Chapter Nine - Vivienne
I move too quickly, every step echoing in the stillness of my apartment.
The travel bag waits open on the bed like a mouth demanding to be fed, and I throw things in without order—cash, passport, chargers, a spare pair of shoes, enough clothes to disappear for a while if I have to.
My hands are steady, but my chest isn’t.
My breath comes sharp, clipped, the sound too loud in the silence.
The essentials go in first. Anything that ties me to this place, to this city, stays behind.
I tell myself that makes it easier. Clean break.
No trace. Yet my fingers falter when I brush over certain things: photographs tucked into drawers, books with my handwriting in the margins. Ghosts of a life I’ve already buried.
Then my hand lands on something worse.
A sweater, folded neat at the back of the closet.
Soft cashmere. I wore it once after a late meeting, the night stretched thin with smoke and quiet, his cologne clinging sharp and smoky to the fabric.
Even now, it carries a faint trace of him.
I shouldn’t notice. I shouldn’t care, but my throat tightens, my chest seizes, and for a long second I can’t breathe.
The bag waits open on the bed, but I toss the sweater hard back into the shelf.
Anger sparks in me, hot and ugly. I hate the sentiment that almost pulled me under.
I hate the weakness of it, the indulgence of memory.
Sentiment is poison. Sentiment is how you get caught, how you hesitate when the knife should already be in motion.
The zipper rasps when I close the bag halfway. The sound is sharp, final. I freeze, listening to it echo in the silence, like I’ve declared myself guilty.
Then the images come again. The ambush.
I never saw it firsthand, but the footage plays in my mind clearer than if I had. Trucks burning in the dark. Metal groaning. Crates shattered and scattered across gravel. Men shouting in Russian, their voices panicked, cut off by gunfire. Then silence. Always silence.
Those weren’t faceless enemies. They were men I’d seen almost daily, guards who’d nodded at me in passing, men who poured drinks during meetings, men who stood outside doors I walked through. Alive one moment. Cold in unmarked graves the next.
My stomach twists. My chest grows tight. I stumble into the bathroom, gripping the edge of the sink so hard my knuckles go white. The porcelain is cold beneath my palms, grounding me in a way nothing else can.
This is what you wanted, I tell myself. This was always the cost.
I stare into the mirror at my pale reflection. My face looks hollow, my eyes sunken, like I’m already fading. I barely recognize her.
Justice was never going to be clean. Justice was always going to bleed.
These men—violent, corrupt, merciless—have drenched themselves in blood long before mine ever spilled.
They chose this world. They chose to serve under Alexei Sharov, to carry out his orders, to profit off of misery. They are not innocent.
I repeat that to myself until the words lose shape. Until they clang hollow in my ears, sharp but empty, like brass shells hitting the floor.
I splash water on my face, cold enough to sting, but it doesn’t chase away the images. I can still see the convoy burning, smell the fire, hear the silence that followed.
I can’t stay still.
I leave the bathroom and start pacing, tight circles that drag me from one corner of the apartment to the other.
My nerves buzz under my skin, restless energy snapping through me like a live wire.
I check the windows, the locks, the blinds, each one twice, three times.
Everything looks the same. Nothing out of place.
Yet… the air feels wrong.
I’ve lived in paranoia for weeks, long enough to know when it’s in my head and when it isn’t. This isn’t in my head. There’s a weight in the room with me, invisible but certain. Like a hand pressed against the back of my neck, cold and patient.
I yank back a curtain. Nothing but the street outside, slick with rain, lamps buzzing faint. No movement. No shadows. Still, I don’t believe it.
I cross to the kitchen, check the back window. Locked. Untouched. The glass reflects me back, pale and tight, but no one else.
Still, the sense won’t leave. Something has shifted. Something is closing in.
The travel bag waits at the door now, gaping open with the last of what I’ve thrown inside. I toss in toiletries, documents, the last of the cash I’d hidden under a drawer. My hands should move faster, but they tremble, each motion slower than the last.
Not fear. Awareness.
The kind that coils in your gut when you know you’re no longer alone, even if you can’t see the proof.
My phone lies dark on the counter. I switched it off hours ago, knowing better than to leave a trace. Still, I reach for it, pressing the button, staring at the black screen like it might flicker to life with the warning I already feel in my bones.
Nothing.
I drop it back down, force my hand away. But seconds later, I find myself circling back, reaching again, checking again. As if I can’t stop. As if confirmation will soothe what instinct already screams.
It doesn’t. The screen stays dead. The silence stays heavy.
I shoulder the travel bag. The weight drags against me, not heavy enough to slow me, heavy enough to remind me what I’m walking away from.
I step to the door, my fingers lingering on the lock, listening to the quiet beyond. My pulse hammers too loud.
The apartment is stripped, the bag is packed, but I don’t feel free. I feel watched.
Every instinct I’ve honed whispers the same thing.
It’s closing in.
I open the door. Step into the hall. And stop there, standing still, listening to the silence press closer.
The hallway stretches long and dim, the kind of silence that hums against the walls. My bag drags heavy against my shoulder, the zipper biting into my palm where I clutch it too tight. I stop halfway down the corridor and glance back at the apartment door.
It looks small from here, ordinary. Four walls, a bed, a desk—nothing worth remembering. Yet I hesitate.
A note flits across my mind. Something short, sharp, final. A single line folded on the counter, left like a breadcrumb for whoever bothers to look. I picture the words scrawled in my own hand, picture them discovered in silence.
Nothing feels right. Every phrase dies in my throat before it’s written. Notes are for people who deserve explanations. No one in this world does.
I turn my back on the door. I don’t even lock it. Whoever comes after me can walk right in. Let the place be picked clean, stripped bare, like I was never here at all.
The bag shifts on my shoulder as I keep walking. The corridor hums with the buzz of an old light, flickering once above me. I’m halfway down when a sound snaps the air behind me.
A scuff. A shift.
I freeze.
My pulse surges so loud it drowns out everything. I turn, eyes sharp, body tense, waiting for movement.
Nothing.
The hallway lies empty. The apartment door still shut. Shadows cling where they always have.
I don’t trust it.
I wait a beat longer, every sense stretched thin, then force myself to move again. One step. Then another.
My heartbeat won’t settle, pounding uneven in my chest, each thud heavier than the last. I keep my hand near the inside of my coat, fingers brushing the knife hidden there. Slim, sharp, my one guarantee if things go wrong.
The main entrance is only a few feet away, but I veer off, turning down the narrow back corridor. The alley is darker, riskier—but the front opens to the street, to eyes, to cameras. I can’t take that chance.
The alley smells of damp and gasoline. The air is thick, fog curling low, muffling the hum of the city beyond. My shoes strike wet pavement, too loud in the silence. Every corner feels like a mouth waiting to close around me.
I keep moving, back straight, chin high, knife close at hand. I tell myself I’ll disappear. New city, new name, new life. No Bratva, no blood, no Alexei Sharov shadowing my every breath.
I tell myself that’s the plan.
Except deep down, I know.
I’m not getting away.
The alley stretches ahead, slick with rain, the lamplight spilling weak gold onto the pavement.
My breath fogs in the air, ragged despite the steady pace I force myself to keep.
Each step sounds too sharp, echoing against brick, chasing itself back to me.
I tell myself it’s only my nerves, only my imagination, but I don’t believe it.
My hand stays curled near the knife. The weight of it is a comfort, a reminder I’m not defenseless. Still, the thought circles in my head—how little steel matters against the kind of power hunting me.
I replay it all as I move: the warehouse, the files, the convoy burning. Faces I know turned to corpses. Each one a piece of evidence pointing closer to me, even if no one can prove it yet. Someone will. Soon.
My shoes splash through a shallow puddle. The sound ricochets, and for a heartbeat I hear another step layered under mine. I whirl, knife half drawn.
Nothing.
The alley yawns empty, shadows stacked against the walls. My pulse hammers, my grip too tight.
I turn back and keep walking, faster now.
I imagine vanishing: new passport, new city, a name that doesn’t taste of blood. A chance to breathe air that isn’t thick with smoke and gunpowder.
The truth presses sharp into me.
There’s no vanishing. Not from them. Not from him.
I stop at the mouth of the alley, the city noise faint beyond, and glance once over my shoulder. The darkness stares back, silent, waiting.
Every instinct tells me the same thing.
I’m already caught.