Chapter 23 #2
Or someone else is using Boris's cipher to move product in his name, exploiting a key that still opens doors in the right places.
Either way, it means the network that tried to kill Ivan isn't dead.
It's just quieter.
And if it's quieter, it's because it's waiting.
The fog that has weighed on my chest for three months lifts in one violent sweep.
I can feel my blood moving again.
Ivan.
If this is happening and Ivan believes the threat is neutralized, he is exposed in ways he won't recognize until it's too late. He will be rebuilding his position, proving himself to Sergei, trying to earn back the right to come for me.
And someone—whether it's Boris or a shadow using his cipher—is moving beneath that work like a blade under cloth.
I can't ignore it.
But I can't report it, either.
Official channels here aren't channels; they're arteries. Anything that flows through them can be traced back to the source. Any alert I file will reach someone, and those hands may belong to the same person allowing Warehouse Seven to receive unregistered deliveries without triggering alarms.
If Sergei discovers I'm digging into areas I'm not assigned to watch, he won't exile me again.
He'll erase me.
Mercy is not a renewable resource.
But if I do nothing, Ivan might die.
That makes the decision easy.
I wait for Dmitri to take his break.
He slips into the back room with a thermos he pretends isn't vodka and a cigarette he claims he won't smoke inside. The rules of the building exist like all rules in this world: mere suggestions until someone with the right authority decides otherwise.
The moment he's gone, I act.
There's a communications room on the lower level filled with satellite phones, encrypted terminals, and emergency uplinks. I shouldn't have access; my clearance was stripped the day I arrived.
But the Kennel didn't teach me how to ask.
It taught me how to take.
The corridor is deserted. The cameras in this wing are old and sluggish, designed more for deterrence than scrutiny. The door to the comms room is locked—cheap hardware on a sturdy steel frame, a contradiction that arises when maintenance budgets are misappropriated.
The lock yields.
It always does if you know where to push.
Inside, the room hums softly with standby power. The lights are dim, and racks of equipment sit like slumbering animals. The satellite phone rests in its designated spot, cradled and charging, a red indicator blinking slowly.
I lift it.
For a moment, I simply hold it, my thumb hovering near the keypad, contemplating what it means to cross this line. Once I dial, there's no returning to a state of being stored away. There is only action, and action always carries consequences.
Ivan gave me this number in Chicago, late one night when neither of us could sleep.
"Just in case," he had said, as if the world weren't filled with cases.
I don't know if it still works.
I don't know if he'll answer.
I don't know if my call will trigger an alert somewhere and send a man with a gun racing down this corridor before I can get the warning out.
I dial anyway.
Static.
Silence.
The vast distance between Russia and Chicago stretches across a link that feels too fragile to convey anything human.
I start counting the seconds without realizing it. One. Two. Five. Ten.
I'm about to hang up when the line clicks.
A breath.
Then a voice I haven't heard in three months.
"Who is this?"
Ivan.
The sound of his voice hits me in the chest like a punch, stripping the air from the room.
I tighten my grip on the phone until my knuckles ache.
"It's me," I say, my voice rough and raw from disuse and the cold. "I found something."
Silence on the line—controlled, attentive.
"Boris is still active," I continue. "Or someone is using his cipher. Unregistered shipments are moving through Warehouse Seven. Old markings. Off-book logs dated three weeks ago. Your situation isn't clean."
A sharp inhale.
"Ivan—someone is protecting that pipeline. Whoever it is has access."
Another pause.
Then his voice returns, colder than I remember, yet unmistakably him.
"Maksim," he says. "You should not be calling this number."
"I know."
"If my father discovers—"
"I know." I interrupted him, sensing movement in the corridor outside—faint but real. We can't afford fear right now. "Listen. Sergei told you Boris was finished, but that's not true in practice, regardless of what it says on paper. Don't trust the silence; it's just a different kind of threat."
The line held.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
"I believe you," he said. "I've seen... inconsistencies. Accounts that should be dead are still breathing. People who should be gone are still moving. I couldn't prove it without revealing my hand."
"Then you know where to look," I replied. "Follow Warehouse Seven. Track the cipher. Find out who's keeping it alive."
"I will."
A pause.
Then, softer than I expected from the heir Sergei wanted to restore.
"Are you safe?"
The question pierced through me.
After three months of cold, bitterness, and being overlooked like furniture, he asks if I'm safe—as if it matters.
"I'm surviving," I said. "That has to be enough."
"It isn't." The familiar edge in his voice echoed the same refusal that pulled me off the walkway when I urged him to leave without me. "I'm coming for you. I promised."
"Survive first," I insisted. If I let him chase me before he disconnects the live wire, Sergei will kill us both. "Find the hand behind the cipher. End it. Then you can come."
"Maksim—"
Footsteps drew closer. A door hinge creaked. Dmitri was returning, or someone else was drawn by the comms room indicator.
"I have to go," I said. "Be careful, Ivan. Trust no one."
I ended the call before he could argue.
The silence that followed was immediate and brutal.
I placed the satellite phone back in its cradle. The red indicator resumed its slow blink as if nothing had happened—as if the room hadn't just become the most dangerous place in the building.
I retraced my steps quickly, the lock clicking behind me as the corridor swallowed me back into the facility's dull rhythm.
By the time Dmitri returned to the monitoring station, I was back in my chair, face blank, eyes fixed on the screens that showed nothing.
I didn't move. I didn't reveal anything.
But inside, I felt different.
The cold remained.
The loneliness lingered.
The ache of missing him sat under my ribs as it always had.
Yet something else had returned—something sharp and purposeful.
Boris isn't gone.
Or at least, the machinery bearing his name isn't.
Ivan is still in danger.
And somewhere in the organization, someone is moving pieces that Sergei either can't see or doesn't want to acknowledge.
I don't know who.
I don't know why.
But I'm going to find out.
The Kennel taught me to be a weapon.
Ivan taught me to be a person.
Now, I'm going to use both—quietly, carefully, from a thousand miles away—until the threat is truly eliminated this time.
Outside, the wind lashes against the concrete.
On the screens, static flickers across a camera monitoring the loading dock before clearing.
In the frigid expanse of Russia, a dog sets off in search of its prey.