Sergei leans closer. “Explain.”
Mikhail swallows hard. “The Courier contacted me months ago. He said he knew things about the syndicate. He only asked for access. Nothing else. He would bury me with your enemies if I didn’t cooperate.”
“So you cooperate,” Sergei says.
“I thought I could give him fragments. Nothing that would touch you.”
“You thought wrong,” Sergei says quietly.
Mikhail breaks then—voice cracking, shoulders shaking. “He said he only wanted to test your walls.” His breath hitches. “I didn’t know about the girl.”
Sergei goes still. This stillness is always the worst kind. “Where is he now?” Sergei asks.
Mikhail’s voice lowers to a tremor. “He uses a bathhouse parking cellar near the Garden Ring. It’s where he meets handlers.”
Sergei cuffs him with a single smooth motion, pulling his arms behind his back. “For later,” he says.
Mikhail sobs into the tile.
Sergei steps toward me, voice quieter. “Is she safe?”
“She knows the game,” I say. “She’s silent.”
He breathes out once, controlled. I stand tall, every nerve still burning from the blackout, but clear-headed. Now that the truth sits in the open—Mikhail’s betrayal, the Courier’s new pattern, the danger homing in—a strange steadiness drops through me. Purpose. I walk back to where Nadia is, knowing full well I have to go with Sergei. The Courier won’t stop, not unless we end him together.
“Mama?” she whispers.
“I’m here.” I kneel and press a kiss to her hair. “I’ll be back by morning. You stay with the bear, and Vera will stay with you. Papa comes with me.”
The word catches in my throat, but my voice holds steady when I look into her face. Nadia studies me the way only she can, searching for the tiny flicker she always finds. I keep it buried,smooth as glass. “Mama goes with Papa,” she whispers, eyes round in the dim light. “To… fix the bad man?”
I smooth her hair once. “Yes,” I say softly. “We’re going to fix a problem. Then we’ll come back to you.”
She nods, accepting it, her fist loosening against mine.
“Good,” I say, pressing my knuckles to her small hand.
She curls her fingers into a fist and bumps mine back, our gesture.
“Good,” she whispers.
Sergei follows and plants a kiss on Nadia’s forehead. She holds him tightly for a second and then eases herself away and into Vera’s arms. Before my heart wins over my brain, I step outside, Sergei behind me. He reaches into his inner coat pocket and draws out a small pistol, matte black and perfectly balanced. He offers it to me grip-first. “Take it,” he says.
My throat tightens. He never armed me before my exile. This means something else now. A place closer to the fire. The lean team. The ones he trusts to step into the dark with him. I curl my fingers around the gun, the cold metal warming in my hand. Familiar weight. Familiar promise.
His eyes are unreadable in the low light, but his voice is steady when he speaks. “We go now to the bathhouse.”
12
SERGEI
Ileave Nadia in the safe room and lock the door myself. Vera sits on the couch with the blanket over her legs and the bear sitting beside her. Nadia is between her and the wall, small shoulders tight, eyes steady on mine. I touch her hair once, then turn away before I start to think too long.
Mikhail is tied to a steel chair in the storage room off the hall. Plastic cuffs on his wrists, another set on his ankles, tape over his mouth. Two of my men stand on either side of him, rifles on their shoulders, eyes clear. I check every knot, every cuff, every angle of the camera that watches the room.
“If he moves more than he should, you break his arm,” I tell the nearer guard. “If he gets free, you shoot his leg first. If anyone tries to take him out of this room, you shoot to kill. No one moves him except me.”
“Understood, Pakhan,” the man says.
