Chapter 9 - Misha #2
I walked back to the table, pulling out a chair across from him and sitting down carefully.
My foot protested the movement, but I ignored it.
From the drawer beneath the table, I retrieved a deck of cards that I had found there a few days ago while I was bored and searching the safe house.
I quietly set the velveteen cards between us.
“Poker,” I said simply. “We will play, and whoever loses a round will answer a question the other person asks honestly. I promise I won’t lie, and I expect you not to lie either.”
There was a beat of silence while he stared at me.
“You think I play games?”
“I think you understand strategy.”
He leaned back in his chair slowly, as if deliberating.
“Deal.”
The first round was quiet and controlled. We moved through it without speaking, the sound of cards against wood the only thing filling the space. I watched his hands and the way he held the cards. I noticed the subtle shifts in his expression, and he watched me the same way.
Hunters. Both of us.
The first hand ended quickly, and I lost. Of course I did. I had never been particularly lucky at poker. I exhaled softly, leaning back, knowing fully well that a deal was a deal and I had no desire to back away from it.
“Fine,” I said. “You can ask your question now.”
His gaze didn’t waver as if he had thought of the question before I had dealt the losing card. “Who did you call from the burner?”
Straight to the point. I expected nothing less from someone like Kliment Romanov.
“She is a contact,” I said. “Someone I trust with my business and my life.”
“What is her name?”
I tilted my head. “That’s two questions, and the deal is to only answer one.”
A flicker of something sharp moved through his eyes, but he let it go.
“Fine. Let’s play,” he said.
I studied him for a moment and distributed the cards again, the two of us playing silently until he lost the second round. I looked up at him with a smile, and he nodded, giving me leave to ask whatever I wanted.
“Why did you try to separate Ilana from Avgust, knowing fully well she loved him and was choosing to be with him?”
The shift was immediate, even if subtle. His posture stilled, and his gaze sharpened just slightly as he considered the question.
“Because I believed it was necessary,” he said.
“That’s not an answer, Kliment.”
“It is the only one that matters.”
“It’s not the honest one and explains nothing. You have promised complete honesty.”
He exhaled slowly as if giving in to my demands.
“Because I didn’t trust their arrangement one bit,” he said. “And I don’t trust what I can’t control. Avgust did not feel like someone who could take care of Ilana, or maybe I had formed this image in my mind, and I was too scared to let my little sister go.”
There it was. Clean. Unembellished.
“And because you thought control mattered more than her choice?” I asked.
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation or apology.
“Even if it meant losing her?”
His gaze held mine. “I didn’t think I would.”
Something almost imperceptible shifted the air between us just then.
It almost felt like regret, even though it wasn’t loud or obvious, and I didn’t know if Kliment was even capable of feeling something as deep as regret.
But it was there. I looked away first, not wanting to pry any further into his private thoughts.
“Your deal,” I said quietly, reshuffling the cards.
The next few rounds blurred together. There were several wins and losses for both of us, which were followed by careful questions and equally careful answers, until they weren’t careful anymore. I sighed as he won again, a part of me already knowing what was coming next.
“What were you doing at the warehouse on that day, Misha? Who were you meeting and why?” he asked.
I held his gaze, and this time I knew I couldn’t deflect. I didn’t even want to. A part of me said that this was the right time. I could not hide the truth from Kliment forever.
“I was there because of Ilana. At least, you can say that she is the reason everything started.”
His expression didn’t change, but his attention sharpened. “What do you mean?”
“I saw the footage,” I continued. “Of the auction where Ilana was kidnapped and being sold. The very auction where Avgust bought her to save her. The video was on the dark web, and there was this symbol in the background. It stayed with me.”
I set my cards down slowly, knowing we had reached the end of these questions and it was finally time to just tell him everything.
“Then I saw it again one day on a shipment at the docks, and I knew it was not random. It simply could not be. I started researching and asking questions, and I found out this was not an isolated event but part of an entire network. It was organized and embedded into the port system. Shipments labeled as medical exports were rerouted through private channels and cleared without inspection. And these shipments contained women.”
His gaze darkened slightly.
“Trafficking.”
“Yes.”
The word sat heavy between us.
“Girls are being moved through this city like cargo,” I said, my voice quieter now but no less steady.
“And no one is stopping it. I heard my brothers claim that these auctions are just a part of our world, and we need to accept it. They don’t support it, but they have also done nothing to stop it, and that pisses me off. ”
“Why not just tell your brothers? Why not ask them for help?”
I let out a short, humorless breath.
“Because they would burn everything in a fit of rage.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Yes.” I leaned forward slightly, my eyes locking onto his. “Because burning everything doesn’t dismantle a network like this. It forces people underground, making it harder to trace and destroy properly. And these people eventually resurface when things have calmed down.”
He watched me closely.
“You needed evidence and confirmation of the roots of the network?”
“I needed confirmation,” I corrected. “Before I could act.”
“Alone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I held his gaze.
“Because to my brothers,” I said slowly, “I will always be someone they need to protect. They will never let me step forward and fight because they will be terrified to let me get out there.”
The words came easier than I expected. Silence settled between us again, and he didn’t speak for several minutes as if waiting for me to continue.
“So the woman you called from your burner is someone who gives you intel?” he asked at last, clearly trying to understand the whole thing.
“She does get intel for me, but she is a major part of my team. We are a woman-run mission, and all of us are linked to this entire chain in one way or another. Every single one of us wants to end it, and we are ready to do anything to make sure it does eventually end. But my healing is delaying everything,” I said quietly.
“And I don’t have anyone else to do this. ”
The words felt heavier now. More real. “I only have myself.”
That one landed because I saw it in his expression. In the way something shifted behind his eyes. It was not pity or sympathy but something else. Something deeper. The final hand came down between us, and I didn’t even realize how we got there. Only that I won cleanly and decisively.
I leaned back in my chair, exhaling slowly.
“Your turn,” I said, but he didn’t move or speak. He just watched me, and for the first time since this started, he didn’t have a question. The realization settled between us, quiet and absolute.
The game was over, but something far more dangerous had just begun.