Luka
I’m at the office when I decide I’m done waiting.
I have been standing behind my desk for the last twenty minutes while men bring me scraps instead of answers.
Hospital exit camera. Service corridor. Delivery bay.
Cab moving two buildings east. Plate half-covered by dirt.
Driver paid in cash. Nina disappearing into a part of the city she had no reason to enter.
Pavel stands in front of me with a tablet in his hand, too still, too quiet, his neat face giving nothing away.
I pick up my phone again.
Call.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Again.
Straight to ringing until it dies.
I lower the phone slowly.
Pavel says, “We are narrowing the taxi route.”
I look at him. “You said that fourteen minutes ago.”
His face does not change. “We have partial camera coverage.”
“Then make it full.”
“That area has several dead zones.”
“Then wake up every dead camera in the city.”
“We are doing that.”
I step around the desk. My shoulder pulls under the stitches and I ignore it. “I’m leaving.”
Pavel looks up. “To where?”
“To the last camera point.”
“That is not advisable.”
I stop close enough that he has to tilt his head back to keep looking at me. “I have been advised enough today.”
His jaw tightens. “If she left willingly—”
“She left a hospital restroom while concussed, without security, without telling me, after escaping from my house,” I say. “That is not willingly. That is panic.”
“Or she had information she did not want filtered through us,” Pavel says.
I stare at him.
Pavel lowers the tablet slightly. “I only mean she has been distrustful since the basement.”
“I know what you mean,” I say.
My phone vibrates in my hand. Everything inside me stops. I look down.
Nina.
For half a heartbeat, all I see is her name.
Then I open the message. It’s only one word.
Meredith.
I don’t answer him. I turn my head toward the glass wall outside my office, toward the line of desks beyond it.
Nina’s desk is empty, of course. It’s been empty since the hospital.
Beside it, Meredith’s temporary station is neat as always. Laptop open. Files stacked. Pen aligned parallel to the keyboard.
Her chair is pushed in.
I walk out.
Pavel follows. “Luka?”
I go straight to Meredith’s desk.
No bag. No phone. Her tea sits cold in a paper cup, untouched except for one red lipstick mark near the rim.
Her calendar notebook is closed.
I open it.
Sergei comes closer. “Boss?”
I pull open the top drawer. Empty except for clips, hand cream, an extra charger, a packet of mints.
Second drawer. More files.
Third drawer. Locked.
I hold out my hand. Sergei gives me a knife without asking, and I break the lock.
Inside is a slim burner phone wrapped in a silk scarf.
Pavel says nothing behind me.
I take the phone out. It’s switched off.
I turn it on.
No passcode.
That alone tells me it is not her main phone. People only leave trap phones easy to open when they know the messages are already gone.
My hand closes around the phone so hard the casing cracks.
Sergei curses under his breath.
Pavel says, “That could have been planted.”
I turn slowly. His eyes meet mine. For one second, neither of us speaks. Then I call Meredith. It rings four times.
She answers on the fifth.
“Luka?” Her voice is calm, slightly breathless. “I’m sorry, I stepped out. My mother’s caregiver called. There’s a problem at home.”
The excuse is flimsy.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“At home,” she says.
“Which home?”
There is a pause. “My apartment,” she says.
“Send me your location.”
“My phone is low,” she says. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
I look at the burner in my hand. “No, you won’t.”
Another pause. Then she says, “I don’t understand.”
Neither do I. Not yet. But my blood already knows.
I end the call.
Pavel is watching me.
“Have Meredith traced,” I say.
He frowns. “Why?”
I look at him. “Because she has Nina.”
For the first time since I have known him, Pavel looks genuinely confused.
I step closer. “Trace her. Now.”
He turns immediately, fingers moving over his tablet. “Sergei, Dima, full team. Pull cell tower pings. Her main phone, office access card, parking exit, any vehicle registered to her, any known associate. Now.”
Sergei is already on his radio.
I go back into my office and take the gun from the biometric drawer.
Pavel enters behind me. “We have a ping.”
I turn.
“Not her main phone,” he says. “The burner connected briefly near the industrial quarter, east river road. Then went dark.”
“Address.”
“Old warehouse block. Building seventeen or eighteen. The coordinates bounce between them.”
I’m already moving.
Pavel says, “It could be bait.”
“Then we bite.”
He follows me into the hallway. “We need time to assemble enough men.”
“No.”
“Luka—”
“I don’t give a fuck about anything other than Nina,” I say. “We go right now.”
My phone is in my hand the entire time. I call Nina again. No answer.
I send one message.
Where are you?
Nothing.
Another.
Nina, answer me.
Nothing.
I can still see the last word she sent, one desperate attempt to reach me. And I’m going to answer, even if it takes all of me.
The elevator opens into the private garage.
Sergei has the car running before I reach it.
I sit in the back, gun in my hand, and for once I don’t care who sees it.
“Drive,” I say.
Sergei drives.
The car launches forward hard enough that my injured shoulder pulls against the seatbelt. Pain flashes white at the edge of my vision. I ignore it.
Pavel speaks into his mic. “All units converge on east river road. No sirens. Block exits before entry. Watch rooftops, loading bays, basement ramps.”
I stare out the window as the city breaks apart around us.
Glass buildings turn into old apartments.
Old apartments turn into shuttered shops. Shops turn into industrial blocks with rusted gates, broken walls, dead signs, narrow roads slick with old rain.
My phone stays silent. I call again. Nothing.
Sergei looks at me in the rearview mirror once, then looks back at the road and drives faster.
Pavel says, “We have another ping.”
“From Nina?”
“No. Meredith’s main phone. It just connected three hundred meters from the warehouse block.”
“Moving?”
“Stationary.”
We turn off the main road into a narrow lane lined with warehouses that look abandoned but aren’t. Too many fresh tire tracks. Too many cameras pointed in places abandoned buildings don’t need cameras. Too much quiet.
Pavel says, “Building seventeen ahead.”
Sergei cuts the lights before we turn.
The warehouse appears at the end of the lane, old brick and corrugated metal, windows blacked out, one side door hanging slightly open. A loading dock stretches along the far side. There is a van parked near it with no plates.
Sergei stops before I tell him.
“Two men at the side entrance,” Pavel says, looking at a feed on his screen. “One on the roofline. One by the van.”
“Only four?” I ask.
“That we see.”
“Then assume twelve.”
I open the door.
Pavel catches my arm. “Wait.”
I look down at his hand.
He lets go.
“We need to clear entry properly,” he says.
I step out. “Quickly.”
The air smells like metal, dust, river damp, and oil.
My men spread around me, silent now. Sergei signals left. Dima moves with two men toward the loading dock. Pavel stays close, gun drawn, eyes moving over every shadow.
I should be thinking like a Pakhan. I should be counting exits. Reading angles. Measuring risk.
Instead, all I can think is that Nina’s last message was not even complete.
That the last thing she told me when we spoke was an apology and I ignored her.
I would burn the city down if it meant she could yell at me herself.
A shout comes from inside the warehouse.
Muffled. Female. My blood stops.
Then a gunshot cracks through the distance.
Everything moves at once. Birds explode from the roofline.
Sergei curses.
Pavel says, “Inside.”
I’m already running.