Chapter 16 Raina
RAINA
Iwake with a weight in my head and a slow roll in my stomach. For a moment I think I’m on the apartment couch, that I fell asleep watching the security feeds. Then I open my eyes and see the ceiling.
The wood above me is carved and painted. Reds and blues and golds curve along the beams. Small flowers, twisting vines, tiny birds with spread wings. Someone did this work by hand and took their time.
I turn my head. The room is small and neat with walls made of wood that are scrubbed clean.
The bed under me is soft. A wool blanket covers my legs.
A lace curtain hangs over a single window.
Pale light seeps through it. I take a deep breath in and inhale pine, smoke, and something rich from a kitchen.
My tongue feels thick and my mouth is dry. My arm tingles when I push myself up. I sit on the edge of the bed until the floor stops tilting.
The last clear thing I remember is Nadia’s breath against my neck and the taste of cocoa on my tongue.
Her head was on my shoulder. Anastasia put a mug into my hand.
She smiled and I thought that perhaps she was letting her guard down around me, finally.
My chest tightens. I push the image away for a second so I can stand.
My throat scratches the moment I remember Vera’s face and that I never got to say goodbye. My best friend, and I couldn’t save her. And Sergei… he must be beside himself with grief and anger.
I swing my feet to the floor. A rug meets my skin. The fibers scratch my soles. I flex my toes, testing balance, testing control. My muscles answer. I’m not tied. No handcuffs, no rope. I’m still in the clothes from the house. Black pants, black sweater, socks.
The door is across from the bed, wooden and thick, with a simple metal handle. I walk to it and try the handle. It turns, but the lock holds. My shoulder bumps the wood. It doesn’t give. There’s a keyhole under the handle. No key on my side.
I check the window next. The curtain is light.
I move it aside. Outside, I see snow, a line of dark trees, and part of a roof.
The glass is thick and has a heavy frame with a latch.
I test it. It lifts, but the window barely moves.
Someone has painted the seam shut or sealed it from outside.
Cold slips in through a thin gap and kisses my fingers.
I step back and look again at the room. There is a narrow wardrobe with painted doors, a small table with two chairs, and a brick stove in the corner.
A kettle rests on the stove. A narrow shelf holds a row of icons and a little brass lamp.
Everything is careful. Everything is arranged to look harmless.
The table holds plates and cups. Steam curls from a bowl of stew. Bread sits in a basket. Butter softens on a small dish. There is a glass of water and a clay mug that smells of tea with honey.
My stomach tightens with hunger. I don’t know how long I’ve been out. The last time I ate was before the bathhouse, before Vera died, before the cocoa. My body demands something now.
I stand still and breathe. They already took me out of my own house. They drugged me under my own roof. If they want to add poison, they have had enough chances. Food here is a message, not the main weapon. It says, I can keep you alive as easily as I can take you apart.
On light feet, I walk to the table and take a seat. The chair creaks. The stew smells of meat, potatoes, herbs. I pick up the spoon and feel the weight. My hand trembles once, then steadies. I take one careful bite and wait.
Salt, fat, heat. No sharp taste. No metal. My throat accepts it. My stomach flares with both relief and anger. I eat. I do not rush, but I don’t pretend I’m not hungry. I finish half the bowl, some bread, and drink the water. I leave the tea for now.
The laptop sits at the far edge of the table, black and thin, closed.
No logo or stickers or cables that I can see.
Just a small light on the side that shows it is charged and ready.
I put the spoon down and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
My heart is beating too fast now. Not from the food.
From the feeling that something is about to shift.
The laptop buzzes. The sound is sharp in the quiet room. The small light on the side blinks faster. The lid lifts a little and then opens on its own. The screen glows.
A call window fills the display. There is no name, only a symbol in the corner. A clean white circle with three small lines inside it. One vertical, two crossing. A plaything for clever men who think they are untouchable.
The “accept” button pulses.
I stare at it for three breaths. Sergei would tell me to wait, to test the room for other signals, to see if the call triggers some other action. I don’t have his network here or his men. I don’t even have a proper knife. I have my hands, my head, and a locked door. I click Accept.
The screen shifts. The upper half stays black, but a line dream flickers across the center. A voice comes through the speakers. It is neither deep nor high. It’s steady, clear, and clean. It sounds like someone who has spent a lot of time teaching his throat to hide his true tone.
“Good morning, Raina,” he says.
My fingers tighten on the edge of the table.
“Is it morning?” I ask. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’m missing a few hours.”
He gives a small laugh. It has no warmth.
“It is morning enough,” he says. “Late enough that your husband has already buried one loyal woman and broken one disloyal man.”
The skin on my arms prickles. The stew in my stomach turns heavy.
“You’re the Courier,” I say. I don’t make it a question.
“You’ve always been quick,” he replies. “It’s one of the things I respect.”
“I don’t care about your respect,” I say. “Where is my daughter?”
“In her bed,” he says. “Breathing. Holding her bear. You can relax that part of your mind.”
I feel the breath punch out of me, then catch. I do not let him hear a sob. I swallow it and turn it into something else.
“You expect me to take your word for that?” I ask.
The black field on the screen shifts. A small window opens in the corner.
The angle is high. The shot is of Nadia’s room.
Her bed, her small body under the blanket, the nightlight on the wall.
Anastasia in the chair with a blanket on her shoulders, head tipped back, eyes closed but body still upright.
There is a guard at the door, only his arm and part of his rifle in the edge of the frame.
My hand reaches for the screen before I can stop it, and my fingertips touch the glass. Nadia’s chest rises and falls. I count the breaths. One. Two. Three. Four. The angle is recent. The time stamp at the bottom shows a current hour. She’s there.
“How?” I whisper.
“That’s the wrong question,” he says. “You know the answer already. A network is only as safe as the people who carry its keys. You built security around one man. I built mine around many hands. His system falls. Mine grows.”
“You don’t know his system,” I answer hotly. “You don’t know his people.”
“I know his people better than he does,” the Courier replies, his tone indulgent and insulting at the same time.
“I know which ones still carry old loyalties in quiet pockets. I know which ones want to retire with full pockets and full lungs. I know which ones watch him and think his time is almost over.”
My jaw tightens.
“You’re lying,” I say, but the word feels thin. “Most of his men have stood with him for years.”
“Most,” he agrees. “That was true. It isn’t anymore.”
He taps something on his end. The small window showing Nadia shrinks.
Another window opens beside it. This one shows a hallway I recognize from the outer offices near the Garden Ring.
Two men I know walk past the camera. They wear my house colors, but the patch on one sleeve is wrong.
Yellow and black. Baranov’s old warehouse crew.
We have found that patch on dead bodies on our raids.
Seeing it sewn on a living man in our colors sends a cold shot through my chest.
“That feed is from three hours ago,” the Courier says. “Your husband still thinks that wing is clean.”
The image changes. Now I see a storage room in one of the old city garages.
A man stands under the bare bulb. He speaks to another man who stays just outside the camera’s range.
I strain to see his face, but the frame cuts him off at the neck.
The man under the bulb wears Sergei’s crew jacket.
His voice is muted and urgent. His hands move.
He takes an envelope and shoves it inside his coat.
“I don’t need you to believe each clip I show,” the Courier says. “I only need you to understand the shape of the picture.”
I drag my eyes away from the screen.
“You’re trying to tell me his network is gone,” I say. “That most of his men belong to you now. That’s your point.”
“It isn’t trying,” he answers. “It’s providing information.
When you woke up, his strongest routes were already cracked, some by me, some by old enemies who smelled weakness.
His name still means something in old bars and old streets, but his grip is loose.
You know this. You have watched the numbers. You have seen the way the money moves.”
He is right about that part. The last year has been harder. More pressure at borders. More quiet misses. More small fires that never quite reached the news. Sergei’s empire is still large, but it has hairline fractures. I have seen them. I have patched some.
“You think you can do better,” I say.
“I’m already doing better,” he says. “I’m not tied to one city, or to one set of streets, or to a river or a single house. I move through grids and wires and contracts. I move in the shadows of other names.”
“You hide behind screens and bought men,” I retort sharply. “You don’t stand in front of anyone when things go wrong. That isn’t a network. That’s rot.”
“You’re angry,” he says, sounding very pleased. “Good. You should be. Anger clears the mind when fear tries to smear it. Hold on to it, Raina. Just make sure you point it in the right direction.”
I take a breath and hold it. This room feels smaller now.
“You still didn’t answer the real question,” I say. “How did I get here?”