The warehouse complex sits at the end of a road that runs alongside the river. During the day, it looks exactly like what it’s supposed to be. Trucks moving in and out, workers in coveralls, the smell of diesel and river water. I park on the street and walk to the entrance Renat specified. A side door set into the main building, away from the loading bays.
I push it open and step inside.
The space beyond is dim. Crates stacked along one wall. A table with chairs in the center. Three men standing, not sitting, and none of them looks like anyone who handles partnership discussions.
Renat is there. I recognize the face from the description I’d been given. He’s younger than I expected, thirties, with the particular stillness of someone who is very comfortable in rooms that other people are afraid of.
He smiles when he sees me. “Mrs. Volkov,” he says. “We’ve been hoping you’d come to us.”
Behind me, the door clicks shut.
I turn. A fourth man is standing against it. Not blocking it casually. Blocking it deliberately.
The smile on Renat’s face doesn’t reach anywhere near his eyes.
And I understand, with a clarity that arrives too late to be useful, that I didn’t receive a callback and a time and an address because they wanted to negotiate.
I received these things because I had handed them exactly what they needed.
A way in.
33
LUCA
My phone ringsat two fifteen in the afternoon.
It’s Semyon, one of the two men Pavel has stationed near Viktor’s house. He’s been on rotation there for six days, and in six days, he’s called me exactly once, to report a loose gate latch that needed securing. Semyon is not a man who calls unnecessarily.
I pick up on the first ring.
“She left,” he says. “Alone. No twins. Ten minutes ago. She told her mother she was running errands and got into a car service heading east.”
East. The eastern district. Where the Malikov network operates. Where Sorokin Freight has its logistics office.
I’m already standing. “Which route?”
“River road. She’s heading toward the warehouse district.”
I’m calling Pavel on another phone before Semyon even finishes his sentence. I tell him, “Anna left Viktor’s house alone. Eastern district, River Road. Get a car to that route right now.”
Pavel doesn’t ask questions. I hear him moving. “How long ago?”
“Ten minutes. She has a head start.”
“I can have someone at the river road junction in eight minutes.”
“Make it five.”
I grab my jacket and move toward the door. Pavel calls back in three minutes. “I have a man at the junction. No sign of her vehicle yet. She might have taken the alternate route through the industrial corridor.”
“Check it.”
I get into my car with the driver already pulling around. Two of my men get into the vehicle behind us without being told. We move out through the estate gates and I sit in the back with my phone and think about what Anna knows and what she thinks she can do with it.
She found the Sorokin Freight name. Gennady told her it’s a Malikov front. Her father’s associate, Borin, told Viktor they’ve been watching the house. Anna put those two things together and decided she could walk into a room and use my name like a weapon.
She has no idea that my name is exactly why they’ve been watching that house.
