Chapter 12 Sergei
SERGEI
Ileave Nadia in the safe room and lock the door myself. Vera sits on the couch with the blanket over her legs and the bear sitting beside her. Nadia is between her and the wall, small shoulders tight, eyes steady on mine. I touch her hair once, then turn away before I start to think too long.
Mikhail is tied to a steel chair in the storage room off the hall.
Plastic cuffs on his wrists, another set on his ankles, tape over his mouth.
Two of my men stand on either side of him, rifles on their shoulders, eyes clear.
I check every knot, every cuff, every angle of the camera that watches the room.
“If he moves more than he should, you break his arm,” I tell the nearer guard. “If he gets free, you shoot his leg first. If anyone tries to take him out of this room, you shoot to kill. No one moves him except me.”
“Understood, Pakhan,” the man says.
I peel the tape back from Mikhail’s mouth just enough.
“You wanted to feed me to your ghost,” I say. “You gave him my house. Now you sit here and think about how you’ll answer for that when I come back.”
His eyes are wild. “Sergei, listen, he will not meet without you in that cellar,” he whispers. “If you don’t go, he will go for her again. You know that.”
“He already went for her,” I say. “You helped.”
I put the tape back and walk out before I decide to do more.
In the entry, I choose my team. Vlad, Kirill, and four more men I trust with my life and my last bullet.
Raina stands by the door already in her coat, pistol in the pocket, hair pulled back tight.
She meets my eyes without a word. We both know this trip can go wrong in ten different ways. We still go.
“House protocol stays up,” I tell Andrei, who is on control detail.
“You keep the safe room sealed. No one opens that door except me or Raina. If the main power cuts again, you run on the internal line only. You do not reconnect to the building grid until I say. You treat every external signal as hostile. If something touches the system that you cannot explain, you shut everything down and you move to the safe room. You sit on the floor with a gun and you wait.”
He nods once, jaw tight. “Yes, Pakhan.”
“Andrei,” I add, “if that door opens and it is not us, you shoot.”
His eyes do not shake. “I will,” he says.
We take the service elevator to the underground garage.
The doors open to concrete and cold air.
Two black SUVs wait, engines already running.
Vlad takes the wheel of the lead car. I sit up front.
Raina gets in behind me with Kirill and another man.
The doors shut. The city closes around us when we pull out into the night.
Moscow slides past in strips of light and shadow. I feel the weight of the pistol at my hip and the knife at my back. I feel Raina’s gaze on the back of my neck and the pull that always starts in my chest when she is near and in danger. I force my breathing even.
“The bathhouse,” I say, watching the road. “He chose that place for a reason.”
Raina leans forward between the seats. “He knows it holds memory for me since it’s connected to my kidnapping,” she says.
“He also knows half the city still believes it’s mine,” I say. “Old money on the board, old favors. If there is trouble there, my name will bleed out before the first unit arrives. He wants noise or he wants time. Maybe both.”
Vlad changes lanes, steady hands, no waste in the movement. “Perimeter cars are set,” he says. “Two blocks out, all sides. No one moves closer without our call.”
“Good,” I reply with a nod. “We treat this as a trap from the first second. No one rushes. We look before we step.”
“About the gas,” Raina says. “The last message in the music box mentioned heat and pipes. He plays with patterns. Watch the mains.”
“I’m watching everything,” I answer briefly.
Traffic thins as we reach the Garden Ring. The bathhouse sits ahead, low stone front, glass doors, old neon sign on the roof. Steam curls up from a side vent into the cold air. The street is almost empty. Two parked cars. No line at the door. No smokers. That alone puts a bad taste in my mouth.
“Kill headlights,” I say.
Vlad clicks them off and we roll slow. I study the windows. No movement inside. The front desk is dark. A single security camera sweeps over the sidewalk and the service lane.
“Keep going,” I say. “Don’t stop at the door.”
We drive past once, then circle around the block.
On the second pass, Vlad eases the SUV into the narrow alley that runs behind the building.
A metal service door faces the lane. One light burns above it.
A second camera sits under the eave. Both cameras blink on the same rhythm, which means they are tied to something that is not the standard grid.
“Signal?” I ask.
Kirill checks the handheld in his lap. “Two wireless networks from the building. One is the public system, weak and open. One is new, high strength, no SSID, running on a hidden channel.”
Raina looks at the readout over his shoulder. “That is not bathhouse tech,” she says. “That is a private node. Portable or recently installed. He is sitting on his own pipe.”
“So he wants us inside that box,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “He’s waiting to watch.”
“Then we show him what we want him to see,” I say.
We park under the broken camera at the rear. Snow crunches under boots when we get out. I send two men to cover the corner and the line of dumpsters. Vlad takes point by the service door. I stand to his right. Raina stays between me and the wall, close enough that I can grab her if something jumps.
Vlad tests the handle. It’s unlocked.
“He wants a welcome,” Vlad says quietly.
“Open, slow,” I say.
He pushes the door. No alarm, no rush of air, no shout. The corridor inside is lit by low lamps. White tile on the floor, light green paint on the walls, lockers and hooks on one side. No voices. No steam. No staff.
We move in fast and low, weapons up. The door shuts behind us. I note the hinges, the frame, the deadbolt plate. No wires, no fresh marks.
“Clear left,” I whisper.
The men sweep the corridor toward the laundry and staff showers. Empty rooms, open doors, nothing but folded towels and storage racks. The front desk area shows on a feed at the end of the hall. Four monitors, one for each public area, sit on a shelf. All of them are dark.
Raina taps the control panel with the side of her hand. “Power to these is cut,” she says. “He is running his own cameras now.”
“Garage access?” I ask.
“Through here,” Vlad says, pointing to the stairs at the end. “Two levels down to the parking. Cellar entrance is near the ramps.”
We move down the stairs, fast but not careless.
The scent changes as we descend. Less soap, more oil and damp concrete.
On level one, I send two men to sweep the parked cars and the pillar rows.
No engines ping, no doors open. All license plates match the list we pulled when we entered the block. No new guests.
The red exit signs cast a dull light. A line of storage cages runs along one wall. At the far end, a door with a fresh lock waits. Heavy industrial steel, keypad mounted above the handle, small camera bubble over the frame. “That’s new,” Raina says.
Kirill checks the keypad. “Off the main power,” he says. “The numbers are lit. Someone fed this from a separate line too. No heat behind the door on thermal.”
I look at Raina. She nods once.
“This is it,” she says.
I study the frame, the hinges, the floor. I check the ceiling corners. No visible charges, no fragmentation net, no tripwire. Still, I do not give him the gift of my body in the doorway.
“Vlad,” I say, “bring the mirror.”
He pulls a thin pole with a round mirror from his pack, slides it under the door. He rotates it, watching the reflection, reading the space under the gap.
“Floor is clear,” he says. “No wires, no blocks. I see one table leg, center. No movement.”
“Everyone back,” I say. “I open. I stand to the side. If something moves in that room that is not a table, you shoot.”
They shift position without question. Raina is behind a column now, angle through the door clear. Her pistol is out, hands steady.
I key in the code Mikhail gave me. It’s a date, an old one from the wars. It should bother me that the Courier uses my history for his locks, but all it does is confirm he’s still my problem.
The keypad beeps green. The lock clicks. I pull the handle and yank the door open, then step to the side and hold my breath.
Nothing comes out. No gas, no blast. No movement.
We clear the room in a tight pattern. It’s empty. Concrete floor, bare walls, exposed pipes in the ceiling. A single table stands in the center. On it sits a black box and a small camera set on a tripod, lens facing the door. No chairs, no ropes, no drains.
Raina walks to the table while Vlad covers the far corner.
“He wants the camera to see whoever opens the box,” she says.
“He already saw,” I answer. “He has our angles from the hall. This is theater now.”
Kirill checks the walls. “No vents open into this room,” he says. “No ducts cut. If there is gas, it comes from the main line, not here.”
Raina lifts the camera and turns it to face the wall. Then she cuts the power cord with her knife and drops the dead unit on the floor.
“Enough,” she says.
She opens the box.
Inside sits a tablet. The screen glows with a live feed. The angle is high and narrow. It shows a door and a strip of wall. I know that hallway. It is the one outside the safe room in my city apartment. The timestamp in the corner is current.
Raina’s breath catches.
He is watching my house from here.
Text rolls across the bottom of the feed in clean white letters.
YOU LEFT HER WITH FRIENDS.
A second line appears.
WILL THEY BE ENOUGH WITHOUT YOU?
My jaw clenches. I taste metal under my tongue.