Chapter 18
Konstantin
The sheets were cold where she should have been warm. My hand reached across the mattress on instinct, fingers searching for curves and warmth and Maya, finding only cotton that held no memory of her heat.
I was on my feet before my brain caught up.
Bathroom. The door stood open, darkness inside, no sound of running water or the soft shuffle of her feet on tile.
Empty. Hallway next—I was already moving, checking corners like this was a tactical sweep instead of my own goddamn bedroom.
Silent. No lights under doors, no creak of floorboards, no evidence anyone had passed through recently.
Back to the room. Her phone sat on the nightstand, screen dark, deliberately left behind. She'd known I could track it. Known I'd installed the security apps. The phone wasn't forgotten—it was a message.
Zmeya launched herself at my ankles, claws finding purchase, meowing with a sound I'd never heard from her before. Not demanding or playful but distressed. Urgent. Malysh paced at the foot of the bed, his small body rigid with agitation.
They'd watched her leave. Watched and couldn't stop her. Couldn't warn me.
"I know," I said, voice rough from sleep. "I know."
My hands were moving automatically now, checking the room with the methodical precision of someone cataloging a crime scene. Her shoes: gone. The practical sneakers she'd worn to PetSmart. Her jeans: gone from the chair where she'd folded them. The medical kit from my bathroom: gone.
The closet door hung open.
My jacket was gone. The black tactical one that she'd wrapped around herself at Brighton Beach. Missing from its hook.
She'd taken it.
The detail cracked something in my chest. She'd wanted me with her.
Wanted my scent, my warmth, some piece of me to carry into whatever nightmare she was walking toward.
Like a child taking a security blanket. Like someone who loved me enough to want my presence even while running from my protection.
The cash from my desk drawer was gone, too. Three hundred in twenties. She'd waited until I was deep asleep, then executed her escape with the same precision she'd use in surgery. Methodical. Deliberate. Every step calculated while she lay in my arms pretending to accept my reasoning.
The terror should have come next. The panic, the gut-churning fear that made men stupid and slow. I waited for it, braced for it.
It didn't come.
What came instead was something colder. Harder. A stillness that settled over my mind like ice forming on a lake, freezing everything underneath. The monster—the thing I'd spent years learning to cage, to control, to use only when necessary—woke fully for the first time in days.
This time, I didn't try to cage it.
My phone was in my hand. I didn't remember picking it up. Maks's name glowed on the screen.
He answered on the second ring. "Kostya? It's a little fucking early—"
"She's gone." My voice came out flat. Mechanical. The voice I used during interrogations, when emotion was a liability and precision was everything. "Track everything. Now."
Silence for one heartbeat. Then: "On it. Security feeds first?"
"Everything. Compound cameras, street cameras, traffic systems. I want to know every step she took from the moment she left this room."
I was already moving again, pulling on clothes with one hand while holding the phone. Tactical pants. Henley. Boots. Shoulder holster that slid on like a second skin.
"How long has she been gone?" Maks asked, and I could hear his fingers already flying over keys.
"Sheets are cold."
"Fuck." A pause, more typing. "East service entrance, 1:23 AM. She's on camera. I see her."
3:23 AM. It was now past seven. She'd been gone for over three hours. Three hours I'd slept while she walked into the exact trap I'd warned her about.
“I want all the public camera footage. Need to know where she went.”
"On it. You should call Nikolai," Maks said.
"I will. I want full mobilization. Every soldier, every asset. I want the city locked down."
"Kostya—"
I ended the call and made the next one. Nikolai picked up on the first ring—he never really slept, not deeply, the curse of leadership.
"She's gone," I said before he could speak. "Went to that warehouse. Three hours ago."
"I'm mobilizing teams." No questions, no hesitation. Just the immediate pivot to action that made him Pakhan. "Dmitry's already awake—I'll have him heading south in ten minutes."
"I'm going now. Track me."
"Kostya." His voice sharpened. "Wait for backup. If this is Brand's people—"
"Then they've had her for three hours." The words came out serrated, each one cutting. "Three hours to drive her anywhere. Three hours to start—"
I couldn't finish. Couldn't say what they might have started. The monster howled in my skull, but I held it steady, kept it focused.
“Maks is going to track her. We need to move fast.”
"Understood. I'll have units converging in fifteen minutes," Nikolai said. "Just—don't die before we get there."
The line went dead.
I looked at the kittens, still pacing, still distressed. Zmeya had stopped attacking my ankles and now sat perfectly still, watching me with those too-knowing eyes.
"I'm bringing her back," I told them. A promise. A vow. The only thing keeping me from shattering.
The SUV was in the garage. I was behind the wheel in ninety seconds, engine roaring to life, tires screaming against concrete as I took the turn too fast. The pre-dawn streets were empty, dark, indifferent to the war that was about to begin.
My hands didn't shake on the wheel. My voice hadn't trembled on the phone. I was beyond fear now, operating in that cold space where the only thing that existed was the objective.
Get her back.
Whatever it took. Whoever had to die. Whatever pieces of myself I had to burn away.
Get her back.
First place to check was the warehouse on 4th.
The city blurred past my windows, and somewhere ahead, Maya was in the hands of people who saw her as inventory. As parts to be sold. As meat.
I pressed the accelerator to the floor and let the monster slip its leash.
Maks had the footage on my screen before I was halfway to the warehouse. Tablet propped on the dash, his voice in my ear through the Bluetooth, walking me through what he'd found. The man could hack half the city's camera systems in the time it took most people to make coffee.
"Compound cameras first," he said, and the footage loaded. Grainy night-vision green, the east service entrance. Timestamp: 3:23 AM.
She moved like a ghost across the screen. Deliberate. Unhurried. Dressed in dark clothes with my jacket swallowing her frame. She'd waited for the seven-minute gap when guards rotated, slipped through like she'd been planning it for days.
"Smart," Maks muttered. "Too fucking smart."
I didn't respond. Just watched her walk out of safety and into the dark.
"Street cameras next." The image shifted. Different angle, different location. Maya moving through the industrial district, keeping to shadows but not running. Purposeful. A woman on a mission she believed in, heading toward someone she'd decided needed saving.
"She reached the warehouse at 3:47 AM." Another camera change, this one catching her squeezing through a gap in the chain-link fence. "Stayed inside for almost an hour."
An hour. Had she found Frank? Had someone taken her from inside?
"She left at 4:43 AM." The footage showed her emerging from the side entrance, not alone this time. A young man beside her—early twenties, dark hair, the kind of face you'd forget five minutes after meeting. Frank. The kid she'd risked everything to save.
They were walking back toward the compound. Toward me. She'd done what she came to do and was bringing him to safety.
She almost made it.
"This is where it goes bad," Maks said, and his voice had changed. Softer. Warning me.
The timestamp jumped to 5:03 AM. Different camera, maybe three blocks from where they'd been walking. A black van appeared at the edge of the frame, moving slowly, predatory. Following.
I watched them notice it. Watched Maya's body language shift from tired but relieved to alert, then afraid. She grabbed Frank's arm. They started walking faster.
"There were others," Maks said. "On foot. Paralleling them. Watch the left side."
Shadows detached from shadows. Three men, maybe four, moving with the coordinated precision of professionals. They'd been waiting. Patient. Letting Maya walk into their kill box.
The van accelerated.
They ran.
The footage was grainy, security camera quality, but I could see everything I needed to see. Maya sprinting, Frank beside her, both of them knowing it was hopeless but trying anyway. The van pulling alongside. Side door sliding open like a mouth.
Men appeared from everywhere. They'd been herding her, I realized. Pushing her toward this exact spot, this exact moment. Professional work.
Frank tried to fight. Kid threw a punch that connected with nothing, went down when someone swept his legs.
Maya turned back—of course she turned back, my stupid, brave, compassionate woman who couldn't let anyone suffer—and they had her.
Two men, one on each arm, professional grips that controlled without bruising.
Then one of the men stepped up to Frank.
I knew what was coming. Had seen this exact scenario play out a dozen times in my own work. The calculation was simple: the target was secured, the witness was a liability, loose ends were expensive.
The gun came up.
Frank's head snapped back. Dark matter sprayed against the building behind him. He dropped, straight down.
On the screen, Maya's mouth opened in a scream I couldn't hear. Silent footage, silent death, but I could see her face. Could see the moment something shattered inside her—the same break I'd seen in soldiers who watched friends die, in civilians who witnessed violence they couldn't stop.