Chapter 3
RAINA
I’m in. Sergei has promised protection, though I don’t know if he’d agree so readily if he knew what—who—I’ve hidden from him, safe at the house of my best friend.
In this house, I’ve been given a maid who moves more like a bodyguard. Her heels make no sound on the polished floor as she leads me out of the den where Sergei questioned me for over an hour.
The room behind us still smells of him—tobacco, cigar smoke, cologne, and the leather of his dark, polished boots.
My clothes are damp from the snow, my bones feel hollow, and every step away from that den feels like walking deeper into a mouth that’s already closing.
“I will show you your room,” she says without looking at me.
Her Russian is crisp, school-perfect, and her tone is full of ice.
I follow her because I’ve nothing left in me to pretend there’s a choice.
The steps take effort since my legs are leaden and my brain feels raw around the edges, stripped thin by the last few hours.
I’ve been running for years, chased by something as patient and vicious as a wolverine.
The first time I ran, it was shortly after the Courier tried to kidnap me to make an example out of me.
I was lucky then, but I’m not so sure this time.
We move down a long corridor lined with dark paneling and framed photographs.
Men at tables. Men in suits on riverfront docks.
Sergei’s empire in black and white. The lights are low, pools of gold along the walls, leaving strips of shadow between them.
Somewhere deeper in the mansion, a door closes, heavy and final.
The maid’s name, Anastasia, is pinned to her starched apron in neat black letters.
She has her hair twisted in a tight knot, not a strand loose, and a small vertical frown line sits between her brows like it has lived there for years.
She’s no taller than me, and her posture tells me exactly what I need to know.
Shoulders loose, head level, weight centered over the balls of her feet.
If I had to bet, there’s a compact pistol at the small of her back and a knife in the pocket that looks like it holds a clean handkerchief.
Sergei never liked soft staff.
“You will remain in the east wing,” Anastasia says. Her words are short, cut close. She doesn’t show teeth when she talks. Even her mouth feels guarded. “The floor is secure. Guards will be posted at both ends of the corridor and outside your door.”
“Do the guards have names too?” I ask, “or just calibers and orders to shoot me if I sneeze too loudly?”
She glances at me then, quick, eyes cool and full of evaluation. I notice her irises are hazel, like mine. But without the gold flecks. Her gaze looks like flat glass. Mine still catch light, whether I want them to or not.
“I’m instructed to ensure your comfort, Miss Mirova,” she says. “And your compliance.”
I almost laugh, but the sound sticks in my throat.
We turn a corner where the heat from the radiator sits heavier, the carpet softer under my boots. A tall window at the end of the hall shows Moscow in winter, lights blurred behind a curtain of snow. The city still looks the same. I’m the one who’s changed.
I spent five years carving myself out of this place, changing names, burning traces, teaching my daughter to be quiet when strangers knocked. Now I walk under Sergei’s roof again, alone, and his men move around us like we’re part of a drill.
No one questions why I'm here. No one looks surprised. They glance once, register me, then look to Anastasia, to the hallway, to the corners where threats would hide. They obey his orders without so much as a wrinkle in their expressions.
Keep her alive.
Even now, the city bends around his silence. That hasn’t changed.
We reach a door halfway down the hall. Dark wood, brass handle, a discreet camera in the corner above it, red light glowing faintly. Anastasia keys in a code on the panel beside the frame, fingers swift and sure, then turns the handle and steps aside so I can enter first.
The guest suite is bigger than the apartments I’ve lived in since I ran.
The ceiling rises high above me, making the room feel larger than it already is.
A soft, thick rug in deep blue and charcoal stretches across the floor, absorbing each step I take.
The bed dominates the space with its carved headboard and white linens so crisp they almost shine in the dim light.
Heavy curtains are pulled across the tall windows, though a faint glow from the city still leaks in at the edges.
A fireplace sits along one wall, dark for now but stacked with logs ready to catch at the first spark.
On the bookshelf, tucked between hardbound volumes, sits the tiny brass compass I found in a street market and insisted was lucky.
Next to it lies the chipped ceramic fox I bought on a whim because it reminded me of a story my mother used to tell.
Even the old bookmark I embroidered with clumsy red thread rests exactly where I left it, on top of a novel I never finished.
None of these pieces belong in a room like this, yet Sergei kept every one.
He could’ve given them away or thrown them out years ago, but he didn’t.
My stomach twists and my shoulders tense as if I expect a hand to land on them.
“This is your wardrobe,” Anastasia says, crossing to a tall armoire and opening it so I can see inside. Hangers. Clean clothes already arranged, neutral colors, the sizes almost exactly right. “The bathroom is through there.”
She indicates a door to the right. I catch a glimpse of pale tile, a freestanding tub, chrome fixtures, more luxury than I have let myself imagine in years. “There is a call button by the bed if you require anything. Food, medicine, additional linens.” Her tone says don't abuse the privilege.
“What about fresh identities?” I ask, keeping my tone even, as if it’s a routine request. “Slightly used lives. New joints for all the bones I broke out there.”
She ignores that. “You are not to leave this floor without an escort. You are not to access any house systems. Cameras, routers, terminals. You are not to approach the main gate without clearance.”
“In other words, cage,” I say with a small, humorless curve of my mouth.
Her jaw tightens. She looks at me without blinking. “In other words,” she says, “you are still breathing. Many are not. And you came here to ask for help. You remain lucky he granted it.”
For all her short sentences, she’s pretty great at making stuff land.
Faces flash in my mind. Women whose names I only knew from files. A bouncer’s girlfriend. A bartender who once delivered a message for me because she had soft eyes and believed in tips, not politics. A bookkeeper who asked once if I thought this job was safe.
It was. Until it wasn’t.
The first time the Courier’s work brushed against my life, it wasn’t personal.
It was a case file whispered through the syndicate channels—a girl from another district, another crew, found in pieces that fit too neatly into a black box.
First a finger. Then a hand. Then the rest. By the time the fragments of her story reached me, there was nothing left for anyone to save.
Back then, I lived under Sergei’s protection.
I ate at his table, slept in his bed, and worked behind his screens.
I spent my nights hacking into accounts he marked for seizure, tracing shell companies built to hide stolen shipments, and tightening the firewalls around the digital skeleton of the empire he carved out of four cities.
Code was my weapon. Silence was my training.
I believed I understood the world I was helping him build.
I also believed monsters slipped in through cracks we failed to seal.
I was wrong. Monsters like the Courier aren’t accidents. They are shaped in the blind corners we refuse to examine, sharpened by the orders we give and the ones we’re too afraid to question.
“Mr. Baranov instructed me to collect your phone,” Anastasia says.
The present snaps back into focus. The room. The bed. Her standing there with her hands folded neatly in front of her apron, patience already thinning. Of course he wants my phone. He never liked unknown variables, and my life is one long string of them now.
“How thoughtful,” I say. “Worried I will call a cab and sneak out the back in the middle of the night?”
“He said your devices are compromised,” she replies, her face as still as the rest of her. “Until his men clear them, they are a risk to you and to this house.”
He’s right, as usual. That’s the irritating part.
I take my phone from my pocket. The screen is cracked at one corner, the glass spiderwebbed from a drop from a stairwell last month.
The case is scuffed. Nadia’s photo is still set as the background, her hair a dark halo, her eyes storm grey like his.
My chest tightens and I work quickly, doing a quick factory reset.
Sergei won’t go snooping, but I’m not taking chances.
Once I’m done, I hand the phone to her and she closes cold, long fingers over it.
The name tag on her apron catches the light again as she turns.
“Rest,” she says. “Dinner will be sent up in due time.”
Sleep. As if the last five years didn’t train my body to wake at every shift in air.
“It’s still early,” I say, my voice smooth, harmless.
She looks at the clock on the wall. The hands point close to three. “Dawn comes early in winter.”
She moves to the door.
“Anastasia,” I say.
She pauses, fingers on the handle. A small thread of curiosity pulls through her composure.
“Yes?”
“If someone tries to come through that door and isn’t you or Sergei, what do your orders say?”
She considers me for a second. Then another. “My orders are to ensure you live long enough to be useful,” she says. “Make of that what you will.”