21. Katerina #2
The old wooden door at the end of the kitchen stands exactly where it always has, the worn brass handle catching the overhead light faintly. With one last glance over my shoulder, I reach for it.
The door creaks faintly when I pull it open.
I slip inside quickly and ease it shut behind me.
Darkness swallows me for a moment until my eyes adjust. My hand drifts automatically to the wall beside the staircase, fingers tracing over the familiar puckered marks in the plaster as I begin to descend the worn steps.
The grooves are old, scars left by decades of people carrying crates and boxes down these narrow stairs.
Cobwebs cling to the uncovered light bulbs that line the ceiling overhead. Their yellow glow flickers weakly as I pass beneath them, illuminating the dust and neglect that has settled over this forgotten part of the house.
Barely anyone comes down here anymore. Not unless a dinner party calls for extra dishware or large cooking pots to be pulled from storage. And that hasn’t happened since my mother died. The thought slips through my mind quietly as I continue downward.
By the time I reach the final step, I release a slow breath of relief I didn’t even realize I’d been holding.
The basement is empty.
The door to the tunnel sits only a few feet away from where I stand.
The concrete floor is brutally cold beneath my bare feet.
The sensation sends a violent shiver racing up my spine, nearly making my teeth chatter.
My arms instinctively wrap tight around my midsection as I try to hold in what little warmth my thin T-shirt and shorts can provide me with.
When I reach it, I stop.
My hand hovers over the rusted metal handle, freezing in the air as it remains suspended. My eyes travel from the door down to the floor where my bare feet are pale looking against the concrete floor.
A quiet, incredulous laugh almost escapes me.
How exactly am I supposed to walk through snow with no shoes?
The tunnel may lead me out of this house, but it exits practically in the woods halfway down the hill behind the estate. The storm outside has been building for hours. By now the ground must be buried under several inches of fresh powder.
If I try to run through that barefoot, I might not even make it fifty yards. Dying of exposure while trying to escape this nightmare would be tragically ironic. I fought so hard to get away from the FSB and escape the fate of being locked in a cell for the rest of my life.
For it all to end because of something as stupid and indifferent as winter pisses me off to no end.
I stare at the door for another moment, letting out a slow breath that fogs faintly in the cold basement air.
I have to try.
Turning around and going back upstairs isn’t an option.
I’ll never be able to live with myself if I walk back into their arms and let them take me like a compliant prisoner.
I didn’t expose my father in front of half of Moscow’s political elite just to surrender quietly the moment things became difficult.
If this ends tonight, it ends with me fighting to get back to Aleksandr.
My hand reaches for the handle. The metal is freezing against my palm.
My jaw tightens when I try to twist it, putting more strength behind it than I normally would.
The mechanism resists stubbornly, rusted and stiff from years of disuse.
The cold doesn’t help either, the metal contracting just enough to make everything harder to move.
“Come on…” I mutter under my breath.
Finally, with a reluctant click, the latch gives. But the door still doesn’t move. Years of neglect have warped the wood inside the frame. I grab the handle with both hands and lean my weight back, yanking hard. The door groans in protest, shifting only a fraction of an inch.
Dust rains down on me from the top of the frame.
I pull again and again. Each movement makes the hinges shriek softly, the sound grating through the quiet basement like a warning bell. My heart climbs into my throat as I glance once over my shoulder toward the stairs, thankfully finding no shadows pursuing me.
I brace one bare foot against the concrete wall and yank with everything I have.
The door suddenly gives.
It tears free from the frame with a violent jerk that sends me stumbling backward. My arms windmill instinctively as I struggle to catch my balance before I land on my ass. I manage to latch onto one of the shelves nearby, using it to straighten me again.
Once I’ve steadied myself, I let out a quiet huff of breath and turn back toward the open doorway—
And freeze.
A man I don’t recognize stands just outside it. Half his face is swallowed by shadow from the darkness beyond the tunnel’s entrance.
He’s tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in the same black tactical gear as the others upstairs.
Except there’s no balaclava hiding his face.
Nothing concealing the sharp, dangerous lines of his features.
His eyes are black, not the soft brown-black of most people, but something darker.
Something that seems to swallow the weak light spilling from the basement bulbs behind me.
Black ink crawls up one side of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his jacket in intricate lines that twist like living things.
A gun rests casually in his hand, the barrel already pointed straight at me. His finger sits comfortably on the trigger. In his other is a flashlight, his thumb moving to click it off.
My heart stutters violently in my chest.
For a moment neither of us moves.
He blinks once. Then a slow, amused smile curls at the corner of his mouth. “Well. This is convenient.”
Terror coils hard in my stomach.
A realization hits me with brutal clarity. He’s going to kill me. For a strange, suspended moment, my mind becomes very quiet.
After everything… the gala, the exposure, the fight… this is where my story stops. In a freezing basement, barefoot, staring down the barrel of a gun.
Maybe I’d deluded myself into thinking they wanted me alive.
It would have made sense, in a way. Drag me into some windowless interrogation room, keep me locked away while they tore apart every detail of what I knew about my father’s operations. Use me as leverage. Use me as evidence. Use me until every useful scrap of information had been extracted.
That’s the version of events I’d been bracing myself for.
Taking my father and me out and completely wiping the Borchin name from existence before any more of his crimes can surface publicly fits perfectly within their playbook.
Dead people don’t leak information. They don’t embarrass the military on international television. If both of us disappear tonight, the narrative becomes simple—a disgraced colonel and his mentally unstable daughter lost in a tragic incident.
Case closed.
My gaze flicks briefly to the darkness behind him.
Only a few steps beyond him is freedom. I can almost smell the snow outside, that clean, biting scent of winter that means the world beyond this house still exists.
Three steps.
Maybe four.
That’s all that stands between me and escape.
The man watches my eyes move. His head tilts slightly, following the direction of my gaze before he slowly straightens to his full height.
To my surprise, he lowers the gun. The movement is slow, as if he’s trying not to startle a nervous animal. He slips the weapon back into the holster at his hip before lifting one hand and gesturing casually toward the tunnel.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go.”
My brows knit together immediately.
Does he think I’m stupid?
Maybe he believes the earlier display of the gun is enough to make me compliant. That I’ll obediently follow him anywhere he tells me to just to stay alive a little longer. Little does he know I’m willing to risk everything for the slim possibility I’ll make it out of here and back to Aleksandr.
I don’t move.
For a brief moment, irritation flashes across his face before he smooths it away again, faint boredom returns like a mask slipping back into place.
He steps forward.
Instinctively, I step back.
The distance between us closes slowly until I realize with a sharp jolt that he’s herding me away from the door. Away from the tunnel. By the time I register what he’s doing, I’m already halfway back across the basement.
My eyes dart toward the tunnel entrance, and then I move. I lunge sideways, darting around him in a sudden burst of motion and sprint straight for the opening.
I almost make it.
His hand clamps around my arm before I can take two full steps. The force of it jerks me backward hard enough to steal the air from my lungs. I twist violently in his grip, kicking and clawing at him with every ounce of strength I have.
“Let go of me!” I snarl, driving my knee up toward his groin.