Chapter 17
Dmitry
The building looked wrong before I even got out of the car—too many people on the sidewalk, that particular flavor of controlled chaos that meant official emergency without actual danger.
Fire trucks angled across the street like red metal walls, firefighters moving with the bored efficiency of another false alarm.
No fire. No smell of smoke.
Thank god. Last thing I needed was a fire in my damn building.
I left the car diagonal across a hydrant, badge on the dash that would keep it from being towed.
My eyes were already scanning, cataloging faces in the crowd of evacuated residents.
The couple from 4C in their matching bathrobes.
Mrs. Anderson from down the hall with her cat carrier.
Everyone accounted for except the only two that mattered.
No flash of distinctive eyes. No small gray puppy. No Eva.
The cold that started in my chest spread outward like ice forming on a lake, but I kept moving, kept searching.
She could be in the lobby. Could be around the corner.
Could be anywhere except where my brain was already suggesting she might be—gone, taken, exploited in that narrow window where I'd left her vulnerable.
"Mr. Volkov." Anton materialized at my elbow, and his face told me everything before he opened his mouth.
Professional composure cracking at the edges, that particular distress of security who'd lost their principal.
"She went out through the service exit with the pet evacuation group, but we can't find her now. "
The words hit like physical blows. Service exit. Pet group. Can't find her.
"When?" My voice came out steady, which was its own kind of lie.
"Seventeen minutes ago. Mikhail and I were helping with the elderly residents at the main exit.
The fire marshal directed people with pets to use the service exit, said it was less crowded.
She signaled she was going that way with Bear.
We thought—I thought I recognized the marshal—" He stopped, professionalism warring with self-recrimination. "We should have stayed with her."
Seventeen minutes. In seventeen minutes, she could be in Jersey. Connecticut. Dumped in the Hudson. My hand found my phone, muscle memory dialing her number while my brain ran calculations I didn't want to complete.
Straight to voicemail. Her voice on the recording, laughing about probably being in the shower, call back soon. The encrypted phone Ivan had given her—no response. Dead air where there should be connection.
Mikhail approached with a tablet, already pulling up security footage. His face carried the same professional devastation as Anton's, fingers flying across the screen to find the right timestamp. "Here," he said, turning the tablet toward me. "11:42 AM."
The image was clear despite the garage's shitty lighting. Eva following someone in firefighter gear, Bear's leash in her hand, heading toward the loading bay. The firefighter's face wasn't visible, helmet and angle conspiring to hide features.
"Run facial recognition on every firefighter. Cross-reference with—"
"Already running," Mikhail said. "But the angle's bad, and if they were smart—"
They were smart. This wasn't random. This was planned, orchestrated, timed for when I'd be gone.
I moved toward the parking garage, residents still filtering out in confused groups. An older man with a bulldog was complaining to another firefighter about the inconvenience, and I grabbed his arm harder than necessary.
"The woman with the puppy. Different colored eyes. You saw her?"
He blinked at my tone, the bulldog growling low at my aggressive stance. "Yeah, yeah, I saw her. We all went through the service exit together. She got in one of those city vans."
"What van?" The words came out sharp enough to cut.
"Facilities Management. You know, the white ones with the orange lights? She was trying to calm her dog—poor thing was terrified of the sirens. The driver said they were shuttling residents to the assembly point, but I've lived here thirty years and walked my ass out like always."
White van. Facilities Management. The kind that blended into city traffic like camouflage, invisible and official and perfect for making someone disappear.
"How long ago?"
"I don't know, ten minutes? Maybe twelve? The dog was really worked up, and she—"
This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
I was already moving, leaving him mid-sentence, phone to my ear as I called Ivan. Each ring felt like an eternity before his emotionless voice answered.
"What's wrong?"
"They have her." The words came out deadly calm despite the panic clawing at my insides. "The Morozovs staged a false fire alarm and took Eva."
Silence on the other end, brief but telling. Ivan processing, calculating, already working the problem.
"How long?"
"Best guess, twelve minutes. White Facilities Management van, probably fake plates. She had Bear with her."
"I'm pulling traffic cameras now." Keyboard clicks came through the phone, rapid-fire. "Twelve minutes in Manhattan traffic—they could be anywhere in a three-mile radius. Maybe five if they hit the FDR or West Side Highway."
Three miles. Five miles. Eight million people and infinite places to disappear. She'd been gone twelve minutes, and in a city this big, twelve minutes might as well be twelve hours.
"They'll have a handoff point," Ivan continued, that computer brain of his running scenarios. "Switch vehicles, maybe multiple times. The fire alarm would have been called in to give them a window. This was planned, Dmitry. Extensively planned."
Planned while I'd sat in Alexei's office discussing territory disputes. Planned while I'd promised Eva she'd be safe. Planned while I'd foolishly believed that being Volkov was enough protection.
Anton and Mikhail stood nearby, awaiting orders with the patience of good soldiers who knew their commander was barely holding it together.
The fire trucks were already packing up, the non-emergency confirmed, residents beginning to filter back inside.
Normal life resuming while Eva was somewhere in a van with people who wanted her dead or worse.
"Get Alexei," I told Ivan. "Call everyone. I want every contact, every informant, every dirty cop we own looking for that van. Someone saw something. Someone knows something."
"Dmitry—"
"Just find her." I hung up before he could insert logic into my panic.
The math was simple and brutal. Every minute that passed decreased our chances. Every block they traveled expanded the search grid exponentially. And somewhere in those expanding circles of possibility, Eva was learning that my protection was worth less than the paper our contract was written on.
The war room's concrete walls felt like they were closing in as I wore a path in the floor, each step counting out seconds Eva had been gone. Two hours now.
Ivan worked his screens like a concert pianist, fingers flying across keyboards while data cascaded down six monitors. Traffic cameras, cell tower pings, facial recognition software that cost more than most people's houses—all of it hunting for one white van in an ocean of white vans.
Alexei stood at the tactical map, absolutely still in that way that meant violence was building behind his control.
He hadn't moved in thirty minutes, just stared at the warehouse district in Red Hook where the cameras went conveniently dark.
Morozov territory, where the NYPD suddenly developed blind spots and witnesses developed amnesia.
"Got them crossing the Manhattan Bridge," Ivan said, pulling up grainy footage.
The van moved steady through traffic, no rush, no indication of the precious cargo it carried.
"They take the first Brooklyn exit, then—" He switched cameras, tracking their route.
"Then nothing. They enter the dead zone at 12:03 PM. "
The dead zone. Six blocks of warehouse district where every camera was mysteriously broken, under repair, or pointed the wrong way. The Morozovs had paid good money for that blindness.
I forced my hands to unclench, blood returning to fingers I'd been squeezing white.
Two hours meant Chenkov had her. Two hours meant he'd had time to set up, to prepare whatever theatrical violence he had planned.
The man who'd once kept a DEA informant alive for three weeks while removing pieces so small the human body could adapt, survive, continue feeling everything.
My phone buzzed against the table—unknown number, video attachment.
The air in the room shifted, all three of us recognizing what this was. The opening move. The terms. The proof of life that might also be proof of death.
My hand shook as I connected the phone to the main screen. Ivan's fingers paused over his keyboards. Alexei finally moved, turning from his map to face what we all knew was coming.
The video opened on a warehouse interior, all concrete and fluorescent lights that turned everything corpse-gray.
Eva sat zip-tied to a metal chair that had seen better decades, industrial and awful.
But she was alive. Breathing. Glaring at the camera with those impossible eyes that still held fight.
Her face was unmarked—so far. Bear whimpered from a dog crate behind her, the sound tinny through the phone's speakers but enough to make my chest tighten. Our dog. Our girl. Both caged while I stood here useless.
Then Chenkov entered the frame, and every muscle in my body went rigid.
He looked exactly like his photographs—mid-forties, professionally groomed, wearing a suit that belonged in a boardroom while he prepared for violence. The kind of man who'd quote poetry while breaking fingers, who saw brutality as an art form requiring proper appreciation.
"Mr. Volkov," he said, accent turning my name into something that tasted like threat. "I believe you have something that belongs to my employers. And now, I have something that belongs to you."