Chapter 10 Luka
LUKA
I stand outside Sage’s door and listen. The hallway is quiet at this hour, the thick carpet muffling my footsteps. Behind the door, I can just make out the soft whir of the air system, but nothing else. No pacing, muffled sobs, or restless movements.
Vega sits at my side, chin on his paws, and his dark eyes fixed on the seam of the door. Every now and then, he lifts his nose and pulls in a breath, as if smell alone can confirm what I need to know.
Sage is still here and still breathing. It should be enough, but it is not.
I curl my hand into a fist against the urge to knock, open the door, and see her for myself.
She sounded calm when she finally agreed to come to Seattle, but the calm was glass-thin.
Panic waited under it, poised and ready to tear through the moment anything wavered.
She had every reason to panic. Hope is out there. Taken and being used as leverage. Every second she is not with us is another second in enemy territory.
“You are going to wear a path in the floor.”
Anya’s voice comes from behind me. I turn, and she is moving toward us with a tray in her hands. The porcelain cup rattles once against the saucer as she stops beside me.
“She drank,” Anya says before I can ask. “Most of it. And ate the crackers. She is asleep now.”
I glance down at the tray. The teacup is half empty, the inside ring stained a soft amber, and there are only crumbs left where the crackers were. It should make me feel better.
“Did she talk?” I ask.
Anya shakes her head, her dark hair gliding around her shoulders. “Not much. She asked about Hope. About what we know. And what we do not know. You have given her very little, brat.”
“I give her what I have,” I answer.
“Do you?” Her gaze cuts toward the door, then back to me.
“Because from where she sits, it looks like her sister is gone. She has been forced into a place she does not know with people she did not choose. Her entire life turned inside out in a matter of weeks, and all she hears is that you are working on it.”
“She is safer here than she was in Colorado.”
“I did not say she was not safer,” Anya replies. “I said she is drowning.” She nods toward the door. “In fear. In guilt. And in the silence between your answers.”
Vega lets out a low sound under his breath. The dog is more honest than most men I know.
“We have new intel,” I respond. “Sokolov operations in Seattle are active. Ray is not hiding in a hole. He is moving. Moving leaves a trace.”
Anya narrows her eyes a little. “What kind of trace?”
“The docks. Storage yards near the freight line. A shell company that went dormant years ago is suddenly alive again. We have eyes on three locations already. My men are following up on every lead.”
“Have you told her that?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?” she asks quietly.
Because I refuse to walk into that room and tell Sage we are close unless close means I can put her sister in front of her, alive and breathing. Because hope is a double-edged weapon, and I have seen it cut deeper than despair when it is offered and then ripped away.
Instead of saying any of that, I say the only thing I can. “Because I need more than scraps before I ask her to believe me.”
“Scraps are better than nothing,” Anya replies. “Especially when nothing is all she has had for days.”
Her words land exactly where she wants them to. I feel them lodge under my ribs.
“Pakhan.”
We both turn at the sound of Misha’s voice. He approaches from the far end of the corridor, phone in hand, and expression tight. He inclines his head to my sister, then to me.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “I need a word. Privately.”
Anya lifts the tray slightly in his direction. “Bring him back in one piece. I need him to face Sage at some point today.”
Misha huffs a humorless sound. “I will do my best.”
She moves away toward the staircase, and I follow Misha in the opposite direction. Vega rises and pads silently at my heel.
We cut through a sitting room, past a wall of glass that looks out over the water, and into Isaak’s study.
The room smells faintly of old paper, whisky, and memories I am not in the mood to examine.
Heavy shelves line the walls, and Isaak’s desk waits near the windows, polished to a shine that reflects the light from the overcast sky.
Misha closes the door behind us. Vega curls up near it with his head on his paws.
“What is it,” I ask.
“We got something back from Colorado,” Misha says. He moves to the desk and sets his phone down. “From the cabin.”
My shoulders go rigid. “And?”
Misha exhales, the kind of breath he only uses when something is off. “Someone accessed your laptop,” he says. Not through a network. On-site, in the cabin. They plugged in, broke through the surface layer, and downloaded a set of archived folders.”
A cold pulse moves through me. That machine is mine alone. “What did they take?” The question scrapes out harsher than I mean it to. I want to trust my men, every one of them, but trust is a fragile thing in our world, and any man can fail when pressure tilts the ground beneath him.
“That’s the problem,” Misha answers. “The files taken weren’t useful. Old routes. Old contacts. Irrelevant scraps. Whoever did it knew how to get in, but what they pulled doesn’t line up with motive.”
My jaw clenches. “Dig further,” I tell him. “Someone touched what they should not have. Find out who, and why.”
“That is not all,” Misha goes on. “There is movement on the other side.”
He reaches for his phone, swipes the screen, then turns it toward me. It shows a live map of Seattle. Pinpoints of red are scattered along the waterfront and up near the freight line.
Misha explains, “Kolya has teams watching every Sokolov-linked property. One of their old shell companies just came back online. It is not a main pipeline. It looks like a small, throwaway operation they would use for short-term holding. The kind of place you would move people you do not want seen.”
My gaze tracks one of the brighter red dots pulsing near the edge of an industrial yard. “Tell me where.”
“South Dock 32,” he says. “Perimeter cameras picked up a dark van arriving just after midnight last night. Covered plates. Two men. They unload something from the back. Two people, actually. Small. One walking under their own power. One carried.”
Adrenaline locks my focus in place. “Face match?”
“It is grainy,” Misha replies. “We are still cleaning the footage, but we ran a preliminary. The smaller figure being carried is the right height and build for Hope. Hair length and color are consistent with Hope’s as well. We cannot confirm one hundred percent. Yet.”
The word “yet” drops like dead weight in the room.
“She was there,” I murmur.
“It is likely,” Misha agrees. “What I know for certain is that they did not keep her long. The van left again ninety minutes later. Same crew. One figure out. One loaded back in. They used a different gate that time. Cameras are trash at that angle, but we picked up enough to know they left in a hurry.”
“They moved her.”
“Yes,” Misha confirms. “Whoever it was.”
I feel a familiar chill slide into place under my skin. Not panic or even anger. Something older than both. The part of me that has carved territory out of hostile ground, one broken man at a time.
“Who is on-site now,” I ask.
“Alpha team is staging two blocks out,” Misha immediately answers. “Albert is coordinating it. We can have the dock surrounded in fifteen minutes if you give the word.”
I do not hesitate.
“Do it,” I say. “We go now.”
Fifteen minutes later, screens line the desk in the study and the wall behind it. Video from street cameras and body cams streams into a patchwork of black-and-white and grainy color. Maps are spread across the desk surface.
Vega sits at my feet, his ears pricked. He can feel the tension gathering in the air as clearly as I can.
“Alpha is in position,” Albert says through the speaker. His voice is crisp and professional. “South approach covered. East and west flanks ready. No visible movement at the primary gate yet.”
“Copy,” Misha replies, standing at my side. “Bravo?”
“North perimeter covered,” another voice answers. “We have a clear line on the secondary gate. No sign of vehicles.”
“The lot?” I ask.
“Quiet,” Albert says. “Too quiet. It looks like an empty yard. No workers or guards.”
No one is that careless. If they have pulled out, they have done it quickly and with intention. That alone tells me the ground there still holds something worth the risk.
“On my mark,” I instruct. “You move.”
We are not there in person, but my pulse climbs like I am the one moving into the dark with a weapon ready.
The layout of the yard blooms in my head as clearly as if I stand at the gate.
Stacked shipping containers. A squat warehouse structure.
Chain-link fence topped with razor wire.
Loading bays along the south wall. The kind of place men like the Sokolovs favor, built to be out of sight, functional, and forgettable.
“Alpha,” I say. “Advance to the primary gate. Stay spread. No open targets until we know what is inside.”
“Copy,” comes the reply.
The body cam view changes as the men move. Asphalt. Fence. The glint of metal. The camera tilts up. South Dock 32 looms ahead, lights off except for one dim bulb over the main door. It should feel abandoned, but it does not. The silence is the wrong kind. Expectant.
“Gate is chained,” someone reports.
“Cut it,” I order. “Quietly if you can. Fast if you cannot.”
Metal bites metal. The faint rasp carries through the audio. Then the chain falls away.
“Go,” I order.
Alpha flows through the opening, weapons raised. Bravo pushes in from the north a moment later.
“There,” one of the men says. His camera focuses on the ground near the loading bay. “Tire tracks. Fresh. Not enough rain since last night to wash them out. They pulled in close.”