Chapter 33 Luca
LUCA
My phone rings at two fifteen in the afternoon.
It’s Semyon, one of the two men Pavel has stationed near Viktor’s house. He’s been on rotation there for six days, and in six days, he’s called me exactly once, to report a loose gate latch that needed securing. Semyon is not a man who calls unnecessarily.
I pick up on the first ring.
“She left,” he says. “Alone. No twins. Ten minutes ago. She told her mother she was running errands and got into a car service heading east.”
East. The eastern district. Where the Malikov network operates. Where Sorokin Freight has its logistics office.
I’m already standing. “Which route?”
“River road. She’s heading toward the warehouse district.”
I’m calling Pavel on another phone before Semyon even finishes his sentence. I tell him, “Anna left Viktor’s house alone. Eastern district, River Road. Get a car to that route right now.”
Pavel doesn’t ask questions. I hear him moving. “How long ago?”
“Ten minutes. She has a head start.”
“I can have someone at the river road junction in eight minutes.”
“Make it five.”
I grab my jacket and move toward the door. Pavel calls back in three minutes. “I have a man at the junction. No sign of her vehicle yet. She might have taken the alternate route through the industrial corridor.”
“Check it.”
I get into my car with the driver already pulling around. Two of my men get into the vehicle behind us without being told. We move out through the estate gates and I sit in the back with my phone and think about what Anna knows and what she thinks she can do with it.
She found the Sorokin Freight name. Gennady told her it’s a Malikov front. Her father’s associate, Borin, told Viktor they’ve been watching the house. Anna put those two things together and decided she could walk into a room and use my name like a weapon.
She has no idea that my name is exactly why they’ve been watching that house.
My phone rings again. Different man this time. One of Pavel’s eastern district contacts. “There’s a car service vehicle parked outside the Sorokin Freight logistics office,” he says. “Been there about four minutes. Driver is still inside.”
Four minutes. She’s already there.
“Get inside that building,” I tell him.
“I’m one man.”
“Then wait at the entrance and don’t let anyone leave. We’re twelve minutes out.”
Pavel’s voice comes on the line. “I’m rerouting two men from the northern checkpoint. They can be there in ten.”
“Tell them to move.”
The car pushes through traffic, my driver running lights where he has to. I watch the minutes count down on the dashboard clock and think about Anna walking into that office alone and confident, telling herself she has leverage, telling herself this is something she can handle.
Eight minutes out, my eastern contact calls back.
His voice is different. Tighter. “She’s not in the office anymore. There are men coming out of the side entrance. Four of them. They have a woman.”
My hand tightens on the phone. “Description.”
“Dark hair. She’s not fighting them. I think they said something to her that stopped her.”
“Don’t engage alone. Follow the vehicle. Don’t lose it.”
“They have three cars. I can only follow one.”
“Take the middle one.”
The line stays open. I hear his engine. Hear him pulling into traffic behind them.
Pavel is already on another call, voice clipped and fast, redirecting every available man toward the eastern district.
I sit in the back of my car and watch the city move past the window and think about twelve minutes.
How many minutes is the difference between getting there and getting there too late?
My contact’s voice comes back. “They’re splitting up. Two cars turning south, one continuing east.”
“Stay on the one going east.”
“Copy.”
We reach the Sorokin Freight office six minutes later.
The car service vehicle is still outside, the driver standing beside it, looking confused and slightly afraid.
The side Pavel’s man described is hanging open.
Inside, a corridor leading to an empty room with a chair knocked over and a zip tie packaging on the floor.
I stand in the middle of the room and look at it.
Pavel appears beside me. “My contact is still following the eastbound vehicle. It’s heading out of the city.”
“Secondary location.”
“Has to be.”
I look at the knocked-over chair, the zip tie packaging, and the empty room that smells like river water and engine oil. She walked in here thinking she was negotiating, and they had her before she finished her first sentence.
My phone buzzes. A message from an unknown number.
I have your wife. Your children. Her parents. You know who this is. You’ll receive a location within the hour.
I read it once.
Then I look at Pavel. “Get everyone. Every man we have. Now.”