Third door. I put my shoulder into it, and the lock gives, and I’m inside.
The room is larger than the others. Bare bulb overhead. Crates along one wall. And in the far corner, Anna is on the floor with both twins pressed behind her, her body angled between them and the room, her bound hands raised, her chin up, her eyes finding me the instant the door opens with an expression I’ve never seen on her face before.
Not relief. Something past relief. Something that looks like a person who told themselves a thing was true and has just been proven right.
Viktor is against the wall. Svetlana beside him, her hand at his side, her face bruised. Both of them are alive. Viktor’s color is wrong, and he’s not fully conscious, but he’s breathing.
Mila sees me and makes a sound that I will hear for the rest of my life.
I cross the room and drop to my knees, and she hits me hard enough to rock me back on my heels. I catch her. Alexei comes from the other side, both arms around my neck, his face pressed against my jaw, and I hold them both against my chest and look over their heads at Anna.
She’s looking back at me. Wrists still bound. A bruise forming along her left cheekbone. Her mouth pressed into a line that’s holding more than I can name.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
“No.”
“The bruise.”
“I’m fine.”
I hold her eyes for one second. Then I look at Pavel appearing in the doorway behind me. “Get Dasha. Now. Viktor needs her immediately.”
Pavel is already on his phone with the medic, stepping back into the corridor.
I cut Anna’s zip tie with the knife from my belt. She flexes her wrists without looking at them. Her eyes go straight to her father.
My men come in and take positions. Two of them move to Viktor carefully, hands under his arms, supporting his weight without being asked. Svetlana stands and lets them work, her hand going briefly to her mouth before she pulls it back down.
“Can he be moved?” Anna asks.
“He has to be.”
She nods. Takes both twins by the hand and stands. Mila won’t let go of my jacket. I let her hold it, and we move toward the door and through the corridor and past everything in it and out into the night air.
Dasha meets us at the vehicles. She takes one look at Viktor and starts directing my men with sharp, quiet instructions. I watch them load him in and turn to find Anna standing at the vehicle door with the twins pressed against her sides.
She’s looking at me.
I held this building with fourteen men and worked through every room and put my shoulder into a locked door and crossed a room to get to her, and she’s standing here looking at me likeshe’s trying to figure out how to carry something she’s been holding wrong for a very long time.
Renat is still in the building.
I look at Pavel. He’s already reading my face.
“Northeast corner,” he says. “I’ll take three men.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Luca—”
“I’ll do it.”
I look at Anna once more. She heard all of it. She knows exactly where I’m going. She doesn’t say don’t. She doesn’t say anything. Just holds my gaze for a moment and then turns and puts the twins in the vehicle.
I go back inside.
When I come out four minutes later, the building is quiet, and Pavel is at the vehicles, and I get into the front car without stopping.
