Chapter 21 – Lev
I sat against the headboard, my bruises having faded to dull yellows and greens that spoke of healing rather than fresh damage.
The hospital bed had been traded for our own mattress twelve hours ago, and the difference was like night and day.
Here, in our space, with Anya curled beside me, her cheek resting on my bare chest, I could almost pretend the world outside didn’t exist.
Her fingers traced gentle patterns over my heart, following scars both old and new. The motion was hypnotic, soothing in a way I didn’t know I needed.
“Do you think I’d be a good dad?” The question slipped out before I could stop it, vulnerability bleeding through despite my best efforts to keep it contained.
She lifted her head, hazel eyes meeting mine with a certainty that took my breath away. “You’d be a great dad.”
The simple conviction in her voice made something tight in my chest loosen. “My father wasn’t exactly a role model for healthy parenting.”
“Your father loved you.” Her voice was soft but firm. “He made impossible choices in an impossible world. He sent Trev and your mother away to keep them safe, lived apart from half his family to protect both his sons. That’s not failure—that’s sacrifice.”
I thought about Mike Antonov, about the man who had raised me in shadows and violence but always made sure I understood the difference between necessary brutality and senseless cruelty. Who taught me that some things were worth dying for, but more importantly, worth living for.
“He used to take me fishing,” I said, surprising myself with the memory. “Before everything went to hell. Before Taras burned down our house and killed my family. We’d drive out to this lake about an hour north of the city. He’d tell me stories about his father, about the old country.”
Anya’s hand stilled on my chest. “What kind of stories?”
“Honor. Loyalty. The idea that a man’s word was worth more than gold.” I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Seems naive now, considering what we’ve become.”
“Does it?” She shifted, propping herself up on one elbow. “You’ve kept every promise you’ve made to me. You came back when I thought you were dead. You’re here now, planning to tear the world apart to save Sasha.”
She was right, of course. The code my dad had taught me might be wrapped in violence and shadow, but at its core, it was about protecting the people who mattered. About keeping faith with those who trusted you to come back.
“This baby,” I said, my hand moving to rest over her still-flat stomach. “I want them to have more than I did. More choices. A safer world.”
“They will.” Her fingers found mine, intertwining in a gesture that felt like a promise. “We’ll make sure of it.”
We talked for another hour about names and nurseries and the impossibility of bringing new life into our dangerous world. She told me about her next doctor’s appointment, scheduled for Thursday, if we could manage to keep everyone alive that long.
“I can’t wait for the next appointment,” I said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. The idea of seeing our child on a sonogram, of making this miracle real and tangible, filled me with an anticipation I’d never experienced.
But even as we planned for the future, the present intruded. Somewhere, Sasha was being held by people who saw her as nothing more than a bargaining chip. And in our interrogation facility, Mila Kozak sat chained to a chair, holding the key to finding her.
I couldn’t leave Trev alone with that for much longer.
“I have to go,” I told Anya, already moving to stand despite my body’s protests.
“Lev—”
“I can’t leave Trev alone in this situation. Not when Sasha’s life depends on what we can get out of Mila.”
She nodded, understanding written across her features. This was the reality of our world—stolen moments of peace between storms of violence.
“Bring her home,” Anya said as I dressed. “Whatever it takes.”
***
The interrogation facility reeked of iron and old sweat, desperation and fear soaked into the concrete walls over decades of use. Dim lights flickered overhead, casting harsh shadows that danced across the figure shackled to the steel chair in the center of the room.
Mila Kozak was drenched in blood—some hers, some probably not. Her ethereal beauty was marred by split lips and bruised cheekbones, but her pale eyes burned with the kind of fanatical fervor that made my skin crawl.
Trev stood over her, and I’d never seen my twin look so much like our father in his darkest moments. Sleep and mercy had both abandoned him, leaving behind something primal and dangerous.
When I walked in, Mila’s voice rose in that same chant I’d been hearing reports about: “Saint Michael, defender of the faithful, slayer of evil….”
The words grated under my skin like nails on glass. This wasn’t confession or prayer—it was programming. Petro had turned his own daughter into a weapon wrapped in religious fanaticism.
“Trev.” I kept my voice level, professional. “Take a break.”
He looked up at me, and for a moment I saw the brother I’d lost at ten years old—scared, angry, desperate to make the pain stop. But this wasn’t childhood trauma. This was about Sasha, about the woman who’d managed to crack open his carefully constructed walls.
Mila laughed, the sound sharp and broken. “You’ll never find her in time. Saint Michael leads souls into light and guards them from the pit.”
More religious rhetoric. More of Petro’s poison dressed up as divine mandate.
“We’ll see about that,” I said, then turned to Trev. “Come on. Let’s let her pray in peace for a while.”
I shut the door behind us, sealing Mila in with her chants and her certainty. In the observation room next door, Anya waited with Drew and Maxim, her face pale but determined.
“She only talked to Sasha through Mila’s phone,” Anya said as soon as she saw me. “I found it weird that Sasha never wanted to do video calls anymore. Always had some excuse.”
Of course. Mila had been playing both sides, feeding Anya just enough contact to keep suspicion at bay while keeping Sasha isolated and under control.
“She destroyed her phone after planning to kill you,” Drew added, fingers flying over his laptop keyboard. “But I might have something.”
He turned the screen toward us, showing a complex map overlaid with data points and signal traces.
“Every time Mila contacted Sasha, the signal pinged from her phone to nearby cell towers. If the carriers logged her IMEI number, I can access tower logs through a backdoor into their raw traffic data. Get a location history before she dumped the phone.”
Trev’s jaw tightened. “That’s illegal.”
Drew shot him a look that could cut glass. “So is torture. Your point?”
The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken arguments about morality and necessity. But this wasn’t a philosophy class, and Sasha didn’t have time for us to debate ethics.
“Do it,” I said.
Drew’s fingers resumed their dance across the keyboard, code and data streaming across the screen faster than I could follow. Minutes passed like hours, each second another moment Sasha spent in whatever hell Petro had created for her.
“Got something,” Drew announced, his voice tight with concentration. “One odd ping. Didn’t originate from Chicago.”
A new red dot appeared on the map, isolated in what looked like the middle of nowhere, southwest of Joliet. Drew zoomed in, satellite imagery resolving into aerial shots of dense woodland broken by a single structure.
“Half-burnt church,” he said, highlighting the building. “Used to be a Roman Catholic mission. Abandoned for the past fifteen years.”
My blood ran cold. A church. Of course, Petro would choose a church. In his twisted mind, he wasn’t just a criminal—he was a holy warrior, and every murder was a sacrament.
“Perfect place to keep a hostage,” Maxim observed grimly. “Isolated, defensible, and psychologically significant for someone who thinks he’s doing God’s work.”
The pieces clicked into place with sickening clarity. Petro hasn’t just been teaching Mila to kill—he’s been indoctrinating her into his particular brand of religious fanaticism. Every death in the name of Saint Michael, every prayer whispered over spilled blood.
“What about Mila?” Drew asked, nodding toward the interrogation room where our prisoner continued her endless chanting.
Trev’s face hardened into something that would make our father proud. “Let her keep praying. She’s going to need it.”
The plan formed quickly, efficiently. Drew would coordinate surveillance and technical support. Maxim would handle logistics and backup. Trev and I would go in first, hard and fast, before Petro could react to Mila’s capture.
But as we prepared to leave, as weapons were checked and routes planned, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were walking into something larger than a simple rescue operation.
Petro wasn’t just holding Sasha as leverage—he was making a statement.
Proving that he could reach into our lives, take the people we cared about, and force us to dance to his tune.
The church wasn’t just a hiding place. It was a trap.
And we were going to walk right into it because the alternative—leaving Sasha to whatever horrors Petro had planned—wasn’t an option.
“How do you want to play this?” Trev asked as we geared up.
I thought about Anya, about the child growing inside her, about the future we were trying to build from the ashes of our violent past. I thought about Sasha, sweet and loyal and completely innocent of the sins that marked the rest of us.
“Hard and fast,” I decided. “No negotiation, no mercy. We get Sasha, and we end this.”
Because some wars didn’t end with treaties or ceasefires. Some wars only ended when one side stopped breathing.
And I was done being on the defensive.
It was time to remind Petro Kozak exactly what happened when you threatened an Antonov’s family.