19. Elena
The car slows as the tarmac stretches out ahead of us, heat rippling above the concrete like a living thing.
Engines idle with low, impatient growls, and beyond the security fencing, our jet waits; sleek, white, and unmistakably ours.
Its nose points toward the horizon, fueled and ready for departure, its stairs already lowered like an open invitation back to Zurdonia.
Clara reaches up and drags her sunglasses down her nose. Her gaze locks on the plane.
Alexei’s attention sharpens instantly, his body angling toward hers as if pulled by the same invisible thread. I follow their line of sight, and my breath catches.
A man stands at the base of the stairs.
He isn’t pacing. He isn’t checking a phone or shifting his weight.
He just stands there, arms folded loosely over his midsection, as still as a statue placed deliberately in our path.
Dark hair cropped close to his skull, black enough to swallow the sunlight.
Sunglasses hide his eyes, the lenses reflecting the plane, the stairs, the open sky.
Even from the back seat of the car, something about him presses against my skin. A sense of wrongness. Of a threat that doesn’t need movement to announce itself.
“Stay here,” Clara and Alexei say at the same time.
The doors fly open before I can process the words.
“What? No,” I protest, already moving, my hand catching the edge of the seat as I scramble out after them.
My heels strike the tarmac hard. The air smells like fuel and scorched concrete, the sun unforgiving. Clara and Alexei are already striding toward him, their steps measured, purposeful. I fall in behind them, close enough to hear the faint click of Clara’s jaw tightening.
The man doesn’t react as we approach. Doesn’t straighten. Doesn’t shift. Only his head moves, slow and deliberate, tracking us from left to right, cataloging and measuring. Like an operative waiting for a command he already knows is coming.
“How did you get on this tarmac?” Clara snaps the moment we’re within range.
The man turns his head from Alexei back to her. He inclines it slightly, not quite a bow. “Agent Ryder,” he says.
The accent is unmistakable. Thick. Russian. Each syllable clipped and heavy, like it carries the weight of its own.
Clara’s spine goes rigid.
She lives in the shadows by design. Names are weapons, and hers is not one that should be spoken aloud on an open runway. I see it in the way her shoulders square and lock, in the fractional pause before she speaks again.
“You’re going to tell me who you are,” Clara demands, voice flat, “right now.”
The man exhales through his nose, almost… amused. His hands uncross slowly, carefully, and drift toward the front of his jacket.
Every body reacts at once.
Alexei’s hand snaps to his gun. Clara’s weight shifts forward, lethal and ready. The security detail fans out behind us, boots scraping, weapons half-raised. My pulse slams against my ribs hard enough that I swear everyone can hear it.
“Don’t,” Alexei warns. The word cracks like a whip. “Stop where you are.”
The man freezes mid-motion. Slowly… painfully slowly, he spreads his jacket open with two fingers.
“Identification,” he says calmly. “That is all.”
Alexei doesn’t lower his weapon. “Clara.”
Clara steps forward.
She moves with confidence that comes from knowing exactly how close she can get before it becomes dangerous. When she’s within arm’s reach, she shoves his jacket aside, fingers brushing his hip. A black, folded square of leather is tucked neatly into the waistband of his pants.
His head tilts down toward her. “You do not have to be so gentle,” he murmurs, not soft enough for it to be private. “I can take it.”
Clara doesn’t hesitate. The back of her knuckles drives into his ribs with brutal precision at the exact moment her fingers hook the leather. The impact forces a sharp grunt from his chest, his body folding inward enough to confirm what I already know, she could’ve done far worse if she wanted to.
She steps back in one fluid motion, the badge already in her hand.
The man straightens, jaw clenched now, breath measured. He doesn’t retaliate. Doesn’t even glare. He watches her through the dark lenses. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he looks impressed.
Clara flips the badge open. Her eyes scan it once. Then again. Her mouth tightens as she looks up at him. She turns and holds the badge out to Alexei. “He’s SVR.”
The letters mean nothing to me. “SVR?” I ask, the word tasting strange on my tongue.
“Foreign Intelligence Service,” Alexei says, eyes flicking over the credentials. He closes the leather flap, lowers his gun, and steps forward, handing it back. “Senior Agent Ruslan Volkov. What brings you here?”
Ruslan takes the badge without breaking eye contact. “We have matters to discuss.”
“What business could we possibly have with the SVR?” I ask.
His attention shifts to me. When his sunglasses tilt enough for me to see his eyes, the air seems to thin.
Pale gray. Cold and sharp, like winter light on steel.
The weight of his gaze settles fully on me, focused, and my instincts scream even as something else, something unsettling, tightens low in my stomach.
“I know who is after you,” he remarks bluntly.
The warmth drains from his expression, replaced by something glacial, calculated, and dangerous. The chill crawls up my spine, prickling my skin until I have to look away to breathe easier.
“You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”
Silence stretches, broken only by the distant whine of engines and the flap of the jet’s door in the breeze.
Alexei exhales. Then, “Join us on the plane. We’ll discuss it there.”
Ruslan inclines his head again, once. Acceptance.
We board in tense silence, the narrow interior of the jet swallowing us whole. The door seals shut with a heavy thud that sounds final. Toward the center of the cabin sits a round table, four chairs spaced evenly around it, each capable of swiveling inward.
We take our seats.
I can feel it—the shift. Whatever walked onto that tarmac wasn’t here by accident. And whatever Ruslan Volkov knows… has already followed us aboard.
“Talk,” Clara grunts. “Who is after the queen and king?”
Ruslan doesn’t answer right away.
Instead, his hand slips into the inside pocket of his jacket, slow enough to be precise, casual enough to dare someone to stop him.
The movement pulls his collar aside, the fabric shifting enough to expose a tattoo climbing the side of his neck—dark ink disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt, its edges sharp and purposeful, like it was carved rather than drawn.
I notice other things, too, against my will. The hard line of his jaw as it tightens. The faint shadow of stubble dusting his cheeks, roughening an otherwise precise face. He’s the kind of attractive that feels engineered, honed down to angles and restraint.
He pulls out a thick, rectangular photograph and sets it in the center of the table. The soft sound it makes, almost nothing, lands like a gunshot.
I lean forward before I realize I’m moving.
The moment my eyes touch the image, the cabin seems to tilt.
Heat drains from my limbs so quickly it leaves me cold.
I know that face. Not from a file or a briefing, but from a memory that still smells faintly of jasmine and polished marble.
A woman in the restroom, lips curved slightly shy of a smile, sharp eyes taking inventory of me like I was something she might buy… or break.
“Who is she?” Clara asks.
Her voice reaches me, but it’s muffled, distorted, like it’s traveling through water. The rest of the world recedes, sound stretching and warping until all I can hear is my own pulse roaring in my ears.
Then I blink...
And the vision hits.
It crashes over me so fast I nearly tip out of my chair.
I’m staring at that family photo again, the one that haunted me weeks ago. Two girls. One clear, one blurred. A fracture splits the image between them like a fault line. But this time, when I push against the haze hiding the second girl, it gives.
The blur peels back.
Brown hair comes into focus. Catlike eyes, sharp but softer then, before time and violence sharpened them into weapons. Her arms are wrapped protectively around the younger girl’s waist, fingers curled like she’s afraid to let go.
My lungs seize painfully.
For the first time, her face wasn't hidden behind the fracture. She was real. Older now. Harder. But unmistakably the girl standing beside me in that forgotten photograph.
I gasp and pitch forward, ripped from the vision as abruptly as I’d been thrown into it.
“Elena!”
Alexei’s voice cuts through the ringing in my head. His hand closes around my arm, solid and warm, anchoring me to the present.
“Are you okay?”
I suck in air, short and ragged, my breaths scraping against my throat. I glance at him, really look at him, and the concern etched into his face tightens something painful in my chest. That protective steadiness that comes when someone is yours.
Then I turn back to the table.
Everyone’s watching me now.
My hand lifts, trembling slightly, and I reach out until my fingertips brush the glossy surface of the photograph. I press my fingertips over her face, as if contact might confirm she’s real. Or make her disappear.
“I’ve met her before,” I confess. The words come out unsteady, like they’ve never been meant to be spoken aloud.
Alexei’s posture stiffens. “Where?”
I lift my gaze. Ruslan leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, pale gray eyes sharp as they study me. There’s no surprise there, only confirmation.
I turn back to Alexei. “At the restaurant. On our date night.”
His brows draw together, confusion creasing his forehead, and then something else clicks. Realization. The understanding that this is another moment I didn’t share. Another thread that slipped between us without either of us realizing it.
I don’t give him time to ask why.
“It was in the restroom,” I continue, too quickly. “At the time, it didn’t seem like anything. A brief conversation. Polite. Normal.”
“But…” Clara prompts.
I meet her gaze. “But something about her felt wrong. It was only a couple of minutes, but I couldn’t shake it. I left feeling… exposed. Like she’d taken something from me without touching me.”
“She’s extremely dangerous,” Ruslan says. There’s no ice in his voice now. No edge, only certainty.
I turn to him. “Who is she?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he waits, patient, until my eyes lift and lock with his.
“She goes by Oksana Sokolov,” he answers.
The name settles over the cabin, thick with implication.
Then he adds, “But her real name is Oksana Vasiliev.”
Something in my chest tightens.
“She is the eldest daughter of Ivan Vasiliev,” Ruslan continues.
The name lands like a blade between my ribs.
And suddenly, I understand why the chill hasn’t left my bones, why the vision fought so hard to be seen.
Because I’ve been what she’s wanted all along, and now she’s already close enough to touch me.