Chapter 2
Anya
This was it. Finally. My moment had come.
I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, surrounded by one hundred and twenty-seven days of meticulous planning. I’d calculated all the variables, identified all the patterns, mapped all the weaknesses in my father's surveillance.
Seven minutes and thirty seconds to change my entire life.
I reached under my bed and pulled out the small notebook where I'd tracked their patterns.
Yevgeny: smoker, divorced, checks his phone constantly during breaks.
Takes exactly six minutes per cigarette, never more, never less.
Punctual about his addiction if nothing else.
Maksim: former military, still runs protocols like he's securing a combat zone.
Takes eleven minutes to properly sign in the new shift because he checks every detail twice. Never deviates.
My fingernails pressed into my palms. Four crescents of pain to keep me grounded. This would work. It had to work.
The go-bag waited in the air vent behind my bookshelf.
I'd practiced retrieving it until I could do it in under forty seconds.
Inside: $3,400 in cash, saved from birthday gifts over six years.
Twenty dollars here, fifty there, never enough to be noticed missing.
The forged ID had cost $1,800—purchased through a Dark Web vendor using cryptocurrency I'd mined on my contraband laptop, the one currently hidden under the loose floorboard beneath my desk.
Emma Graves. That's who I'd become once I left this estate. Generic enough to be forgettable. The photo showed me with my hair down, glasses I didn't need, a smile I'd practiced in the mirror until it looked natural instead of desperate.
The bus ticket to Montreal lay folded inside the front pocket.
Purchased three weeks ago from a public library computer during my last "doctor's appointment"—the one where I'd convinced my guard I needed to use the bathroom and slipped out the back exit for twelve precious minutes.
Departure 3:15 PM from Port Authority. Arrival 11:43 PM.
The hostel was already booked for two nights under Emma Graves's name.
After that, I'd figure out the rest. Maybe Toronto.
Maybe Vancouver. Somewhere far from New York and the suffocating weight of being Viktor Morozov's daughter.
I pulled out my mother's death certificate, the only thing I was taking that truly belonged to me.
Acute myocardial infarction. Age thirty-one.
Sometimes I pressed my hand against my chest and wondered if her weak heart lived in my body too.
If anxiety could literally break the muscle that kept us alive.
Weather app showed clear skies, 67 degrees.
Perfect running weather. I'd mapped the route perfectly.
Four minutes to reach the maintenance gate if I ran full speed.
Another six minutes to the subway station.
The 2:31 train would get me to Port Authority by 3:05.
Ten minutes of buffer time in case something went wrong.
Nothing would go wrong. I'd calculated every variable.
Traffic patterns for Tuesday afternoons: moderate but predictable.
The school three blocks away released students at 2:45, creating enough foot traffic that one more young woman wouldn't stand out.
I'd wear the Yankees cap and oversized Columbia hoodie—invisible in their normalcy.
My heartbeat accelerated just thinking about it.
Walking among people who didn't know my name.
Who didn't track my every movement. Who didn't see me as a tool to be used or a possession to be guarded.
The contraband laptop showed 11:18 AM. Three hours. Three hours until I stopped being a chess piece and became a person.
I began collecting the papers, feeding them one by one into the shredder I'd claimed I needed for "security purposes.
" Each schedule, each pattern analysis, each carefully drawn map disappeared into strips too small to reassemble.
The evidence of my planning erased as methodically as I'd created it.
My hands trembled as I destroyed months of work. Hope was a dangerous thing. It made you vulnerable. Made you believe the impossible was possible. But I couldn't stop the feeling building in my chest—light and terrifying and absolutely real.
At 2:17 PM, I would walk out of this estate.
At 3:15 PM, I would board a bus as Emma Graves.
At 11:43 PM, I would arrive in Montreal, where no one knew that Anya Morozova had ever existed.
I pressed my fingernails into my palms one more time. Four crescents of pain. Four counts of breathing. In four hours, I would be free.
The intercom crackled.
"Anya. My office. Now." My father's voice cut through the intercom like a blade through silk.
My stomach dropped.
I stood, smoothing my skirt with hands that wanted to shake. Checked my reflection in the mirror—pale but composed, dark hair pulled back in its usual bun, nothing to suggest the go-bag hidden in the air vent or the bus ticket in its front pocket.
The walk to my father's office felt longer than usual.
The estate sprawled across three acres in Brighton Beach, a fortress masquerading as a family home.
Italian marble floors that cost more than most people's houses.
Original oil paintings in gilded frames—all legally purchased, all with perfect provenance, all cold as the man who'd selected them.
The Morozov bratva believed in appearances.
In sophistication. In the kind of power that wore a suit instead of brass knuckles.
Security cameras tracked my movement down the curved staircase.
I knew where each one was positioned—had mapped them all during my planning.
The blind spots were few, carefully calculated to appear natural rather than deliberate.
My father trusted his walls and his guards more than he'd ever trusted me.
The house smelled like his cigars. That sweet, acrid smoke that clung to everything, marked his territory like a wolf marking trees. It would be one of the first things I'd wash out of my hair in Montreal. One of the first signs of him I'd scrub away.
His office door stood open. That was unusual. He typically kept it closed, locked, the inner sanctum where brutal decisions were made in civilized tones. But today he wanted me to walk in freely. Wanted me to feel like I had a choice.
I didn't.
Viktor Morozov sat behind his mahogany desk, a Cuban cigar smoldering between his fingers.
The smoke curled up toward the coffered ceiling, creating a haze that made the room feel smaller.
Three laptops were open in front of him, their screens reflecting off his reading glasses.
Two phones sat at his right hand—one for legitimate business, one for everything else.
The security monitors on the wall behind him showed every angle of the estate.
The maintenance gate was visible on monitor four, innocent and unremarkable.
He didn't look up when I entered. That was typical. Viktor Morozov made people wait. Made them stand there, uncertain, while he finished whatever was more important than their presence. It was a power play so routine I barely noticed anymore.
Thirty-two seconds passed. I counted them.
"The Council meets at noon." His voice was flat, emotionless. He slid a manila folder across the desk with two fingers. "I need analysis on each family's current position. Strengths, weaknesses, what they'll demand. You have one hour."
I stepped forward and picked up the folder. My fingers didn't tremble. Years of practice had taught me to lock my body down, to show nothing he could use against me. Inside, the folder was thick with intelligence briefs. The Kozlovs. The Sokolovs. The Petrovs. The Beskharovs. And the Volkovs.
I recognized most of it immediately. Intercepted communications I'd decoded over the past three months. Financial records I'd analyzed for patterns. Shipment manifests I'd cross-referenced for discrepancies. My work, repackaged and presented as raw intelligence for me to analyze again.
"The Volkovs will push for investigation into the bombing," I said. My voice came out steady despite my racing pulse. "Probability eighty-nine percent they'll demand a neutral mediator. The Kozlovs will—"
"Not verbal analysis." He still hadn't looked at me. "Written. Detailed. Thirty pages minimum."
Now his eyes rose to meet mine. Pale blue, like winter ice. Like looking into a mirror that reflected nothing back. Those eyes had watched men die. Had ordered deaths. Had looked at my mother's body without flinching.
"This meeting determines whether we continue this war or find . . . alternative solutions." He took a long pull from his cigar. "I need precision. Accuracy. The kind of work only you can do."
The compliment was calculated. He knew exactly how to play me—starved for approval, desperate for acknowledgment that I was more than just a tool. Even knowing it was manipulation, some pathetic part of me preened at his words.
"Of course," I said. "I'll have it ready within the hour."
He nodded once. Dismissal. I turned to leave.
"Anya."
I stopped but didn't turn around.
"Accuracy is everything today. Don't disappoint me."
The threat was subtle but clear. Disappointment had consequences in the Morozov family. I'd seen what happened to people who disappointed him. They disappeared. Or worse, they didn't.
"I won't," I said, and walked out of his office with my spine straight and my face calm.
Five hours until freedom. I could give him one more perfect analysis. One more demonstration of my value. One more lie to cover my escape.
Asoft knock preceded the door opening—Elena, the head housekeeper who’d been with our family since before I was born. She entered with a tray, her face a practiced mask of deference that couldn't quite hide the exhaustion in her eyes.