Page 124 of Cruel Submission

The house where I once stood outside a door and listened to him abuse a woman who looked exactly like the one now carrying my daughter.

My brain assembles the rest in microseconds. Father’s people took Mirabel from the shopping center. Professional extraction—a team, probably three or four, using the crowd as cover. They brought her to him. And he looked at her face—at Debra’s face—and saw not Mirabel McLeod, not the mother of his grandchild, but his escaped property.

He thinks she’s Debra.

He thinks that I’ve been keeping her for myself. That the pregnancy is the result of—

Bozhe moi.

Sweat breaks cold at my temple. Not rage. Fear. The kind that comes from knowing that the person you love and the child she’s carrying are in the hands of a man who doesn’t see women as human.

A man who kept Debra in a cellar and called her Princess while he broke her.

A man who will look at Mirabel’s pregnant belly and see betrayal. Defiance. A possession that dared to breed without permission.

“Arkady?” Debra’s voice, small and distant on the speaker. “Arkady, what’s happening? Where is she?”

“She’s at Gavriil’s house.” The words come out expressionless. “He has her. And he thinks she’s you.”

Debra makes a sound of distress. I hear her breathing grow faster.

Yanis takes the phone. “Talk to me,” my brother says. All business now.

“Mobilize everyone. Stefan, the twins, Yuri, Mikhail—everyone. Full kit. I want them at Gavriil’s perimeter in thirty minutes.”

“Arkady, are you ready to—?”

“She’s pregnant, Yanis.” My voice cracks. “Pregnant, and our father thinks she’s the woman he kept as a sex slave. He doesn’t know she’s carrying his grandchild. He doesn’t know she’s mine.”

The implications hang between us.

“I’m fifteen minutes out,” I say. “I know the property. I know the rotations, the blind spots, the access points. I’ll go in quiet, ahead of the team. Same approach as last time—eastern wall, service entrance.”

“I’m not going to change your mind about this, am I?” He exhales.

“No.” I check the rearview. “Get Debra somewhere safe. Take her back to Ashwater. Put her in the Left Wing and lock it down. She doesn’t need to hear about what might be happening inside that house.”

“She’ll want to—”

“I don’t care what she wants. I care that she’s alive and away from the blast radius when I tear that place apart.”

“Blyad.” Yanis exhales. “Be careful, bratok. He’ll have doubled security since we hit the underground complex.”

I consider this for less than half a second. “Doesn’t matter. I’m getting her out. Both of them. Sara and Mirabel.”

I end the call, then dial Stefan.

He picks up immediately. “Boss.”

“Code Blackout. Gavriil’s primary residence. Mirabel’s there.”

No hesitation. No questions. I hear the distinct sound of a weapons cabinet opening—the heavy metal catch, the pneumatic hiss of the seal releasing.

“Team?”

“Full roster. Yanis is coordinating logistics. I’m going in ahead—solo entry, eastern approach.” I weave through a stream of cars. “I need real-time comms, thermal overlay of the house interior, and Mikhail on the security feeds. Kill the cameras when I give the word.”

“Thermal will take ten minutes to get airborne.”