41. Viktor
VIKTOR
Dimitri finds me in the study three days after the hangar, tablet in hand, expression sharper than I’ve seen from him since the night Ginger was taken.
“He’s making a move himself this time,” he says. “No more sending men to do it for him. Our informant says Pavel’s been agitated since the plane failed, erratic in a way she’s never seen from him before. He’s planning something personal now, something he intends to do with his own hands.”
“Where?”
“An old property he still owns under a shell name, half an hour outside the city. She overheard him telling the grandmother he needed to finish this properly, that sending others has only proven he’s lost control of his own operation.”
I sit with that, a cold clarity settling over the fury I’ve been carrying since that night. “He’s coming for one of us directly. Me, most likely, given everything else has failed.”
“That’s my read too.” Dimitri sets the tablet down. “Which gives us something we haven’t had this entire war. Advance knowledge of exactly where he’ll be, and exactly when.”
“I want him alive.” The words surprise me even as I say them, though the reasoning behind them settles quickly once spoken aloud.
“Killing him ends the immediate threat. It doesn’t end the questions.
Who funded him all these years. What he actually did during the time everyone believed him dead.
Whether there’s anyone else out there still loyal to him who might pick up exactly where he leaves off. ”
“You want to interrogate him.”
“I want him to answer for eleven years, properly, to people who have more reason to want those answers than we do.”
Dimitri studies me for a long moment, understanding arriving slowly. “Volkov.”
“Volkov,” I agree. “Pavel used his resources to disappear after the warehouse. Money, safe houses, false identities, all of it borrowed against promises he apparently never intended to keep. Volkov’s been hunting a ghost for eleven years without knowing the ghost was hiding in plain sight as a grieving grandfather. ”
“That’s a significant favor to call in, Viktor. Volkov doesn’t forget debts, and he definitely won’t forget this one.”
“I’m aware of the cost. I’m also aware Pavel tried to kill my daughter twice and called my pregnant wife an acceptable loss. I’ll pay whatever debt this creates.”
I make the call myself, and Volkov’s voice on the other end of the line carries the particular stillness of a man who’s been waiting a long time for exactly this information.
“You’re certain,” he says, once I’ve laid out everything Dimitri’s informant confirmed. “Certain enough to stake your own operation’s credibility on it.”
“I watched his face in a courtroom months ago and knew him instantly, eleven years of presumed death notwithstanding. I’m certain.”
“Then we have business to discuss.” Something that might be satisfaction colors his voice, cold and patient. “I’ll bring my own people. This isn’t a favor I’ll be doing quietly, Markov. I want him to see exactly who’s finally caught up to him.”
“Understood.”
We move two days later, converging on the property from separate directions, Volkov’s men and mine coordinating through Dimitri’s careful planning, everyone in position before the sun’s fully down.
Pavel’s alone when we find him, standing in what was once presumably a study, surrounded by boxes half packed, a man clearly planning to disappear again rather than execute whatever personal violence Dimitri’s informant overheard him planning.
He doesn’t reach for a weapon when I step through the doorway. He simply straightens, studying me with the same unnerving stillness I remember from the courtroom, eleven years compressed into a single, silent moment before either of us speaks.
“Viktor Markov.” He says my name like he’s tasting it, testing its weight after all this time. “We finally meet properly. I confess I expected this conversation years ago.”
“You’ve had eleven years to arrange it yourself. You chose silence instead.”
“I chose survival. There’s a difference, though I don’t expect a man your age to fully understand it yet.” His eyes flick past me, taking in the men filling the doorway behind me, understanding arriving visibly across his face. “You didn’t come alone.”
“No.”
“Ambitious of you, bringing help to face a dying old man.”
“You’re not dying. You’re desperate, which is considerably more dangerous.
” I keep my voice level, refusing him the satisfaction of watching me lose composure the way he clearly hoped to provoke.
“You tried to take my daughter twice. You called my wife expendable while she carries a child you’ll never meet.
I’m done treating you like a ghost from my past, Pavel.
Tonight, you become someone else’s problem entirely. ”
“You speak of family as though I don’t understand the concept myself.
” His voice sharpens for the first time, real emotion cutting through the composure.
“My son is dead, Markov. My bloodline ends with a girl who now calls another man her father. Everything I have done, I have done because grief leaves a man with very few options he can still call his own.”
“Grief doesn’t excuse pointing a gun at a six-year-old’s face.”
“No,” he admits, quieter now. “Perhaps it doesn’t. I stopped examining that particular distinction a long time ago.”
Understanding crosses his face slowly, followed by something close to genuine fear for the first time since I’ve known him existed.
“Volkov.”
“Volkov,” I confirm. “He’s been looking for you considerably longer than I have. Eleven years of borrowed resources tends to accumulate interest.”
“I can offer you something better than whatever debt you think settling this repays.” Pavel’s composure cracks fully now, calculation replacing the earlier stillness. “Information. Resources. Things Volkov doesn’t know I still possess.”
“I don’t need anything you have left to offer.
I have everything that actually matters already, safe, alive, waiting for me at home.
” I step aside, and Volkov’s men move past me into the room, efficient, unhurried, the particular calm of men who’ve waited a long time for exactly this moment.
“This isn’t about what you can give me anymore, Pavel.
This is about eleven years finally catching up to a man who thought he’d outrun them. ”
Volkov himself appears in the doorway a moment later, studying Pavel with an expression I don’t fully want to interpret, cold satisfaction layered beneath something considerably darker.
“Hello, old friend,” he says, voice quiet, almost gentle, which somehow makes it worse. “We have a great deal to discuss. Privately, I think, don’t you?”
Pavel doesn’t struggle as Volkov’s men take him, some final calculation apparently convincing him resistance serves no purpose here.
He looks back at me once as they lead him out, and whatever he intends that look to communicate, I feel nothing in response beyond the simple, exhausted relief of watching a threat finally leave my life for good.
“That’s the last of it,” Dimitri says quietly, appearing at my shoulder once the room’s finally empty. “Eleven years, over in about ten minutes.”
“Feels like it should have taken longer.”
“Most endings do, in the moment. They rarely match the buildup.” He claps a hand on my shoulder, something like relief finally breaking across his own face. “Let’s go home, Viktor. Tell Harper it’s actually over this time.”
I drive home in a silence that feels different from every other silence these last few months, lighter somehow, the specific weight of Pavel Ivanov finally lifted from a place in my chest I’d stopped noticing was carrying it.
The threat that shaped every single day since that courtroom is finally, actually closed.