The door behind me opens.
I turn.
Two guards come through it, and between them—hands bound, jaw set, a cut above his eye still fresh—is Timur.
The room goes very quiet.
Timur’s eyes find mine and hold them. His face has taken serious damage—I can see that even in the low light. But he’s upright, jaw set, and the look he gives me carries everything we can’t say out loud.
Blyad.
Sophia is pregnant. He needs to walk out of here.
“This fucker took out three of my best men outside.” Aslanov’s voice has shed its pleasantness. “After you gave me your word you’d come alone.” He lets that sit for a moment. “You’re still the same, Nikolai. A lying piece of shit. You haven’t changed at all.”
I stay quiet.
He remains still for a moment, then moves back toward the center of the room, unhurried, and turns to face me fully. The performance is over. What’s underneath it is quieter and considerably more dangerous.
“Give me one good reason to let your daughter go.”
The room holds still around the question.
I have nothing to offer him that he wants. No leverage, no negotiation, no argument he hasn’t already anticipated. He’s had four years to prepare for this confrontation and I’ve had twenty-four hours. He knows that. The question isn’t a genuine inquiry—it’s a demonstration. He wants me to stand here and find nothing, and understand what that means.
I keep my eyes on him.
Somewhere behind Aslanov, Hannah is watching me. I don’t look at her. Looking at her right now is the one thing I can’t afford. Not when my fucking heart is breaking for her. Not when we’re this spectacularly fucked.
Everything is riding on Popov now.
Either he moves when I need him to, or he doesn’t—and I’ll find out which one it is when it happens.
I hold Aslanov’s gaze and wait for the final blow.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nikolai
I look at Hannah.
My sweet girl.
The tape is still across her mouth, the overhead light washing her out. She’s watching me with eyes that are trying very hard to be brave and not quite managing it, and the effort of that—a four-year-old working that hard to hold herself together in a room full of armed men—does something to me I don’t have room to feel right now.
I look away before it shows.
My father was many things, most of them worth forgetting. But he knew how to survive rooms like this one, and his logic was simple: you fight for what you want or you die trying. And if you have a plan B, you use it before they take it from you.
Time for plan B.
“That’s enough stalling, Niko.” Aslanov’s voice has shed the last of its performance. Just the flat patience of a man who has already decided how this ends and is waiting for the formality to catch up. “Any last words?”
I look him in the eye. “You have a light?”
“A what?” Aslanov hitches a brow.
I don’t answer. I slowly reach into my pocket instead.
