Chapter 26
DAMIEN
I’ve been everywhere the Vasiliev dogs prowl, and into the places they might favor, following patterns I’ve studied for years.
But everywhere I go gives me nothing. Every step feels wasted.
Every corner dead-ends. Rurik is using a new playbook.
Whatever I thought I knew about him goes out the window.
We’re back at headquarters now, the air sharp with tension.
My men are restless, snapping at each other, pacing, pouring coffee none of them will drink, and I can’t help but think their postures mirror my own.
No one will say it, especially to me, but we all feel the truth deeply. She’s been gone too long.
The monitors flip through channels of intercepted chatter, each a possible lead, each another dead end. I’ve played their voices back so many times I could identify every one of Rurik’s men by tone alone.
I hear them talk about the “girl” in a way that infuriates me.
Everyone knows Rurik has taken someone special to me, and they’re laughing about it.
They talk about how stupid we are and how they have us chasing our tails.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think they’re aware we’re listening.
But I know they aren’t. They’re just arrogant sons of bitches.
I’ve killed men for less egregious offenses.
My chest tightens with worry for Lyra. Not just for her well-being, but for our baby’s too.
She’s far enough along that I don’t think the stress will take the baby from us but worry has a way of creeping past logic.
She is incredibly strong, but I don’t know how strong she’ll have to be now. It could wreak havoc on her body.
I brace my hands on the back of a chair, knuckles pale against the dark wood. My men keep stealing glances at me, trying to read the temperature in the room, but the storm is written across my face. I stare at the screens and speak aloud, more to myself than to anyone else.
“I will find you, Lyra.”
The silence breaks when Alek, who’s hunched over one of the terminals, flicks a switch and mutters to me, “I’ve got a new channel coming through, boss.”
Everyone leans forward as static fills the space between us. He adjusts the frequency, and a faint hum clears into something sharper. It’s a feed patched through one of the bugs we’d slipped in and forgotten about.
At first, we only hear a few men talking low about how they didn’t sign up to be babysitters. I know right then they’re talking about Lyra. Then my hope is confirmed when I hear shuffling, and then Lyra’s voice.
“She’s alive!” I gasp, relief slicing through my dread like a knife, but the wound it leaves behind is deep.
A second later, I hear another familiar voice that sends a chill down my spine.
It’s Rurik. The thought of him within twenty feet of her makes my skin crawl.
It infuriates me in a way I can’t even explain.
Terror climbs my spine. My fists curl tight enough to grind bone against bone.
My men don’t move, waiting for the order they know is coming.
On the feed, her words break through more clearly.
She sounds tired but I can tell she’s still fighting.
I cling to the fact that she has enough left to speak at all.
Rurik answers her, his voice low and deliberate, laced with the arrogance of a man who thinks himself untouchable.
He’s trying to get under my skin even without knowing I’m listening. And it works.
I pace once across the room, then back. The men closest to me keep their heads down, pretending to be lost in their screens, though I know they’re listening as carefully as I am.
Rurik laughs, a sound that burns worse than any insult.
I imagine his hand too close to her, his breath too near her ear, and my vision goes red.
“Rurik’s already dead,” I say quietly, though everyone hears me. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
The words keep me grounded. They give me something to focus on. Lyra is alive, and I’ll fight to my dying breath to keep it that way.
I move closer to the screen, standing behind Alek as if proximity could somehow bring me closer to her.
The audio sharpens for a moment, catching her voice again, clearer this time.
I close my eyes, commit it to memory, wrap it around me like armor.
Each second she speaks is proof she’s still fighting, still holding on.
But then Rurik interrupts. His words twist, mocking me, mocking her, mocking the very idea that she could matter to me. I want to reach through the wires, through the static, and put a bullet in him where he stands.
Instead, I grip the back of Alek’s chair until the wood creaks.
“Trace it,” I order him.
Alek nods, fingers flying across the keyboard, pulling coordinates from scraps of signal strength. It isn’t easy. The feed is bouncing, shifting, rerouted a dozen times to hide its origin. But every signal has a flaw. Every voice leaves an echo.
I hear Lyra again, softer this time. My throat tightens. I want to tell her I can hear her. I want to tell her I’m coming for her. But all I can do is stand here, chained to this room, while her voice bleeds through the speakers.
The men around me shift uncomfortably, hearing what I hear, knowing the weight of it. None of them speak. They know the silence is sacred.
Alek curses under his breath. “The signal is bouncing through half the borough. It could take all night.”
“Then work faster,” I snap.
He swallows and nods, leaning closer to the monitor.
I turn away before my rage consumes me entirely. Alek doesn’t speak, but his silence reminds me of the balance I have to keep. If I lose myself completely, I lose her.
I lower my voice, speaking as much to myself as to the room. “Hold on, Lyra. I’m coming.”
Eventually, I hear Rurik’s boots drag across the floor. He mutters something to one of his men, his voice thick with command, and then a door shuts with a final metal thud. Silence follows, broken only by the shuffle of the younger guards left behind. My chest loosens. At least he’s gone.
Lyra’s voice cuts in again, soft and deliberate as she speaks to the guards. At first, I think she’s just talking to stay sane, but then I realize there’s structure in her questions. She’s leading them.
The guard doesn’t even realize it. He answers her questions thoughtlessly, as if they’re too stupid to even warrant his silence.
He tells her the exact location of the warehouse, probably thinking it won’t matter.
He can’t know that we’re listening. And it suddenly hits me that she does.
I guess my little project for her wasn’t as inconspicuous as I thought.
I slam my fist against the table and shout, “Good girl!”
My voice rips through the room, startling half the men at the computers. My blood surges with relief and rage all at once.
“Let’s move out!” I tell them, already heading out the door.
The console tech shouts after me, “I’ll text the address!” but I barely hear him.
My legs are carrying me down the hall before the words finish leaving his lips.
Alek is at my heels without being told. The others are seconds behind, boots pounding the concrete as we funnel toward the garage. Keys jangle, engines turn, the place explodes into movement.
The city lights blur as we tear through the streets.
I lean forward in the passenger seat of the SUV, my eyes locked on the black ribbon of road ahead, my jaw set so tight it aches.
Alek drives, his knuckles white on the wheel, his mind already in the warehouse with me.
The second SUV pulls up behind, headlights low, its engine growling.
A third vehicle takes the parallel street, ready to cut off an escape route.
All I can think about is her. The thought of her sitting in some filthy chair, surrounded by Vasiliev scum, makes something primal in me coil tight. Every second that ticks by feels like another piece of her slipping from me.
Alek glances at me. “Do we go loud or quiet?”
“Quiet until we can’t be,” I answer, my voice low. “We’re not wasting bullets. We get straight to her and only fight our way out when we have to.”
He nods once, then lays out the rest without me needing to ask.
“I’m setting up two teams on the flanks, one at the roof access, another holding the power grid. We sweep in from the east service door. You take the lead.”
I give a short grunt of approval. It’s exactly what I would have come up with. We’ve been working together so long, we’re basically one mind now.
The drive flies by, but my thoughts drag.
I think of her hand in mine at the villa, the way she looked at me when I told her I loved her.
I think of the child she carries, a piece of both of us.
And then I think of Rurik. The man who took my father.
The man who thinks he can take her. I imagine his face when I put the muzzle to his forehead and erase him from this world. That image steadies me.
We pull off the main road and into an industrial sector that sleeps uneasily at night.
Warehouses sit in rows, their windows black, their lots empty except for rusted trailers and the occasional flicker of a security light.
The address flashes across my phone from the tech. Right where the guard said.
“Kill the lights,” I order.
Alek flicks the switch and the SUV melts into darkness. We roll to a stop two blocks out, tires crunching once on gravel before settling. Engines cut. The night swallows us.
Doors open in near-perfect unison. My men fan out with rifles pressed tight to shoulders, their shadows long across the broken pavement. The air tastes of oil and brine. Somewhere in the distance, a tugboat sounds its horn. It rattles through my bones.
We split up. Two men peel off to circle the back, their boots barely whispering against the ground. Another pair cuts toward the south bay door. A third team moves for the roof. The rest hold the perimeter, eyes on every angle.
Alek stays with me, just like he always does. He checks his rifle once, then the pistol at his side, then gives me a quick nod.
We move together toward the east wall. The heater box rattles against the corrugated siding. A single security camera points toward the lot, oblivious to its own blind spot. I crouch, checking angles, watching for motion in the windows above. There’s nothing but darkness.
“Ready?” Alek whispers.
I slide the suppressor onto my pistol and chamber a round. “Yes.”
We ease against the wall, keeping to its shadow. My heartbeat slows, sharp and clean. Every sense sharpens. I can smell the cheap cigarettes of the guards inside. I can hear the scrape of a chair leg against concrete. I can almost feel Lyra’s presence through the thin metal sheet that separates us.
This is the last stretch. After this, nothing will keep me from her.
I signal to Alek. We stack at the service door. I pull a pick from my pocket, slip it into the cheap lock, and feel the pins click one by one. The cylinder turns. The latch gives. The door opens easily.