CHAPTER 5
Forty-Eight Hours to Prove Worth
The penthouse transforms into a war room in under an hour.
I watch from the corner of the living room as Ilya's soldiers pour through the front door—six men in tactical gear, carrying cases of equipment that they unpack with military efficiency.
Monitors appear on the dining table. Weapons spread across the kitchen island like a lethal buffet.
Someone tapes blackout film over the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the city lights disappear behind sheets of matte darkness.
Ilya stands at the center of it all, issuing orders in rapid Russian that I catch fragments of. *Perimeter. Surveillance. Extraction routes.* His voice carries the calm authority of a man who has done this before, who treats imminent violence like a scheduling conflict.
No one looks at me. I'm furniture. Background noise.
I hate how invisible I feel, and I hate even more how much I want to change it.
"The Chechens have a commander." I pitch my voice to carry. "Ruslan Kadyrov. He worked with my father for three years before the alliance fractured."
Ilya's head turns. The soldiers pause.
"Keep talking." His tone gives nothing away.
"Kadyrov runs his operations like military campaigns.
Reconnaissance first, always. He'll send a two-man team to map entry points and sight lines before committing his main force.
" I step away from the wall, moving toward the dining table where the monitors display feeds from exterior cameras.
"He's patient. Methodical. But he has a weakness. "
"Which is?"
"Pride." I tap one of the screens, pointing to the building across the street. "He won't delegate the final assault. He'll want to be there when they breach. He'll want to see my face when they drag me out."
One of the soldiers—a thick-necked man with a scar bisecting his eyebrow—exchanges a glance with Ilya. The look says *who is this woman and why is she still breathing.*
Ilya ignores him. His attention stays locked on me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
"How do you know this?"
"Because I spent three years watching him work with my father. Because I memorized every alliance, every enemy, every tactical pattern that might keep me alive someday." I hold his gaze without flinching. "I told you I was worth more than bait. Let me prove it."
The silence stretches. I feel the weight of six armed men assessing me, calculating whether I'm an asset or a liability.
Ilya makes his decision with a single word.
"Dmitri."
The scarred soldier steps forward. "Sir."
"Get her a chair. She's going to walk us through everything she knows about Kadyrov's assault patterns."
---
Thirty-six hours blur together.
I talk until my throat burns, sketching diagrams on paper napkins and pointing out vulnerabilities in Ilya's security setup that his own men missed.
The service elevator. The ventilation shaft in the northeast corner.
The blind spot in camera coverage where the parking garage meets the loading dock.
Ilya listens. He asks questions that prove he's not just hearing me—he's analyzing, cross-referencing, building a tactical picture that incorporates my intelligence into his existing framework.
His men stop looking at me like furniture around hour twelve. By hour twenty, Dmitri brings me coffee without being asked.
"You need to sleep." Ilya's voice cuts through my concentration as I review surveillance footage for the third time.
"So do you."
"I'm not the one who's been running on adrenaline for three days."
I look up from the monitor. He's standing behind me, close enough that I can smell gunpowder and that dark cologne, close enough that I can see the shadows under his eyes that match my own.
"Neither of us is sleeping until this is over." I turn back to the screen. "And we both know it."
His hand lands on my shoulder. The contact sends electricity sparking down my spine, and I go still.
"Nadia."
"What."
"Look at me."
I turn. His face is inches from mine, pale eyes searching my expression with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Helping. You could have given me bad intelligence. Led us into a trap. Bought yourself time to escape while we were distracted."
"I could have." I hold his gaze without flinching. "But then I'd be running again. And I'm tired of running."
His thumb brushes against my collarbone. Just once. Just enough to make my pulse stutter.
"You're not what I expected," he says.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true."
The moment stretches between us, charged with electricity I can almost taste. His gaze drops to my mouth, and I feel the shift in the air—the way his body angles toward mine, the way his breathing changes.
Then Dmitri's voice crackles through the comms.
"Movement on the east side. Two men, tactical gear. They're setting up in the building across the street."
Ilya pulls back, and the cold rushes in to fill the space where his warmth used to be.
"Show me."
---
The reconnaissance team is good. Professional. They move through the abandoned office building with the kind of efficiency that comes from years of practice, setting up observation posts and mapping our windows with the methodical patience I warned Ilya about.
"Kadyrov's advance team." I watch them through the monitor, tracking their movements. "They'll spend six to twelve hours gathering intelligence before reporting back. The main assault will come within twenty-four hours of their extraction."
"Then we take them out now." Dmitri reaches for his rifle. "Before they can report."
"No." The word comes out sharper than I intended. "If they don't report back, Kadyrov will know something's wrong. He'll change his approach. We lose the advantage of knowing his playbook."
Ilya's gaze cuts to me. "What do you suggest?"
"Let them watch. Let them think they're gathering intelligence." I point to the screen, tracing the pattern of their movements. "But when they try to extract, we intercept. Take them alive. Find out exactly when and where Kadyrov is planning to hit us."
"Interrogation takes time we might not have."
"Not if you do it right." I meet his eyes. "I know how my father's people were trained to resist questioning. I know where the pressure points are."
The implication hangs in the air between us. *I'm offering to help you torture men for information.*
Ilya's expression doesn't change, but I see something shift behind his eyes. Recognition. Assessment. The cold calculation of a man deciding whether I'm capable of what I'm suggesting.
"You've never done this before."
"No."
"It's not like the movies. It's not clean or quick."
"I know."
"Once you cross this line, you don't get to go back."
I stand up from the monitor station, closing the distance between us until we're standing toe to toe.
"I crossed that line the moment I chose to help you instead of running. The moment I decided that survival matters more than whatever version of myself I've been pretending to be." I hold his gaze without flinching. "I'm not asking for your permission, Ilya. I'm telling you what I'm willing to do."
The silence stretches. His soldiers watch from their positions around the room, and I feel the weight of their attention like a physical pressure against my skin.
Then Ilya reaches behind his back and pulls out a pistol. Compact. Matte black. The kind of weapon designed for close-quarters work.
He holds it out to me.
"Do you know how to use this?"
"My father made sure I could shoot before I could drive."
"Shooting targets isn't the same as shooting people."
"I know."
His fingers brush against mine as I take the weapon. The metal is warm from his body heat, and the contact sends electricity racing up my arm.
"Chamber a round."
I pull back the slide, feeling the mechanism catch and release. The sound is sharp in the quiet room. Final.
Ilya watches me with an expression I can't read.
"The reconnaissance team will try to extract through the parking garage in approximately eight hours." His voice has gone flat, tactical. "We'll intercept them at the service entrance. Dmitri will handle the initial takedown. You'll handle the questioning."
"And if they don't talk?"
"Then you'll make them talk." His gaze holds mine. "Can you do that?"
I think about the past seven years. The running. The hiding. The constant fear that every shadow might contain someone who wants me dead.
I think about the woman I've been pretending to be—the ghost, the survivor, the girl who dances under pink lights and dreams of disappearing to cities where the Morozov name holds less weight.
That woman is gone. She died the moment Ilya walked into Club Velvet and recognized me.
The woman standing here, holding a gun that's still warm from his hands, is someone else entirely.
"Yes." I meet his eyes without flinching. "I can do that."
Ilya's expression doesn't change. But I see something shift in the way he looks at me—a recognition that goes deeper than tactical assessment.
"Then welcome to the war, Nadia Petrova." His voice drops to something almost intimate. "Let's see what you're made of."
I release the safety and feel the weapon settle into my grip like it belongs there.
Like it's always belonged there.