Chapter 26 Sergei
SERGEI
Morning comes fast.
Raina’s still asleep when I wake. Her hair lies on my chest. My body aches from the night, but my mind is already working. The plan sits clear in my head. There’s no room for mistakes.
I slide out of bed without waking her, wash my face, pull on clothes. When I come back, she’s propped up on one elbow, watching me.
“It’s time?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “We move now.”
She nods once and gets up. No drama. No questions. We dress in silence, quick and efficient. Jeans, sweaters, dark coats. No jewelry. No loose ends.
We wake Nadia next.
She blinks up at me, hair in her face. “Papa?”
“Morning, little star,” I say. “We’re going to Aunt Tanya’s today. You’ll stay with her for a bit.”
She frowns. “Again?”
“Yes,” I say. “I have work. I need you somewhere safe.”
Her eyes search my face. “You’re going to find Mama’s bad man?”
“Yes,” I say. I won’t lie to her. “Today, we start the end of that.”
She takes that in. Then she pushes her blanket away and sits up. “Then I’ll go,” she says. “I’ll keep the cat company.”
Raina’s in the doorway, watching us. There’s pride and pain in her eyes. Nadia sees her and lifts her arms.
“Mama,” she says.
Raina walks over and hugs her hard. “You listen to Aunt Tanya,” she says. “You eat what she gives you. You lock the door when she says. No balcony. No games with strangers.”
“I know,” Nadia mutters against her neck. “I’m not a baby.”
Raina pulls back and cups her cheek. “You’ll always be my baby,” she says, voice softer. “But you’re also my brave girl. Remember our song?”
“Yes.” Nadia straightens a little. “Third bridge. Blue roof. Fox on the door.”
I catch that line. She still carries it. It helped bring Raina home. Good. That kind of memory will keep her alive her whole life.
We move fast.
By the time we reach the garage, Vlad’s already waiting, men in position. One car for us, one for support, one ahead for sweeps. I picked sedans, not the usual SUVs. Less noise. Less attention.
I strap Nadia in myself. Raina slides in beside her. I take the front passenger seat. Kirill drives. The city’s just waking up. Traffic’s light. The streets are gray and cold. Nadia watches out the window with the bear in her lap.
Halfway there, she leans forward, eyes on the back of my seat. “You’ll come back,” she says. It’s not a question.
“Yes,” I say.
“Both of you?” she asks.
“Both,” I say. “We’re a set. You get us together or not at all.”
She nods, satisfied for now. Raina reaches for my shoulder and squeezes once. I feel the shake in her hand, even if her face stays calm.
We reach Aunt Tanya’s building. Same courtyard. Same trees. Same old bench. My men are in place again, blending in. One smokes. One pretends to talk on the phone. Their coats hide guns.
We go up. My aunt opens the door before we knock, like last time.
“There you are,” she says. “Bring me my girl.”
Nadia runs into her arms. The old woman holds her with surprising strength. “You’re thinner,” she tells Nadia, which is such a Tanya thing to say, since she’s only seen Nadia once before. “We’ll fix that. Tell me what you want to eat, and it’ll happen.”
Nadia actually smiles. “With jam?”
“With too much jam,” my aunt says.
I step in and lean close to my aunt’s ear. “Same rules,” I say quietly. “Door locked. Only you, her, and my guards. If anything feels off, you call. First ring.”
“I remember,” she says. Her eyes flick to Raina. “You brought her home. Good. Now bring her peace.”
“That’s the plan,” I say.
We don’t linger. If I stay longer, I’ll start thinking, and I can’t afford that. I kiss Nadia’s hair, kiss Raina once in front of her so she sees us together and solid, then we leave.
On the stairs down, Raina walks beside me.
“She knows more than she says,” Raina mutters.
“She always did,” I answer.
We reach the cars. The air bites. I look at Kirill. “We go,” I say.
He nods. “All teams ready. Cottage perimeter drones are in place from before. Nothing moved during the night.”
Good. That means Ilya didn’t break pattern. He’ll come today.
We head north.
The drive to Klin feels shorter this time. I know the route in my bones now. Past the sign, past the thin patches of snow, past the same tired fuel stations. The roads get narrower, the traffic lighter.
Raina rides in the back seat, behind me. She has a small bag at her feet, pistol inside, spare magazine, gloves, a compact headset. Her eyes are sharp, awake, no trace of last night’s softness.
“You’re sure he’ll come?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “He’s too in love with his own systems. That cottage is a core node for him. His hardware logs show it. He reused it more than any other site. Men like him keep one den that feels like a throne, even if they tell themselves it’s just another safehouse.”
“He came back after moving me,” she says quietly.
“At least once,” I say. “He’ll come again to clean his prints. He knows I’ve seen it now. He’ll want to erase every trace. He won’t trust anyone else to do it.”
Kirill glances at me. “We’ve got traffic cameras on the main road,” he says. “If he comes by the usual route, we’ll see his plates.”
“He knows we can pull plates,” I say. “He’ll change cars. But he can’t change the bridge we need to cross or the road we need to take.”
We hit the first bridge. The water under it looks muddy and still. The second bridge has cracks in the concrete. The third still has the broken rail from years ago. My hand tightens on my knee as we roll over it.
Raina leans forward. “Third bridge,” she says under her breath.
“Yeah,” I say. “Third bridge.”
We turn right onto the forest road. Trees close around us. Kirill kills the headlights for the last stretch. The second car behind us does the same. Engines hum low.
We park in the same spot as the last time, hidden behind trees and a rise in the ground. Men get out, silent and fast. Weapons are checked. Comms tested.
I pull Raina close for a second. “You stay on overwatch,” I say. “South side tree line. You’ll be my eyes on the lake road. If he comes from any other direction, you call it.”
“And if he doesn’t come?” she asks.
“He’ll come,” I say. “But if somehow he doesn’t by our time limit, we strip that cottage to the bones and burn it ourselves.”
She nods.
Kirill hands her a small scoped rifle. She checks it, chamber, safety, scope, magazine. No hesitation. She slings it across her back.
We move.
Two men go ahead as scouts. Kirill and I follow. Raina peels off to the south ridge with one guard. The rest of the team fans out to cover rear angles and flanks.
The lake looks the same as before. Narrow, pale, quiet. The line of cottages sits along the shore, dull blue roofs against the sky. The fox-door house waits near the end of the row.
We don’t go to the front.
The cellar entrance is behind the cottage, down a short slope. A concrete bulkhead, low door, rusted lock. Same as before. No new footprints. No fresh tire tracks on this side. He hasn’t been back since the last time we came. Good. That means we’re on schedule.
Oleg cuts the lock. We slip inside one by one, careful of noise.
The cellar is low and smells of old wood and dust. Racks line one wall. There’s a workbench with old paint cans and tools. No fresh bomb. No device. This place is for storage, not for show.
“Positions,” I murmur.
We spread out.
Two men take the stairs halfway up, covering the door that opens into the main room.
One sits near the bottom, rifle up, watching the line of the steps.
Kirill and I take the far corners, with sightlines that cover the stairs and the small cellar window.
Two more position near the back wall, ready to move.
I check my watch. The time matches the cycle we pulled from Ilya’s old logs. He tends to circle his main nodes in late morning. It gives him the rest of the day to shift again if needed.
We wait.
Waiting is its own kind of fight. Your mind tries to wander. It wants to imagine trouble that isn’t there yet. I push that aside. I focus on my breath, the small sounds, the rhythm of the room.
The radio in my ear crackles once. Raina’s voice comes through, low and calm. “Position set. I see the road. No movement yet. Lake side clear.”
“Copy,” I say.
Minutes pass.
Snow from outside reflects a thin light through the small cellar window. Dust motes hang in the air. A drop of water falls from a pipe and hits the floor. My men don’t shift much. This isn’t their first stakeout.
Then the radio clicks twice. Raina again. “Car,” she says. “Small sedan. Dark. Came in from the main road. He passed the third bridge, took the turn. Alone in the car from what I saw.”
“Plates?” I ask.
“Fake,” she says. “Too clean. No dirt, no scratches. But the driver… Sergei, it’s him. I saw his face when he passed under the bare branch. It’s Ilya.”
My chest tightens. “Copy,” I say. “Maintain eyes.”
I picture him. The same boy from the old block, now in a good coat, with better teeth and sharper eyes, thinking he finally flipped the board on me. He never understood I could read him from a mile away.
I listen.
The car engine grows faint as he gets closer to the cottage line. Then it cuts. A door slams far above us. Boots crunch on frozen ground.
Raina speaks again. “He’s walking in,” she says. “No men with him. No second car. He looks relaxed. Hands in pockets. No panic. He thinks no one’s here.”
“Good,” I murmur.
Footsteps pass overhead. The boards creak. He moves to the front of the house. There’s a soft scrape as he unlocks the door and swings it open.
The men on the stairs grip their rifles, fingers resting just off their triggers.
We hear the front door close. Then slower steps. He walks across the main room. I know the pattern already from earlier. Table first. Bed second. Hardware third.
A chair scrapes. Something light hits wood. He set a bag down.
We hear him curse under his breath. “Stupid,” he mutters. “Too close. Too fast. He was faster than I thought.”