Chapter 17 #2
“Mill Basin,” he said. “We hit it now. Hard. Every Sokolov office, every truck, every man carrying their money.”
“No,” Pietro said.
Tonio rounded on him. “No?”
“We do not know she is there.”
“We know Gianni has ties there.”
“We know he wants us to think he does.”
Tonio’s hands curled into fists.
“You want to wait?”
“I want to bring her back alive.”
The secure screen brightened.
Kiryl appeared from the underground location Tonio had taken him to. He looked pale. Smaller than he had yesterday. A blanket rested around his shoulders, though he would have hated anyone mentioning it.
“I should go,” he said.
Every person in the room stopped.
Kiryl looked directly at me.
“He took Lena because of me. The convoy. The tracker. Everything was about making her afraid for me.” His voice shook. “If I offer myself, he might trade.”
“No.”
The word came out hard enough to cut.
Kiryl recoiled.
I saw it. I saw the fear cross his face.
And I had nothing gentle left to give him.
“You will not offer yourself to that animal,” I said. “You will not call yourself the price of your sister’s life. Do you understand me?”
“Sal—”
“Do you understand?”
His mouth closed.
“Yes.”
Guilt hit me immediately.
Kiryl was not Lev. He was not one of the men who had taught Yelena that love required sacrifice. He was a frightened boy trying to save the person who had spent her whole life saving him.
But I could not apologize yet. If I softened the answer, he might mistake it for possibility.
“You are not the reason he took her,” I said, quieter. “Gianni took her because he wants power. Do not let him make you carry his sin. This isn’t about you Kirly, and you know it.”
Kiryl nodded once. His eyes lowered.
I turned to the map.
“Prepare simultaneous strikes,” I said. “Every known Sokolov site in Chicago. Every Halberd office. All storage facilities. All docks. Every property linked to Gianni’s shell companies.”
Pietro stared at me.
“Sal.”
“Move.”
“If we hit all of them, he will know we have nothing.”
“I do not care what he knows.”
“You should.”
I looked at him.
The room went quiet.
Pietro did not move.
“Without knowing where Yelena is,” he said, “a broad assault could make him move her. Or kill her.”
The last words landed like a blade. I crossed the room before anyone could stop me. Pietro did not step back. He never did.
“You think I do not know that?” I asked.
“I think you know it and are trying to bury it under bodies.”
My hand fisted in his shirt.
For one hot second, I wanted him to hit me. I wanted pain that had edges. Something I could answer with my hands.
Then Serafina stepped between us.
Not cautiously.
Directly.
She put one hand against my chest and looked up at me with her father’s dark eyes.
“That is grief speaking,” she said. “Not my commander.”
I froze.
Not because she had ordered me. Because she was right. My grip loosened from Pietro’s shirt.
Serafina did not move her hand.
“Look at the facts,” she said. “Gianni has not asked for money. He has not asked for Kiryl. He has not made a ransom demand. Why?”
I looked at the map and saw nothing but red markers.
“He wants Yelena,” I said.
“Yes. But not dead. Not hidden forever. He wants her frightened, but alive. Coherent. Legally useful.”
My breath came shallow.
“He wants the marriage,” Serafina continued. “Her shares. Her public appearance beside him. He needs her to look as if she chose him.”
The room sharpened around the words.
Gianni did not need a corpse.
He needed Yelena’s face. Her voice. Her authority.
“He cannot take everything while keeping her in a basement,” I said.
“No,” Serafina replied. “He needs her in front of witnesses.”
Pietro adjusted his shirt collar where I had wrinkled it. His expression gave nothing away.
I looked at him.
“I am sorry, brother.”
“You can apologize after we get her back.”
Angela entered six hours later in hospital scrubs beneath Pietro’s coat.
Pietro stood immediately.
“You should be in bed.”
“I was in bed,” she said. Her voice was thin but steady. “It was unproductive.”
“You were drugged.”
“So was Yelena. I do not have time to be delicate about it.”
Pietro’s jaw tightened. He reached for her elbow anyway. Angela let him guide her to the chair, which told me more about how badly she hurt than her words did.
She opened her laptop.
“I think I found the pressure point,” she said.
Serafina leaned forward. “Show us.”
Angela pulled up Lev’s sworn capacity statement.
“He claims Yelena is incapable of independent decisions,” she said. “That Sal manipulated her. That she cannot meaningfully control her companies.”
My hands curled against the table.
“Gianni cannot use that claim and then produce a private signature from Yelena while she is missing,” Angela continued. “A signature obtained from an allegedly compromised woman, in private, under the authority of the man she was supposedly fleeing? It would collapse in court.”
“So he’s stuck,” I said.
“Yes.” Angela looked at me. “He has to show Yelena live. Alert. Competent. Apparently voluntary. He needs her voice and face to grant him authority.”
The thought of her sitting before a camera with Gianni just outside the frame made my stomach turn.
But she would be alive.
She would have a chance to see us.
Angela opened another document.
“Yelena suspended Gianni’s access to the clean fleet. The company bylaws permit a voting proxy only through a Halberd-certified corporate terminal. There is live facial authentication. Live voice authentication. Hardware certificate verification.”
“Can he forge it somehow?” Pietro asked.
“Not remotely. Not from a random laptop. The certificate is physically locked to the terminal.”
“How many terminals?”
“Four that can authorize a control transfer.” Angela counted them on her fingers. “Northbridge was destroyed. Manhattan is under federal scrutiny. The Chicago unit is under my control.”
“That leaves Mill Basin,” Serafina said.
“And one records facility in New Jersey,” Angela replied. “Hidden under a Halberd archival shell. Lev has access to both.”
“What if he just registers a new terminal?” Pietro asked.
“A new terminal can’t be provisioned without Yelena’s live authorization or the signatures of three independent directors. Gianni has neither.”
Tonio leaned over the map.
“We hit them both. Mill Basin. New Jersey.”
“Not yet,” Angela said. “If we hit early, Gianni moves her. We need him to believe he has time. We need him to attempt the authentication.”
“When he does,” I said, understanding now, “the hardware certificate tells us which terminal he used.”
Angela nodded.
“Exactly.”
For the first time since the service door came down between Yelena and me, a path appeared.
Narrow.
Dangerous.
But real.
I looked at the map. Mill Basin. New Jersey. Two possible rooms where my little falcon might be held beneath cameras and men with guns.
“Call Dante Caruso,” I said. “Tell him I need to call in a favor.”