Kirill turns the headlights back on and guns the engine. The tires bite into wet asphalt. We take the first corner hard. The city opens in front of us.
“Call Vera,” Raina says.
I’m already dialing. The phone rings once, twice, three times. My teeth grind. The line goes blank without her answering.
13
RAINA
The elevator doors haven’t even opened all the way when I slip through the gap and run. My legs move faster than my thoughts. I don’t wait for Sergei or the others. I don’t wait for anything. The study comes into view and my chest tightens so hard I can barely breathe.
I drop to my knees in front of the shelves. My hands search for the panel, but my fingers keep slipping because all I can think is open, open, open. When I press the baseboard, the latch clicks. The shelf moves.
I pull it wide.
The warm light spills across the safe room. Everything looks the same. The couch. The little table. Nadia’s blanket on the floor.
Then I see the rug.
Vera is there. Facedown. Her body is too still.
My throat closes. I crawl to her and roll her over with both hands. Her skin is cold. There’s a wound on her neck. It’s smalland clean and final. I press my fingers to her wrist anyway, even though I already know there’s no pulse to find.
“No,” I whisper. My voice cracks in the middle. “Vera, no. You stayed with her. You stayed.”
Sergei kneels beside me. He doesn’t say anything. His jaw is tight, and something dark moves through his eyes. He looks at the room with a calmness that scares me more than the blood on the rug.
I stand too fast and almost fall. I grab the doorframe to stay upright.
“Nadia,” I say. “Where is she?”
No one answers, because no one can. The room is neat. Too neat. There is no struggle. No overturned book. No broken lamp. Nothing that shows fear or hands pulling her away.
Someone opened the safe room the way we do.
Someone who knew how.
I run out into the hall. I can barely hear my own footsteps over the sound of my heartbeat. I push open every door I pass. Closet. Guest room. Linen cabinet. Nothing. I hear Sergei call my name, but I can’t stop. My voice lifts before I can think.
“Nadia! Baby, answer me!”
My own echo hits me back. I keep running.
Sergei catches up and pulls me for a second. His hand is warm on my arm. “She isn’t gone unless we see proof,” he says. His voice is steady, but I feel tension building in him like heat under metal. “We search.”
I pull free and keep moving. There’s no breathing until I find her. My legs shake as I climb the stairs to the service level.
A guard runs toward us. He looks rattled.
“Pakhan,” he says to Sergei, then looks at me. “There’s blood on the stair rail. It’s small. Like a scrape.”
I reach the landing before anyone else. There’s a thin streak on the metal rail. Fresh. Bright. Just a slide of skin. And on the step below, I see something that makes my knees give.
Nadia’s small bear.
My hands shake as I pick it up. There’s no stain on the fur. Nothing torn. She held it tight before she dropped it.
“She didn’t fall,” I say. My chest hurts. “She scraped against the rail. She was carried. She tried to fight him.”
