Sergei’s mouth twitches.
“He was hoping you would tell him,” I say quietly.
Her forehead creases. “He looks like a Grisha,” she decides and takes the bear and his hand together. Sergei closes his eyes in a smile.
We move like a drill we never practiced. Vera passes Nadia to me and vanishes down the hall to grab the go bag I made her keep by the locked closet—documents, cash, meds, a pistol wrapped in a sweater. Sergei’s men fan out around the yard, two at the tree line, two checking the outbuildings. One ducks under the frontstep, checking an old crawlspace I showed them on a grainy diagram.
I sit with my daughter and watch her fingers stroke Grisha’s yarn ear, wondering how to explain to a four-year-old that monsters prefer black boxes to fairy tales.
By the time Vera reappears with the bag, Sergei is already at the gate, crouched, fingers brushing the metal latch. I shift Nadia to my hip and follow, heart pounding so hard it makes my vision fuzzy around the edges. “Do you see it?” I ask.
He doesn’t look up. “Tell me what you see.”
A test. I swallow and lean closer. The underside of the latch has a new bump, a dot where there should be smooth steel. Barely the size of a pea. The kind of thing I notice because I live in this world.
“Camera,” I say. “Wireless. Pinhole. Someone wanted eyes on the gate.”
Sergei nods once. “Sharp,” he says through pursed lips. He slides a tool from his pocket, pries the device free, and drops it into a lead pouch one of the men holds open.
“Tracks,” he says.
I scan the snow beyond the fence. Vera’s tire marks are narrow, curves I know. Another set lies beside them, slightly wider, cutting in from the lane and stopping just short of the gate before backing out. My stomach lurches. I pull Nadia tighter against me.
“He was here,” I whisper. “He watched my daughter through the fence.”
We don’t linger. Nadia rides in the lead SUV between Vera and me, Grisha crushed to her chest. Sergei leaves four men to clear the cottage and watch the road, then swings into the driver’s seat and takes us down the lane. Birches flash in the headlights, their branches leaning in as if choosing who goes through. My pulse beats in my throat. Every curve feels like a crosshair tightening.
We’re almost at the road when a white van slews sideways across the lane and stops. Above the trees, a drone hovers, lens catching, and Sergei yanks my head down as a shot cracks the windshield.
8
SERGEI
The first bullet takes the sky apart.
One second, the lane is only birch trees and snow. The next, a white panel van lurches across the road, and the glass above my head shivers into fractured frost.
Instead of braking, I drive straight into it. Metal slams metal. Nadia screams once in the back. Vera folds over her like a shield. Raina’s palm hits the dashboard, her breath catching hard in her throat. The van rocks, its tires shrieking against the ice.
“Smoke,” I say into the radio. “Pattern three. Vladislav, front. Now.”
His reply is immediate. “Understood,” he says, voice steady as stone. He has been in more ambushes than most men live years. Doors open behind us. My men roll canisters low. They hiss under the van, white plumes blooming fast. The lane disappears in seconds, swallowed whole.
“Down,” I tell the women, already pushing my door open. Raina drops flat with Nadia curled tight against her chest. Vera covers them both.
Another round cracks through the windshield, higher this time, spraying glass dust. The angle is wrong. That came from the trees.
I drop behind the open door, pistol in my hand, snow biting through my socks. The air is sharp with exhaust and the metallic tang of a fired round. Somewhere above, a drone buzzes, its lens searching, hunting for angles.
“High right,” Vladislav says over the radio. “Tree line. Two shooters at least.”
I trust his eyes. He learned to count barrels in Chechnya.
“Hold the flank,” I tell him. “No one gets past the van.”
I catch a glimpse of Vladislav through the smoke, a hulking shape moving with surprising speed, rifle up, another man tight on his shoulder. He should be at home counting money and giving orders by now, but he still likes to work with his hands.
Shots stutter from the birches. My men answer. Short bursts, not panic fire. Bark explodes. Something heavy falls. The drone dips lower, trying to see through the haze. It’s a mistake. Vladislav tracks the sound, lifts, and one clean shot sends it flailing into the trees, rotors snapping.
