“Sky clear,” he says.
The smoke is thinning now. I move around the SUV’s front corner, gun leading. The van’s driver door hangs open. No one’s inside. Two bodies lie on the road in front of it, black clothes against white. Kirill and Igor appear at my side, breathing hard.
“Cover,” I tell them and walk toward the bodies.
One man lies face down, blood seeping from under his ribs, staining the snow dark. The other is on his back, eyes open to the pale strip of sky. The snow caught in his lashes is already melting. On his sleeve is a patch I know too well. Yellow and black. Baranov warehouse crew. A man who should never have stood in my way. The Courier used my own men to deliver a message.
I crouch, feel in his pockets. No wallet, no ID. Burn scars on his fingertips. I pull out a cheap burner phone, identical to the one left in the kitchen box. Vladislav joins me, boots leaving deep prints.
“I know this one,” he says. “Pavel. Koltso warehouse. Three years on payroll.” He exhales, the air turning ice. “He was no trouble. I vouched for him.” There’s something dangerous and quiet under his words, pride tainted with insult.
I turn the phone on. One message thread, one contact, no name. At the top, a single text glows.
Second delivery acknowledged.
The Courier has his own logistics now. He speaks our language and uses my men like expendable parts because he’s homegrown. “Strip the patch,” I tell Vladislav. “Bag the phone. We clean this road and disappear before a local starts to ask questions.”
“I will finish it,” he says. “You take them out of here.”
He looks past me at the SUV, at the shadow of Nadia’s small head against the window. His eyes soften, then harden again. “You chose the right lane,” he adds quietly.
“There was only one lane,” I say.
He snorts. “You know what I mean.”
I stand, holster my pistol, and go back to the car. Inside, Raina has Nadia’s face cupped in her hands, checking for blood that isn’t there. Vera watches the tree line, jaw tight, hand near the gun at her hip. “We’re done,” I say. “For now.”
“For now?” Raina echoes.
“He sent us a progress report,” I answer. “That’s all.”
I slide behind the wheel. The engine complains, then settles. In the mirror, Vladislav is already directing men, boots crunching, bodies being dragged out of sight. We pull away, leaving the van scarred and steaming in the lane like someone else’s accident.
I don’t take the direct road back to the mansion. The Courier has already proven he knows my main routes. Instead, I cut across the ring road, through side streets, under an overpass where graffiti coats old concrete like a second skin, off the obvious path, just like Vladislav said.
I call ahead once, briefly, to a number that does not exist in any of my usual ledgers. “Prepare seven-G,” I say. “Full stock, full sweep. Thirty minutes.”
A man’s voice answers with a simple, “Da.”
The building—another apartment I own in the city—sits near the river on a narrow street lined with bare trees and expensive cars. Glass and concrete, clean lines, a concierge behind smoked glass pretending not to see anything worth money. Inside or out.
We roll into the underground garage. Metal doors lift slowly, then close fast once we’re inside. Cameras watch, but they report to me, not to the building’s management.
We swap vehicles in the shadow of a pillar, my men moving in a tight, silent rhythm. New plates, new profiles. The city swallows us the second we step out of the old SUV. If anyone followed from the country, they would lose us in this concrete maze.
I get the women inside. In the private elevator, Nadia clings to Grisha the bear and to Raina’s sweater. Her eyes look too big in her small face. The adrenaline is fading. The tremor in her fingers isn’t. “You did well,” I tell her.
She peeks up at me. “I was scared.”
“So was everyone else,” I say. “But you handled it like a champ.”
The elevator opens directly into the apartment, the quiet, high-ceilinged space money can buy when it wants to blend in. Dark parquet, pale walls, a kitchen that has never seen a real meal. Floor-to-ceiling windows show the city from twenty floors up, the river cutting through like a strip of dull steel. Andrei, Kirill’s cousin, waits near the island, bug sweeper in hand. He nods once.
“Clean,” he says. “Pipes, outlets, vents. Double-checked,” he adds, squaring his shoulders.
“Good,” I say. “Take your positions. I want two men stationed at the elevator and one at the stairwell door. You will rotate in groups of three so no one loses focus. Don't make a single call out unless you see blood. Nothing else warrants interrupting me.”
“Sdelayu,Pakhan,” Andrei says softly, nodding once to the women before stepping into the elevator.
