The apartment door is open. The living room lamps are on low. The air smells like cocoa, fabric softener, and a faint trace of blood from Vera’s body that we moved earlier to the cold room.
“Nadia first,” I say.
We go straight to her room. I push the door in with my fingertips and step inside.
Nadia lies on her side under the blanket, tiny fists tucked near her chest. Her lips are parted. Her breathing is slow and deep. It isn’t the sharp, restless sleep she has after nightmares. It’s heavy and still. Her bear is pressed against her chest.
Anastasia sits in the chair beside the bed. Her hands are on her knees. Her eyes are on Nadia’s face. When she hears my step, she looks up.
“She cried until her throat hurt,” she says in a low voice. “She asked for Vera and for Raina and for you. Then she drank her cocoa and finally settled. She fell asleep fast. It worried me, but I thought she just ran out of strength.”
Her voice shakes on the last words. She takes a breath and holds on to her control.
I move around the bed and touch Nadia’s hair. It’s warm and damp from earlier tears. Her eyelids don’t flutter. The cocoa mug on the bedside table is almost empty. Another mug sits on the dresser with a trace of chocolate at the rim.
“Where is Raina?” I ask.
Anastasia blinks as if I slapped her. The color runs out of her face.
“She was right here,” she says. “She sat in this chair. She drank her cocoa. She told Nadia she’d stay until she fell asleep. I only left to get a clean cloth and more water. I was gone for one minute. When I came back, the chair was empty.”
“Did you hear anything?” I ask. “A door, a struggle, a voice.”
“Nothing,” she answers. Tears stand in her eyes now. She doesn’t let them fall. “I would’ve heard her fight. I know how she moves. I heard nothing. I would never let anyone take her. I swear, Sergei. I would never betray you. I would throw myself in front of her first.”
She grips the edge of the chair until her knuckles pale. Her whole body shakes, not with guilt, but with a kind of raw fear.
I study the room. The sheets are smooth except for Nadia’s small imprint. The curtain is still. The window latch is secure. The closet door is closed the way Raina always leaves it when Nadia is inside. There’s no sign of a struggle. No knocked-over lamp. No broken glass. No scuff on the floor.
My gut says one thing.
Someone came prepared. Someone knew exactly how to move in this house. Someone counted on my trust in my own walls. Someone counted on the fact that Raina would not expect an attack in the room where she tucks our child in.
“We lock the building down,” I say.
I pull the blanket up to Nadia’s chin and tuck it in. I press a kiss to her forehead, hold there for a second, and listen. Her breathing stays slow and steady.
Anastasia watches me. Her eyes are bright with tears she still refuses to let fall.
“I won’t leave her,” she says. “You can put a gun in my hand. You can lock the door. I will sit here all night.”
“I know,” I answer. I mean it. If she’s playing me, she’s the best liar I’ve seen in years. “You stay with her. You don’t open this door for anyone but me. You hear my voice, not a radio call, not a code. Only me.”
She nods hard. “Yes.”
I step into the hall and signal Kirill. My voice carries through the apartment and into the net.
“Full lockdown,” I say. “No one leaves this floor. No one uses the stairwell alone. I want two men at each access point and two more inside the service corridors. You search every room, every shaft, every pipe chase. You check the camera feeds from the moment we left this apartment. The Courier got past us. I want to know how.”
My men move fast. Boots hit the floor in a tight rhythm. Heads turn, guns rise, commands crack into radios. Vlad appears at the end of the hall, face set.
“We already started a sweep when the stairwell report came,” he says. “We found nothing on the lower levels yet. No unknowns in the lobby. No strange vehicles at the garage entrance. If someone took her, they knew where the blind spots are.”
“Which is the same as saying someone fed them our map,” I answer.
I don’t need to say Mikhail’s name. It sits between us like a stone.
I send Vlad to lead the outer sweep with three men. Kirill takes the upper floors. I take the heart of the problem.
