exchange. Anything more would be self-indulgent, and we were never raised to indulge ourselves.
Anya nods once and turns to leave. She doesn’t ask for details or ask what she can do. She trusts that I’m already moving, and she knows that if I need her, I’ll call.
The door closes behind her a few minutes later, and the estate returns to its tight, guarded quiet. I step into my office and shut the door. The room is warm, lit by a desk lamp and the low glow of a fire that’s nearly down to embers. My phone is already in my hand before I sit.
I call Mikel. He answers on the second ring.
“Update,” I instruct.
“We have eyes on the exits,” he replies. “We have watchers on Arkady’s captains. No movement yet that looks like a victory lap.”
“And the warehouse?” I prompt.
“Quiet,” Mikel answers. “Too quiet. It feels staged as a decoy, or like a transfer point they’ve already cleared.”
I consider that, and the unease from earlier morphs into focus, not as certainty, but as a problem to solve.
“Begin tightening Arkady’s perimeter. Keep it invisible. I want pressure, not noise.”
“Understood,pakhan,” Mikel replies.
I end the call and sit back, my hands resting on the edge of the desk, listening to the quiet of the estate and the distant movement of guards in the corridor outside.
Rowan is out there, awake or unconscious, restrained or fighting, and she’s in a situation that was designed for her body to be movable.
My mind keeps returning to one detail Leo gave me, the simplest line in the chaos.
She fought.
I stare at the dark window beyond my desk, the winter night sitting just beyond the glass, and I don’t make promises out loud because promises don’t find people. And I don’t waste time on vows. Instead, I begin setting a plan in motion.
3
ROWAN
The office is smaller than the warehouse and several degrees warmer. The cold has already worked its way deep into my spine and shoulders, so the change feels gradual rather than immediate.
The walls are painted a tired beige that has yellowed along the seams, and a metal desk sits flush against one wall beneath a narrow window that has been painted shut from the outside, the brush strokes still visible where someone decided fresh air wasn’t necessary. Frosted glass fills the upper half of the door, turning shadows into blurred shapes, and a deadbolt has been thrown from the other side with a solid metal click that leaves no doubt we’re locked in.
Lila stands in the center of the room, turning slowly as if searching for exits that don’t exist, her breathing still uneven from being dragged down the corridor. Then she comes toward me with the focus she usually reserves for a patient who insists they’re fine while actively bleeding.
“Talk to me,” she says quietly, her eyes moving over my face, and then my abdomen, before returning again.
