Chapter 21 Last Call
Last Call
The Forger:
Any good actor knows when to leave the stage.
Seven years of building the Volgograd network. Creating identities. Burning through obstacles. Seven years of perfect control.
Then this woman unravels everything. Calculus homework and that brilliant mind dissecting HeartSync's architecture like she'd written the code herself.
She's not just bait. She's potential incarnate. The architect of everything we could build together.
I slide my hand into my jacket pocket, fingers brushing the syringe. Plan B. Quick, merciful for her, but unthinkable.
I want Anton to live with what I take from him, just as I've lived with my loss. Death is too kind for him. I'll leave him broken, hollowed out, forced to exist knowing he couldn't save what mattered most.
Fee looks up suddenly, glancing toward her father and me.
One look. That's all it takes.
She's mine. Not Anton's collateral damage. Mine. I needed to see her one last time before everything changed.
The cameras show me partial truths. They cover the waiting room, the main corridors, and the elevator banks. But the blind spots are significant.
Lorenzo's gone with half his men. The security positions are now completely mapped, and Aleh's on standby.
Yuri angles closer, positioning himself to catch every word. He's never seen Hartley in person.
Connor and Patrick dealt with Morrison for years while Hartley stayed in the background, signing papers, filing permits, moving through bureaucratic channels like water through pipes. Invisible. Essential. Forgettable.
The night at the docks helped. Shadows erase inconsistencies when you're wearing someone else's face. What the darkness and makeup didn't cover, I fixed digitally: LinkedIn profile, social media accounts adjusted, archived photos replaced with versions matching my bone structure. Close enough.
Fee shifts across the room. Her fingers drum against her thighs, then stop. She returns to her laptop, shoulders drawn tight.
That calculus test. She mentioned it to me, to Phoenix, when we had our chat not long ago. She's trying to hold on to something normal while everything fractures around her. Still worrying about deadlines, even as fear for her sister bleeds through every word.
Responsible. Protective. Even when she's terrified.
That chat... I can't take Moira from her. I just can't. Not the way Anton took Vadim from me. Fee would never forgive it. Neither can I just come here and kill her father in front of her.
She'd look at me with nothing but hatred and the ache of permanent loss.
I've already taken too many risks seeing her up close, this woman who's changing me against my will. Every minute near her reshapes my revenge into something more dangerous: hesitation. But she's a risk worth taking.
I pull my thoughts from Fee and extend my hand to Connor Quinn. His palm is rough against mine, calluses built from decades of handling both ledgers and weapons.
"I'll let you get back to your family. Your daughter needs you now."
Connor's gaze, sharing that identical piercing green his daughters possess. The old Irish bastard evaluates me with the keen assessment of someone harboring absolute distrust. His instinct hums beneath his skin.
"I'll be in contact later today, Hartley. We've already sent men to check on the shipment. What I want to know is who fucked up the paperwork, and when I find out, they will never do it again."
The threat slides between us, precise as a blade. He's testing Hartley.
I straighten my jacket instead. "I intend to find out personally who mishandled the documentation, Mr. Quinn." My voice carries just the right amount of deference and bureaucratic competence. "In the meantime, please call me anytime. Day or night."
I pull a business card from my wallet, with Hartley's information and a burner number. His fingers close around it.
"I want to build trust with you," I tell him.
Connor tucks the card into his pocket without looking at it. "Trust is earned."
Over his shoulder, Fee's typing away. She has no idea she's been talking to me all along. No idea that I've been watching every keystroke, every search query, every brilliant hack she's executed.
I force myself to look away before Connor catches me staring.
"I should check on Moira," Connor says, ending our conversation.
I nod, stepping back. "Family first. Always."
As Connor walks away, I glance once more at Fee. Just one last look before everything changes. Before I become her enemy forever. Before I take her from Anton.
The pharmaceuticals in my system should make this easy, should erase the hollow feeling spreading through my chest when I think about hurting her.
But they don't.
Time to move.
I keep Hartley's pace. Measured. Unhurried. A man leaving after checking on an associate's wife, not a ghost evaporating before the hunter arrives. Performance doesn't end until you're offstage.
The elevator doors part, revealing an empty interior. Another stage, this one silent, void.
I step inside. The doors slide shut with the clunk of metal that's been rammed by patient beds and rushing emergencies.
I slip out of the elevator one floor below, transforming my posture the moment the doors close. David Hartley's carefully measured bureaucratic gait dissolves into something more efficient, more lethal.
My phone vibrates against my palm. Aleh.
Me: Everyone in position?
Aleh: Yes.
I cut through a service hallway, past supply closets and equipment that keeps this building functioning. Perfect symmetry—the invisible support structure most never notice, just as I operate in shadows while the world continues unaware.
Me: The electrical system?
Aleh: Vladik's on it. You'll have forty-seven seconds of darkness on the fifth floor.
I check the tablet in my hand, displaying hospital security feeds I've infiltrated. Fee sits with Yuri, still watching that laptop screen, searching for Anton's signal.
Me: Sixty seconds.
I recheck the tablet. Connor Quinn is at Moira's bedside alongside all the Carlucci's men, who are outside Moira's room. It leaves Fee with only Yuri as protection.
I move through the service corridor to the stairwell. I go up one flight. The fifth-floor door opens without a sound, just as Vladik arranged. The maintenance closet is right across from the waiting room, positioned perfectly. I slip inside, leaving the door cracked just enough to see through.
Me: Begin
Then the overhead speakers crackle to life. "Code Blue, NICU, isolette seven. Code Blue, NICU, isolette seven."
A pause. "Code Blue, NICU, isolette twelve. Code Blue, NICU, isolette twelve."
Another pause. Then the cascade begins. "Code Blue, NICU, isolette three."
"Code Blue, NICU, isolette eighteen."
"Code Blue, NICU, isolette nine."
The announcements bleed into each other. Five, six, seven babies in distress. Impossible. Statistically absurd. But nobody is going to sit and wait to see if it's a malfunction.
The rush is immediate and visceral. Parents' screams echo through the corridors.
My phone buzzes. Aleh's text confirms: Done.
Yuri reacts instantly, drawing his weapon and positioning his body between Fee and the perceived danger.
"Stay down," Yuri orders Fee.
She drops behind her chair without hesitation. No arguments, no questions. I've always admired that about her.
My finger hovers over ENTER on my tablet, the command that will trigger the electrical disruption.
Three seconds.
Yuri's torn between conflicting imperatives: respond to the threat or stay with Fee.
Two seconds.
Fee peers around the chair edge, that brilliant mind already analyzing, calculating, seeking patterns in the chaos.
One.
I hit ENTER.
The lights die.
Total darkness swallows the fifth floor. I pull on the night vision monocular. The world turns green. Clear.
Yuri's a dark shape in the waiting room, weapon raised, covering the main entrance.
His back is to me.
I step out of the maintenance closet, Glock raised, suppressor already threaded. The shot needs to be clean—center mass, non-lethal placement. I don't want her to hate me for killing Yuri, but I need him down.
The suppressed shot sounds like a palm slapping concrete. Yuri jerks, stumbles. But doesn't fall.
He spins toward me, weapon tracking even while hit. Training overrides pain.
The emergency lights flicker on. Dim red glow. And Fee sees everything.
Sees Yuri bleeding, gun raised. Sees me, weapon aimed at her protector.
Sees the exact moment Yuri pulls his trigger.
The shot goes wide, impacting the wall behind me, but his second doesn't.
The impact slams into my left shoulder, spinning me slightly. Pressure. Heat. But no pain.
Fee screams. "No!"
Yuri's voice cracks with desperation and fury, placing himself between Fee and me. "Stay behind me," he tells her.
Two shots. Both center mass, both placed precisely where they need to be. Yuri's vest stops the first. The second finds the gap at his side. He drops.
Fee screams again, and I catch her arm. "He'll live," I tell her. "The shots were placed carefully."
Yuri's on the floor, breathing harsh and wet. One hand pressed to his side, the other still gripping his weapon. Even bleeding out, he's trying to raise it.
I kick the gun away, pulling the syringe from my pocket. I kneel beside him, jam the needle into his neck, and depress the plunger.
The compound works fast. His body seizes, legs going rigid, then slack.
I stand, turning to Fee, who's frozen in horror.
"Yuri!" She lunges toward him.
"Stop."
She freezes. Eyes locked on the syringe, on Yuri's twitching form.
"What are you doing to him?" Her voice shakes but holds steady. "What did you give him?"
"Paralytic. Sedative. Carefully calibrated dose.
He'll be paralyzed for a few hours. Might have some muscle weakness when he wakes up.
But he'll be fine." I let her see the liquid still in the syringe.
"The rest of this?" I tilt it slightly. "This goes in, and his heart stops. Right here. Right now."
"No." She steps back. "Don't—"
"Then don't run." I watch her calculate. "Don't scream. Don't fight. Because if you do," I kneel beside Yuri, pressing the needle against his neck, "I finish what I started."
Fee's hands come up, palms out. Surrender. "Okay. Okay, don't hurt him. Please."
"Fee." Yuri's voice is slurred, barely conscious. "Run. Don't..."
I press harder on the syringe. "Quiet."
Fee's eyes shine with tears. "I'm not running. Just don't kill him. Please."
"Smart girl. Now we're going to walk out of here. You're going to come with me quietly. And Yuri lives."
"Where are you taking me?"
"Somewhere safe. Somewhere your sister won't be harmed. That's what you want, isn't it? Moira and her baby, safe?"
She nods.
"Then cooperate. Come with me now, and nothing happens to your sister. Nothing happens to Yuri. Everyone you love walks away from this."
I see the moment she decides the risk is too great.
"Okay," she whispers. "I'll come with you."
I stand slowly, removing the syringe from Yuri's neck, his body like a rag doll on the floor. I gesture toward the maintenance door. "After you."
She moves slowly, looking back at Yuri. He's trying to speak, trying to move, but his body won't respond.
"Fee," Yuri manages. "Anton... Anton's..."
"I know," she says softly. "I know he's coming."
Then she looks at me.
"Now move," I say.
Then I see it. A tiny flesh-colored device nestled in her ear.
Earpiece. Open channel. Clever bastard. Anton's been listening the entire time.
My eyes meet hers. She realizes I've seen it. Panic flashes across her face.
I reach up, pulling the earpiece from her ear.
Before she can stop me, I fit it into my own ear.
And hear him.
Anton Baev's voice, raw with fury and desperation: "Fee. Fee, answer me. Answer me!"
I lock my arm around Fee's waist as she tries to pull away. "For seven years, I've built toward this moment, Anton. I watched my mother die of grief. Seven years planning your destruction."
"Phoenix." Her voice barely whispers the word, but it lands like a gunshot. "You have a phoenix engraved on it."
She stares at the small bird etched into the metal syringe, wings spread in flight.
"Yes." I shift my grip on her, not tighter, but secure. "That's one of my many handles, but I mainly go by Kirill Belov."
Through the earpiece, I hear Anton's sharp intake of breath.
"Belov," Anton says. "Vadim Belov's brother."
"He was nineteen!" My control cracks. "Nineteen years old. And you put a bullet in his head without hesitation. Didn't even ask his name."
"I'm coming for you too, Kirill."
"Good. Because I have something you want. Fee's beautiful, Anton. Even terrified, she's extraordinary. I can see why you chose her."
Fee slams her elbow into my ribs. It doesn't hurt, but she's stronger than she looks.
I hold her tighter, pulling a second syringe from my pocket.
"I don't want to hurt you," I tell her, meaning it. "Please don't fight me."
She fights anyway. Scratches my face, tries to stomp on my foot, throws her head back, trying to connect with my nose.
"Fee, stop!"
She doesn't.
"I hope you're not allergic to anything in this cocktail," I say.
I plunge the needle into her shoulder.
She gasps, continuing to fight for three seconds. Then her movements slow and become uncoordinated.
"No," she mumbles.
"Fee!" Through the earpiece, Anton's voice is destroyed.
"Love you," she whispers, but she's looking at me. "Anton...I love—"
She collapses.
I catch her and lower her gently to the floor. I check her pulse, which is steady and strong. I can hear Anton breathing, fast and harsh.
"She's fine," I tell him. "Sedated. Unharmed. She'll wake up in a few hours."
"I'm going to kill you." His voice is ice and fire. "Slowly. Painfully. You'll beg me for death before I'm done."
"Perhaps." I lift Fee in my arms. She weighs nothing. "But first, you'll have to find her. And Anton? You better rush. Because every minute you waste is a minute I have with your woman."
My wound burns now, the pharmaceutical cocktail starting to struggle against the damage. I shift Fee's weight to my right arm. Left shoulder's useless.
I make it to the stairwell. Aleh's waiting, back to his own face.
"Take her." I transfer Fee into his arms. The movement pulls at my torn muscle, sending fresh blood spreading through my jacket.
Aleh carries her down, and I watch until the stairwell swallows them both.
I pull the earpiece out and crush it under my heel.
Now Anton will finally understand what loss feels like.