Chapter 27 Raina
RAINA
The word hangs in my ear.
“Zero.”
Then silence.
I am on the ridge above the cottages, belly against the cold ground, rifle steady, eyes on the lake road. The sound cuts through the comm in my ear, sharp and flat. No one speaks for a heartbeat.
“Kirill?” I whisper. “Sergei?”
Static hisses. I sit up fast. The trees around me blur for a second. I grab the radio button on my collar. “Talk to me.”
Finally, Sergei’s voice comes through, tight and clipped. “Bomb. Device on the table. Timer. We’re moving.”
“How long?” I ask.
“Less than a minute,” Kirill answers. His voice is closer to the mic than Sergei’s. I hear boots, furniture, a curse. “Forty, maybe. It armed when he slapped it. He knew we were here.”
A cold wave washes through my body. I force myself to breathe slowly and count.
“Do you need me in?” I ask.
“No,” Sergei says at once. “You stay out. You stay eyes on the road. If he set a second team, they’ll use the noise. You watch for them.”
“I’m not leaving you in there,” I say.
“Raina,” he says, voice sharper. “I need you alive and with a clear angle. That is how we get out of this. Hold position.”
I grind my teeth, knowing full well he is right. I still hate it. Then I flatten again, rifle back at my shoulder, scope sweeping the track and the thin strip of trees that hides the parking area. No cars. No men. Only the still line of the lake and the quiet row of roofs.
“Thirty,” Kirill mutters in my ear.
I picture the room they are in. Table, bed, shelf, walls that are not very thick. I picture the cellar under their feet. It might save them or trap them.
“Can you move the device?” I ask.
“Too late,” he says. “If I touch it wrong it blows now. It is wired to the shell. It reacts to tilt.”
“Twenty,” Oleg says.
My heart hammers so hard my fingers twitch on the rifle.
Sergei speaks again. “Drag him,” he says. “We use the stairs. We stack in the cellar. We hug the back wall and pray the charge is in the front.”
“You’re assuming directional,” Kirill says.
“Yes,” Sergei says. “He built it to blow the front for show. He wants a picture and a frame, not a crater you can’t film.”
“Ten,” someone calls.
The radio picks up a scuffle. A grunt. A scrape of boots. I hear Ilya laugh, but the sound breaks as someone hits him.
“Raina,” Sergei says, breathless now. “Get down. Cover your head. Do not move until I call you.”
My throat closes. “Sergei…”
“Now,” he snaps.
I drop the rifle and roll down behind the thickest tree near me. My hands cover my head. My face presses into frozen dirt. I count the last numbers in my head.
Three.
Two.
One.
The blast hits.
It’s not a sharp crack, but a long, deep roar that rips through the air and through my body. The ground jumps under me. Heat licks the side of my face. Something whines past and slams into a tree behind me.
I keep my arms over my head and wait for the second blast. Some bombs stack charges while others work in pairs. The air rings as smoke rises in a sudden, heavy wave. I smell burned wood, old dust, and something hot and chemical.
No second blast comes.
I lift my head.
The fox-door cottage is half gone. The front wall is ripped open. The roof has dropped on one side. Fire crawls along broken boards. Glass glitters on the ground.
I grab my rifle and run.
“Raina, wait,” one of the men on the ridge calls, but I am already sliding down the slope. My boots hit patches of ice, slip, catch. I stumble but keep going.
“Sergei!” I shout into the comm.
No answer.
The smoke is thicker near the house. It stings my eyes and throat. I pull my scarf up over my mouth and keep moving. Two of the men from the outer ring are already there, circling the side, weapons up, eyes wild.
“Cellar!” I yell. “Check the cellar!”
We round the back. The bulkhead door is half buried in debris. One of the hinges is bent. Smoke pours from the gap. The lock is gone.
I hit the door with my shoulder. It does not move.
“Oleg!” I shout. “Kirill!”
Something thuds from underneath. A cough. Then a hoarse voice. “Get this shit off,” Kirill rasps.
Relief slams into me so hard, my knees shake.
“Move,” I tell the two closest men.
We all grab the top edge and pull. The twisted metal screeches. Slowly, it lifts. Smoke pushes out, thick and dark. I cough into my scarf and keep hauling.
When we have it high enough to clear the steps, Kirill appears. His face is black with soot. One sleeve is burned. His eyes are bright and furious.
“Out,” he snaps at the men behind him. “Now.”
Two soldiers come first, dragging a third who is coughing so hard he can’t stand. All of them have streaks of blood on their faces and arms. After them, Oleg climbs up, half bent, hands gripping the rail. His hair is singed. His lip is split.
Then Sergei comes.
He has one arm locked around Ilya’s chest, hauling him up the stairs like dead weight. Ilya’s hands are cuffed in front now. His head hangs forward. Blood drips from his nose and from a cut on his scalp. His coat is burned at one shoulder.
Sergei’s face is gray under the soot. There’s blood on his forehead, a red line near his temple. His knuckles are raw. His eyes meet mine as he reaches the top.
I almost drop to my knees.
“Get him,” he says, nodding at Ilya.
Two men take the prisoner from him and drag him away from the door. Ilya coughs once, groans, then tries to straighten.
“Breathe,” Kirill tells me under his breath, passing by. “They were at the back wall when it blew. The floor shielded most of it. Took the front of the blast up and out.”
I nod, but my hands still shake.
Sergei steps away from the cellar. His legs wobble for a second. I catch his arm.
“You idiot,” I say. My voice comes out rough. “You told me to stay down and then you wrestled a bomb and a traitor at the same time.”
“I told you to stay alive,” he answers. His mouth twists. “That part worked.”
He touches my face with the back of his hand. His fingers leave a smear of soot on my cheek. The contact steadies me. I lean into it for half a second, then pull back.
“Head count,” he says, raising his voice.
“All present,” Oleg calls. “Two with burns. One with a cracked rib. No one dead.”
“Good,” Sergei says. The word comes out soft.
A weak laugh comes from the ground nearby. I look over.
Ilya lies on his side, hands still cuffed. The skin around his eyes is dark with soot. His lip is split. One of his legs angles wrongly at the ankle. He is breathing fast and shallow.
“You never did know how to die without dragging everyone with you,” he wheezes. “At least this time, you crawled into the hole with me.”
Sergei walks over, slow and controlled. He looks down at him for a long moment. “You built the hole,” he says. “You live in it. That’s the only thing you ever did by yourself.”
Ilya grins, although it hurts him. Blood pools at the corner of his mouth. “You think this is the end?” he asks. “You shut down one cottage and one man. You think I didn’t spread the code already? You think I didn’t feed your enemies your weak points?”
Sergei crouches beside him. “You aren’t a ghost,” he says. “You are a bitter boy from my block who wanted my life instead of his own. You hurt my family, and you die today. That is the part that matters.”
“You were always small inside,” Ilya whispers. “All that power and you still run back to the same walls, the same woman, the same little girl. You call that strength? I call that a soft throat for anyone with a knife.”
I step closer before I can stop myself.
“You went for my child,” I say. My voice is steady now.
“You drugged me in my own house and talked about my daughter like she was a lever you could pull. If you wanted to prove he was weak, you should have gone at his money. You picked her instead. That doesn’t make you smart.
That makes you stupid, cruel, and lazy.”
He looks up at me. His eyes flick over my face. There’s something in his expression I cannot name. It might be regret. It might be nothing. “You were always too calm,” he says with a sigh. “It was hard to see where to break you.”
“You didn’t break me,” I reply.
His gaze shifts back to Sergei. “You’ll never be clean,” he says. “Not with what you started. They killed me when they pushed me out of your shadow. The rest is just walking.”
Sergei stands. “You killed yourself when you chose this,” he says. “I only refused to stop you.”
Kirill steps forward. “We can move him,” he says. “Medical at the compound could keep him breathing long enough for a full list.”
Ilya laughs again, softer. Blood bubbles in his mouth. His chest rises and falls with shallow pulls. “You won’t have time,” he mutters. “That charge was not the only one. I tied others to my pulse. When it stops, something else starts.”
My stomach drops.
“Bullshit,” Oleg says. “He is bluffing.”
“He might be,” Sergei says. His eyes stay on Ilya. “He also might not. He wanted a dead man switch. He would set one if he could.”
Kirill swears under his breath.
“So?” I ask.
“So if we keep him between half-life and death, we risk a slow trigger or a hidden timer we cannot see,” Sergei says quietly. “He built his revenge around his own end. He wanted control of that too.”
He looks at me. There is a question in his eyes. This isn’t a small choice. It’s about justice and safety and the parts of himself he still wants to keep. Ilya watches our faces. He smiles with cracked lips. “This is good,” he says. “You two deciding what kind of killers you are. Very romantic.”
I step closer. I crouch, so my face is level with his. “Where are the other charges?” I ask. “What are they tied to?”
He closes his eyes. “You’ll find out,” he whispers. “If you keep chasing old ghosts instead of walking away.”