Page 127 of Cruel Obsession

Is she in another room?

Another property?

Did he already—?

Pizdets!

I can’t think like that. Can’t let my mind go there.

“Get them out,” I order. Command voice. The one that makes men twice my age follow without hesitation. “All of them. The buses are waiting.”

Yuri hesitates, glancing at the door we came through. “What about the north wing? We haven’t—”

“I said move them,” I cut him off. My gaze locks with his, and he immediately lowers his eyes. Submission. Acknowledgment. “Now, Yuri.”

“Da, pakhan.” He nods quickly, turning to the girls with a softer expression. “Come on. You’re safe now. We’re getting you out.”

Some of the girls don’t move. Can’t move. They’ve been conditioned too long to trust promises of safety.

Stefan stands, Julia still pressed against his side. He addresses the room, his voice gentle despite his tears. “I’m Stefan. This is Arkady and Yuri. We’re taking you somewhere safe. Somewhere with food, beds, doctors. No one will hurt you. I swear on my daughter’s life.”

That gets through. Slowly, hesitantly, the girls begin to move.

We search the rest of the cellar. Room after room. Corridor after corridor. The maze extends further than I’d imagined. My father’s stinking underground empire. How many girls has he already moved through here? How many lives has he sold while I was too focused on my own businesses to notice?

You knew,a voice whispers in my head.

You knew what he was.

You just didn’t want to see how bad it had gotten.

We find twenty-eight girls total in the cellar. Twenty-eight lives my father planned to sell like cattle.

I make mental notes of every detail as we move through the space—the layout, the supplies, the evidence of systematic abuse. Everything can be used against him. Documentation for the FBI contacts Mikhail has been cultivating. Proof of what Gavriil Laurov really is.

The old piece of shit won’t walk away from this. Not this time.

The girls move like ghosts as we guide them through the maze and up into the night air. Some blink at the moonlight as if they’ve forgotten the sky exists. Others stare straight ahead, numb with shock. Survival mode. Just survive the next moment.

As we load the last girl onto a bus, Stefan approaches me. His composure has returned, but his eyes remain red-rimmed. Julia is on the first bus, wrapped in a blanket Yuri provided, Niki beside her. They’re holding hands like they’re afraid to let go.

“Everything is set,” he reports, falling back into professional mode. It’s easier, I think. Easier to focus on logistics than to process what we’ve just seen. “Security, medical staff, counsellors—all in place. The doctor is standing by.”

I nod. “Good. Make sure they understand they’re safe.”

“What about your father?”

I watch the buses pull away, their headlights cutting through the darkness. Twenty-eight saved, but not the one who matters most to me.

“Let him wonder what happened to his merchandise,” I say. The word tastes foul.Merchandise.That’s what he called them in the texts Mikhail intercepted. Not girls. Not people. Merchandise. “For now, let the staff go back to the house, and you focus on the girls.”

Stefan hesitates. His eyes search my face, reading what I’m trying to hide. “Arkady… we’ll find her.”

He knows me too well—knows the chaos churning beneath my controlled exterior.

“Da.We have to,” I say, checking my phone for the hundredth time.

There’s a message from Yanis.