Chapter 2
KIREN
The first thing I notice is the glass. It’s still on the roadway, glittering in the sweep of red and blue lights as patrol cars block off the intersection, their beams bouncing off the wet asphalt and the thin dusting of snow that’s begun to stick along the curb.
The SUV sits skewed across the lane, its windshield webbed and opaque where bullets struck but didn’t fully breach.
My driver pulls to the edge of the scene and stops at an angle that leaves a clear path for emergency vehicles, the engine idling while he scans the mirrors and the street ahead.
I step out into the cold, the wind pushing under my coat.
The officers hold their positions and leave the center of the street to us.
One of them gives a short nod as I pass, then turns his attention back to the barricade.
Leo braces against the SUV, one knee bent, his jacket pushed down around his arm while blood runs dark along his bare shoulder. His face has gone pale, jaw tight, the strain visible even though he’s doing everything he can to stay upright.
Karp is ten feet away, one forearm pressed across an attacker’s throat, pinning him flat to the asphalt.
The man’s breath comes in thin, uneven pulls, and his eyes roll as he tries to swallow against the pressure.
Karp’s posture doesn’t change, his stance firm and patient, as if this is simply where he belongs until I decide otherwise.
A paramedic in a navy Charlotte EMS jacket tends to Leo, one gloved hand pressing gauze against the wound at his shoulder while the other readies fresh bandaging from an open kit at his feet.
The entry wound sits high on the shoulder near the joint, and the exit is lower and misaligned, which tells me the bullet passed through without destroying the arm entirely, though it came close.
The paramedic finishes securing a fresh pressure bandage over the wound, taping it down firmly. The stretcher waits a few feet away. When I step in, he gives us space without being asked.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“They took her,” Leo answers, his breath thinning as he leans against the SUV.
“Details.” My back teeth clench together hard enough that I feel it in my temples before I force them apart.
“White van. No plates. Four total. Two at the doors, two covering the blind side. They moved on cue.”
My hand closes once into a fist at my side before I release it.
“Walk me through it.”
“They fired first,” Leo answers. He draws a slow breath through his teeth, managing the pain. “They didn’t break formation. They repositioned and went straight for the rear door. They weren’t there to trade shots.”
“They were there to extract,” I note.
“Yes. They wanted her intact.”
I go completely still.
Leo holds my eyes. “She fought. She didn’t freeze.”
I make him wait, adjusting the cuff at my wrist before I answer.
“She doesn’t freeze,” I tell him quietly. “She assesses and then she moves.”
Leo nods once, satisfied. “They weren’t expecting that,” he adds.
“No,” I confirm. “They underestimated her.”
I nod once to the paramedics, and they move in without another word.
Leo allows them to guide him onto the stretcher.
For a second, pain breaks through his composure before he locks it down again.
They load him into the ambulance and close the doors.
The vehicle pulls away, the siren quiet until it clears the patrol cars at the end of the block.
I watch it go until the sound fades. Only then do I turn toward Karp.
The attacker’s cheek is pinned against the asphalt, the skin scraped raw where he hit the ground. His pupils are wide, and his hands are trapped beneath him at an angle that makes breathing difficult, which is the point. Karp looks up when I approach.
“He’s breathing,” he says.
“For now,” I reply.
Karp adjusts his forearm a fraction, not easing the pressure, just repositioning to keep the man conscious enough to speak.
I crouch beside the attacker, close enough that he can see me clearly, close enough that I don’t need to raise my voice.
“You’re going to answer in complete sentences,” I tell him, keeping my tone even. “If you can’t manage that, you’ll answer in fragments and we’ll fill in the rest without you.”
The man coughs, the sound wet and strained. His eyes dart toward the officers and then away, understanding he won’t be rescued by them.
“Who ordered it?” I ask.
His lips part, pulling in air with effort. Karp’s forearm remains a barrier across his throat, reminding him that compliance is a better choice than pride.
“I don’t know.”
Karp presses down, just enough to disrupt his breathing. The man’s eyes water. He tries to speak again, and it comes out rough.
“Circle,” he forces out. “Arkady’s… circle.”
I don’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
“Which one?” I ask. “Name.”
He makes a small, strained movement against the asphalt, but Karp keeps him in place. “I don’t know names.”
“You know who pays you,” I reply. “You know who you call.”
He fights for a breath. “Contact.”
“Where?”
His eyes squeeze shut. “Warehouse,” he chokes out. “South end. Near… the train tracks.”
“Which train tracks?” I press, and I keep the question narrow because men like this hide behind generalities.
“Old Stowe Yard,” he answers, his voice cracking. “There’s a loading bay. Blue… door. He meets people there.”
I watch his mouth as he speaks and the strain it takes to get the words out. He’s afraid, but he’s not falling apart, which means he’s still thinking. I don’t take anything he gives me at face value.
“Who’s the contact?” I ask again. “A name. A face. A habit.”
He coughs again. “Tall. Beard. Smokes. Drives a gray Tacoma.”
Karp’s eyes stay on the man’s head, not on me. He’s listening anyway.
One vehicle. One contact. Tight. Controlled. That’s not how freelancers work. That’s how Arkady does.
I straighten slightly and look down at him.
“You’re going to keep breathing because it benefits you,” I tell him. “You’re also going to understand that if Rowan is harmed, you won’t be alive long enough to regret your choices, and if she’s returned intact, you might live long enough to regret them anyway.”
Karp shifts his forearm, lifting just enough for the attacker to pull in a deeper breath. The man gasps, coughing, and Karp’s hand clamps the back of his head, keeping him from lifting his face.
I step away and bring my phone to my ear. Mikel answers before the first ring finishes.
“I’m at the estate,” he tells me. “The perimeter’s locked. Where are you?”
“Westbrook corridor,” I respond. “Two blocks from the hospital. Leo’s on transport. Karp kept one alive.”
A brief pause follows, not confusion, just recalculation.
“Arkady?” Mikel asks.
“He mentioned Arkady’s circle. A warehouse at the south end. Near the train tracks. Old Stowe Yard.”
“I’m on my way to you,” Mikel says.
“Bring Polina’s feeds,” I tell him. “I want every camera within a mile of that yard. Traffic, private security, anything that caught the van.”
“Already pulling them. I’ll meet you there.”
I end the call and look at Karp.
“Keep him conscious. We’re taking him.”
Karp’s mouth twitches slightly, the closest he comes to acknowledgment. He eases the pressure just enough to keep the man breathing, then hooks a hand into the back of his collar and forces him up onto his knees. The attacker coughs, blood hitting the pavement in uneven drops.
Karp hauls him to his feet. The officers at the perimeter don’t intervene.
One of them steps aside, clearing space as Karp drags the man a few yards off the center of the street and forces him down beside the curb, his grip fixed at the back of the collar while the attacker struggles to stay upright.
I step to the SUV and look at the rear passenger side.
The door is still open, the interior light spilling onto the street.
There’s blood on the door frame, not enough to suggest injury, more likely from the violence of contact.
Rowan’s glove lies on the floorboard, the fingers curled in on themselves, and the sight of it does more to me than I allow to show.
Rowan is gone.
Headlights move across the street, and Mikel pulls in with two vehicles behind him. He gets out of the lead car, his collar turned up against the cold, and takes in the street in one sweep before his attention comes to me. He sees Karp at the curb with the prisoner and gives a short nod.
Karp moves on it immediately, hauling the attacker toward the second vehicle as two of our men open the rear door and pull him inside without ceremony.
He won’t be coming with us. The warehouse off Remington still serves its purpose, and he’ll be more useful there than on the street.
One of the men climbs in after him. The door shuts, and the engine turns over.
Karp joins Mikel without a word, and within minutes, we’re moving, leaving the blocked intersection and the flashing patrol lights behind as the second vehicle peels off in the opposite direction.
The warehouse district sits on the edge of Charlotte, an industrial sprawl of corrugated metal and fenced lots, where trucks idle at odd hours, and no one cares why another vehicle is moving through the area at night.
Winter makes the district quieter, snow dulling the grime and the usual noise, the cold cutting through a coat fast enough to turn every breath into a thin cloud that disappears as quickly as it forms.
We park short of the turnoff and finish it on foot. Tire tracks destroy details, and I want to see the street exactly as they left it.
The asphalt still holds the marks where the van accelerated, the grooves darker where rubber caught against the damp surface. There are no hard skid marks or sudden corrections, which tells me the driver knew what he was doing and kept control even with extra bodies in the back.
Mikel kneels near the curb, his glove brushing a torn piece of fiber caught in the edge of a storm drain.