7. Dominik #3
My mind runs through transport flats and buildings with thick walls and no neighbors. Rooms where sound doesn’t travel and faces are forgotten.
I drive to a cafe I used to use years ago. Truckers stop there. So do men who don’t stay long. There’s no music. No one asks why you’re alone.
Coffee comes hot and bitter. I take a slab of rye bread and a square of hard cheese from the case. I take the corner table with my back to the wall. Door in sight. Windows to my left.
I open my laptop and place the burner face down beside it. I work fast, without treating this as a pause. I reduce the city to roads, properties, and access points, keeping what works and discarding the rest.
I look for short holds. Clean transfers. Places built to keep someone breathing and invisible. That’s where she’ll be.
I start writing down places they would avoid and cross them out one by one. Some are too exposed. Some are too close to political offices. Some belong to men who would turn it into a show.
What stays on the page is smaller. Quieter buildings. Offices where conversations happen behind closed doors and no one raises their voice.
They didn’t take her to hurt her. They took her to sit her down and make her agree.
They’ll question her. Soft at first. Give her offers, framing marriage as protection. Sergei’s name will come up. Probably others. They’ll talk softly of stability and tradition. All the words men use when they breathe control instead of oxygen.
Rescuing her will need weapons first. Then a route. Then the kind of men who don’t blink.
I call Boris. We talk for twenty seconds, just long enough to confirm what I need and where to get it.
I leave the cafe and pull the car into a warehouse district I haven’t touched in years. Boris told me to come. He’s already there, poised against his bike, helmet still on, face hidden. He pushes off the wall when he sees me.
We don’t speak. He just walks to the door, punches in a code, and the heavy steel door slides open slowly.
Inside, the lights flicker once, then flood the space white. Crates line the walls, neat, each one tagged by caliber and date. Not a single item is out of place.
Boris moves to the table without a word. Night optics. Suppressed pistols fitted and ready. Ammo packed in labeled boxes.
“No crashing through the front,” he says, checking a mag before sliding it in. “You want to make it out, you keep it tight and clean.”
I nod once and start pulling what matters, what fits the job, and won’t slow me down.
The SMG catches my eye. It’s fast and compact, meant for tight entries, so I test its weight on my shoulder and decide it’ll do.
I trade my blade for a black-edged one with cleaner weight and a sharper edge.
From the table, I add a tactical harness, a second mag, and night optics.
Boris whistles, legs planted, eyes on me the whole time. I drop a sealed envelope on the table. Inside is the payment. He doesn’t nod.
“Call only when you're clear,” I say and leave. I don’t look back.
I don’t call everyone. I call the men who won’t stall and won’t ask questions. Greg answers on the second ring.
“Tell me what you need,” he says.
“Vehicles,” I reply. “Be discreet, no questions.”
“You’re out,” he says.
“I know.”
A pause. Then, “How many?”
“As many as answer,” I say. “Whoever still picks up. I don’t need them with me. I need them on cameras.”
He doesn’t ask for more. He lines up cars that can pass through checkpoints they expect me to use, but I won’t, plates that get scanned while I move somewhere else. The drivers won’t know what they’re part of.
“That can be done,” Greg says.
I make two more calls.
Yuri first. He picks up fast.
“I need eyes,” I say. “Live feeds. Anything council-tier that blinks when it shouldn’t.”
“I’m already looking,” he replies. No questions. “Call stays open.”
Good.
The second call goes to Maksim Volyn. I still need a vehicle waiting after extraction.
“Exit and burn,” I say. “One car for leaving the scene. No plates. No return. Then another with a driver two miles out.”
“Where?”
“I’ll send locations when I have them.”
A pause. Then a breath. “You’re crossing lines,” Maksim says.
“I already crossed them,” I answer.
“Send the drop,” he says. The line goes dead.
Pavel gets a message, text only, telling him to be ready for a perimeter watch as soon as I drop coordinates. Confirmations come back one after another, stripped of tone or reassurance. Oleg doesn’t need prompting. The transfer hits my account while I’m still standing at the wall.
They’ll expect me to rush in hard and loud. I won’t.
I’ll start at the edges, the men posted to watch doors and pass messages. The ones who think this is routine. I’ll make it harder for them to treat her like leverage.
When this is done, my name will be attached to it. No one will mistake who moved. I stand there a moment and look out at the city.
I sit in the car and pull up the maps again. I trace the routes and mark the time gaps between checkpoints. I circle three locations and stare at them until one doesn’t fit the pattern.
That’s the one.
I pull up a number I haven’t used in years and let it ring.