“Yaromir please,” Viktor says.
“The Volkov line ends tonight,” I say. “And if necessary, so do I.”
At sunset, I stop hitting the edges. There’s nothing useful left to cut.
The men gather in the north district after dark.
No headlights in the last mile. No loud engines. No careless movement. Cars are left behind a row of dead trees and abandoned estate walls. The old Volkov house sits beyond the black iron gates, lit from the inside like a museum of every lie my father ever told.
I know that house too well. The main gate. The long drive. The east garage. The terrace where Galina hosts summer dinners. The upper balcony outside Dmitri’s old room. The west wing where my father keeps his office and the portraits of legitimate men.
There are guards on the roof. Two at the front gate. Four near the garage. Movement behind the second-floor windows.
Kirill has pulled everyone inward. He thinks the house is a fortress.
I stand behind the tree line with Alexei and twenty-six men. There are more farther out, holding roads and exits, but this group is mine. The ones going in.
I check my gun.
Then I reach into my pocket and touch Anya’s ring.
Still there. Cold. Small. The only part of her I have.
Alexei comes up beside me. “You want Dmitri alive?”
“For a little while.”
“And Kirill?”
I look at the house. “I want him to see me come through the door.”
Alexei nods.
A radio crackles softly.
One of the men says, “West team in position.”
Another: “South wall clear.”
I wait for Viktor’s voice. It doesn’t come.
I turn. “Where is Viktor?”
Alexei looks around. “He was with the south team.”
“No. He was supposed to check in.”
I call him. No answer.
I call again. Nothing.
A thin line of unease cuts through the cold in me. Viktor doesn’t miss check-ins. Not unless he’s dead, taken, or choosing silence for a reason.
“Find him,” I tell Alexei.
“With who?”
The question is fair. Every man is already placed. Every second we wait gives Kirill more time to move Dmitri, more time to prepare, more time to turn the house into a killing field.
