Chapter Six - Diana
Three days pass in a haze of paranoia and forced normalcy.
I go to work, respond to emails, sit through client meetings where I nod and take notes and pretend my hands aren’t shaking under the conference table.
The camera I installed captures nothing suspicious—just me moving through my apartment alone, lights turning on and off, the mundane documentation of a life under surveillance.
The awareness never fades. Someone knows where I live. Someone has been inside. And the man from the café—Felix Rudenko—appeared in my neighborhood with timing too precise to be coincidence.
I stay late at the office on Thursday, telling myself it’s because I need to catch up on work.
The truth is I’m avoiding my apartment, the space that doesn’t feel safe anymore.
By the time I finish reviewing donor compliance reports for a congressional campaign, the building has emptied.
Security locked the main entrance at eight, routing late workers through the parking garage access.
I gather my things slowly, reluctant to leave the fluorescent safety of the office. My bag feels heavier than usual, weighed down by the printed files I’ve been carrying everywhere since the break-in—copies of Ethan’s research, backup documentation in case something happens to the digital versions.
The elevator ride down to the garage is too quiet, the hum of machinery amplified in the enclosed space. The doors open onto concrete and dim lighting, my car parked three rows back near the structural support column.
I step out and catch a scent hanging in the stale garage air. Cologne.
I think of the hallway at the gala. The café in Brooklyn. It’s the same scent that’s lingered both times, subtle but distinct.
He’s been here.
My hands fumble for my phone, adrenaline sharpening my focus as I pull up the home camera app. I should wait until I’m in the car, doors locked, engine running. The dread pooling in my stomach won’t wait.
I tap through to last night’s footage and scroll backward through the timestamp: midnight, 1:00 a.m., 2:15 a.m.
The screen shows my bedroom in grainy night-vision green. I’m asleep, curled on my side facing the wall, completely unaware.
Then the door opens.
A figure enters the frame—tall, broad-shouldered, moving with careful precision. He’s wearing a mask, black fabric covering everything below his eyes, but the build is unmistakable. He walks around the room slowly, not touching anything, just observing.
Then he does something that stops my breath entirely.
He pulls the chair from my desk and positions it beside the bed. He sits, watching me sleep. The timestamp ticks forward—five minutes, ten, fifteen. He doesn’t move except to tilt his head slightly, studying me with the kind of focused attention that makes my skin crawl.
Eventually he stands, adjusts the chair back to its original position, and leaves as quietly as he entered.
The footage continues. I sleep through the entire thing, oblivious.
My jaw drops, nausea rising sharp and acidic. The scent in the garage matches the cologne I remember from the café. Felix Rudenko was in my apartment. In my bedroom. Watching me while I slept.
Movement snaps my attention back to the present. A white van parked across two spaces near the garage exit, engine running, exhaust curling in the cold air. No plates on the back. Two men visible through the windshield, both watching the elevator bank where I just emerged.
Watching me.
I change direction casually, turning back toward the elevator as if I forgot something upstairs. My hand tightens around my phone, thumb hovering over the emergency call screen.
“Diana Clarke.”
The voice cuts across the garage, sharp and authoritative. One of the men has stepped out of the van, blocking the path to the elevator. He’s mid-forties, stocky build, wearing a dark jacket that hangs heavy on one side. Gun, probably.
My heart hammers against my ribs. I don’t respond, don’t acknowledge him. Instead, I pivot hard and run toward the stairwell exit on the opposite side of the garage.
Footsteps echo behind me, concrete amplifying the sound into a thunderous pursuit. I sprint between parked cars, my bag slamming against my hip, breath coming in sharp gasps. The stairwell door is thirty feet away, twenty, ten—
A second man appears from behind a support column, cutting me off. Younger, leaner, faster. He grabs my arm and yanks me backward with enough force that I stumble.
“Stop fighting,” the first man growls, reaching for my other arm.
I don’t stop. I twist violently, kicking out at the younger man’s knee. My heel connects hard enough that he grunts and his grip loosens. I wrench free and lunge toward my car, keys already in my hand.
The key fob is ripped from my grip before I can hit the unlock button. Strong hands clamp around both my arms, dragging me backward toward the van. I scream, the sound raw and desperate, echoing uselessly through the empty garage.
“Shut her up,” one of them snaps.
I claw at the arms holding me, nails scraping against fabric and skin. My bag falls, contents scattering across the concrete. I bite down on the hand covering my mouth and taste copper. Someone curses violently.
They force me into the back of the van, slamming me onto the metal floor. I kick wildly, connecting with something solid. One of them presses something cold and hard against my ribs—a gun barrel, unmistakable.
“Stay still or I’ll put a bullet in you.”
I freeze, breath coming in ragged gasps, every muscle locked with terror and adrenaline. The van doors slam shut. Engine revs. We’re moving.
The two men position themselves on either side of me, not speaking, just watching with the kind of professional detachment that makes this worse. This isn’t personal. This is a job.
I force myself to think through the panic. They haven’t killed me. They could have—would have been easier in the garage, quick and clean. They’re moving me somewhere, which means they want something. Information, leverage, or disposal in a location that won’t trace back.
The van turns onto a highway, the motion familiar enough that I track the route mentally. We’re heading out of the city, toward the industrial outskirts where warehouses and freight yards stretch for miles.
Fifteen minutes pass. Twenty. The buildings thin, streetlights becoming sparse. Trees press close to the roadside, dark and dense.
They’re not trying to scare me. They’re relocating me somewhere isolated. Somewhere no one will hear.
Panic sharpens into cold calculation. I test my weight against the floor, measuring the distance to the door handle. The men are watching, but they’re not restraining me actively anymore. If I time it right, if I can reach the door—
Headlights flood the van’s interior, bright enough to make me squint. Two sets, coming up fast from behind. The driver swears and accelerates, but the vehicles match speed effortlessly.
Black SUVs, bracketing us on both sides.
One of the men pulls his gun, twisting toward the back window. “We’ve got company.”
The van swerves hard to the left. I’m thrown against the wall, shoulder slamming into metal. Gunshots crack through the night—sharp, deafening, glass shattering somewhere up front.
The driver loses control. The van lurches violently, tires screeching, then stops so abruptly I’m thrown forward onto my hands and knees.
Silence. Then shouting outside, more gunshots, the controlled chaos of violence happening just beyond the metal walls.
The back door is yanked open with brutal force.
One of my captors is dragged out bodily, disappearing into the night with a strangled yell.
The second man raises his gun toward the opening, but he’s too slow.
Someone grabs the weapon, twists his wrist with a sickening crack, and pulls him out after his partner.
Cold air rushes in. I scramble toward the open door and stumble onto the asphalt, disoriented, legs shaking too hard to support my weight properly.
The road is chaos. The white van sits crooked across both lanes, doors open, engine still running.
The two black SUVs have it boxed in from front and back, headlights cutting harsh white beams through the darkness.
Men in tactical gear move with precision, subduing my captors with efficiency that suggests extensive training.
Standing in the middle of it all, completely calm, is Felix Rudenko.
He’s wearing the same dark suit from the café, sleeves rolled to his forearms now, blood streaked across his knuckles. His pale eyes track me as I stand there shaking, taking in every detail of my disheveled appearance with an intensity that feels invasive.
He steps forward and wraps one hand around my upper arm, pulling me behind him in a motion that’s protective and possessive in equal measure. I’m too shocked to resist.
“You are no longer safe alone,” he says, his voice low and controlled despite the violence still unfolding around us.
I meet his eyes, breath coming in sharp gasps, fear mixing with fury and confusion. “From you?”
The question hangs in the cold air between us. He doesn’t answer immediately, his gaze holding mine with an unreadable intensity. Behind him, one of his men drags the younger captor past us, the man’s face bloodied, arms restrained behind his back.
Felix’s hand tightens slightly on my arm. “From everyone,” he says finally, and the certainty in his tone makes my stomach drop.
I realize, standing on this dark road surrounded by armed men and shattered glass, that I’ve crossed a line I can’t uncross. Whatever world Ethan stumbled into, whatever secrets got him killed, I’m standing in the middle of it now.
Felix Rudenko just claimed me as his responsibility.
Whether that means protection or possession, I don’t know.