Chapter 10 Ivy #2
She jerks her chin toward the far end of the table where a precarious stack of printed documents and grainy photos is stacked together in a messy pile.
“Sort those images by timestamp, then cross-reference them against the satellite pings on the data pulls Matvey printed. Should be a match between the angles and the known camera locations. If you get stuck, ask. Otherwise, don’t screw it up. ”
Her voice isn’t harsh. She speaks in a way I’d imagine someone would to a temp hired for a job that needed to be done yesterday. It’s not meant to cut, but it still reminds me exactly where I stand with them.
I nod wordlessly, grateful for something to do that doesn’t involve spiraling into the what-ifs of Leo’s fate or the slow, building weight of the secret I’m keeping from Maksim.
The chair screeches faintly as I pull it out and lower myself into it. It’s stiff and narrow, not meant for comfort, but I don’t care. My fingers reach for the pile, already organizing the chaos with a mechanical sort of focus.
Divide by timestamp. Align with footage angles. Match with locations…
The first few are street cam screen grabs, the quality just grainy enough to feel surreal.
In one, I’m stumbling across a crosswalk.
My arm is wrapped around my middle, my eyes are wide, darting toward something just out of frame.
In another, I’m standing frozen on a street corner, looking the wrong way down the road and very clearly lost.
I remember that moment. The burn of confusion, the dull ache in my temple from whatever sedative was still wearing off, the way the world felt like it was spinning too fast beneath my feet and I didn’t know whether to scream or run or curl up into a ball on the sidewalk.
My hands tremble slightly as I lift another printout. This one is worse.
It’s a tighter shot that someone must’ve enhanced of my face.
The woman in the photo doesn’t look like me.
She looks like someone who has already been through the worst of it and is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She looks terrified, running from whatever direction she’d been coming from.
A pit forms in my stomach.
I flip to the next image, then the next. Each one is a snapshot of vulnerability I hadn’t realized was being documented. Every grainy still feels like an invasion, proof of how broken I looked when I was searching for someone to find me.
Maybe I still am that way. I just haven’t looked in the mirror yet.
The door to the safehouse thuds shut behind whoever’s just come in, the sound slicing through the room’s quiet hum. Two sets of boots hit the worn floorboards as they head for us.
I look up just in time to see Maksim striding into the living room, coat unfastened, his shoulders squared and confident. His eyes find mine before anyone else’s. There’s something in them that tightens the center of my chest, a softness I’ve missed seeing.
A small smile tugs at his lips.
His gaze drops to the stack of files and photos I’ve been sorting, and when his eyes lift to meet mine again, they hold a silent question.
I don’t get the chance to answer before he’s focused his attention back on to his inner circle. “We found some interesting information regarding our favorite school teacher fiancée. She never showed up to work this morning.”
Roman comes in right behind him. He’s got a file in one hand which he drops onto the table with a slap that sends several loose papers fluttering up. I lurch forward and slam my palms down over top of them just in time to stop them from scattering on the ground.
Asshole…
I glance up ready to shoot him a look, but he’s already turned to address the others. “We believe she was either picked up early this morning or sometime late last night.”
Maksim’s chin tilts toward Matvey. “We’ll need CCTV of her apartment building. Find out when she left and whether she was alone or not.”
Matvey pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and begins typing. “That’s strange… there wasn’t anything suspicious on the cameras this morning. She left for work like normal. Everything looked routine.”
Maksim and Roman share a look.
Roman’s mouth pulls tight. “It’s a possibility…”
Maksim lifts a hand to stroke it along his jawline, muttering a soft “right” before saying, “Track her route from the apartment to the school. See if she was stopped along the way by someone.”
“On it,” Matvey answers, monitors flashing rapidly through security feeds, traffic cams, and GPS overlays. The room glows faintly from the spill of digital light.
Favorite school teacher fiancée? I haven’t heard anyone mention that until now. It sounds too ordinary. What the hell would a school teacher have to do with finding our son?
My fingers drift toward the file before my brain even registers the movement.
Around the table the others argue in quick, clipped bursts of Russian.
The folder slides closer to me, the paper rasping under my hand.
I steal one last look up to make sure no one’s watching me and then peel the top back.
The photograph inside clipped to the top of the stack of papers makes my breath stop.
It’s her.
Not some stranger I don't recognize. It’s the woman who sat beside my son the last time I saw him—the woman whose hand rested over her belly as she watched him play with that wooden train set. The one who picked him up from my arms and pulled him away from me.
In the picture she’s caught mid-laughter, hair pinned back, eyes soft. The angle is different from my memory of her, but the tilt of her head, the way her mouth pulls at the corner, the small dimple in her left cheek… it’s unmistakable.
My stomach drops.
For a second, the room around me dissolves.
All of it falls away to a white-noise thrum in the back of my head.
What fills the space are a thousand questions.
So she wasn’t a caretaker Mikhail had hired to look after my son?
Does that make her a willing participant in all of this, then?
A pawn like that nurse? Did she know what she was doing when she took my son from my arms, or did she do it with the same blind obedience everyone shows Mikhail and never bothers to ask questions?
Fiancée.
She’s with him.
The single word detonates inside me like a grenade. Anger flares up hot in my chest, bright and sharp, but it’s gone almost as quickly as it comes, cooled by a fresh wave of fear so cold it’s like ice water has been dumped over my head.
The earrings.
The bugs.
Shit.
I shove my chair back hard enough to rattle the table, the legs screeching against the worn wood floor. The noise cuts through the low hum of voices instantly, all five pairs of eyes snapping toward me at the same time.
Maksim says something—my name maybe, or a question—but I can’t hear it over the pounding rush of blood in my ears.
My feet pound across the floorboards as I storm down the hallway.
The world tilts around me, the faces of Katya, Andrey, Roman and Matvey flicking past like static images.
My only thought is distance. I need to get away before someone says anything else, before the microphones tucked into the backs of these innocuous little earrings send more damning words straight to Mikhail’s waiting ears.
The bedroom door slams behind me. I lock it, twisting the knob until it clicks. The first bang against it makes me jump, heart hammering against my ribs.
“Ivy?” Maksim’s voice drifts in, muffled by the thick wood. “Open the door.”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
I move to the dresser, my reflection staring back at me from the mirror above it with the wild eyes of someone who’s been caught mid-crime. My hands go straight to my ears, fingers fumbling at the small silver studs.
“Come on,” I hiss under my breath, tugging at them. “Come out, come out—”
They don’t. The backings are screwed too tight, the angle too odd for me to undo them myself.
Oh, God.
What if Mikhail heard everything? What if he heard Maksim’s people talking about his fiancée? What if he’s already decided Leo’s usefulness is over, that my son is a liability now instead of leverage because his fiancée is being threatened?
The image of Leo’s small hands clutching his wooden train flashes through my mind and my stomach flips.
I can’t let that happen.
I press my forehead to the cool edge of the dresser, my palms flat against it, breathing hard.
Think. Think.
I need to contact him. I need to get ahead of this before it spins out of control.
Maybe I can spin it, make it sound like Maksim and his people don’t know who she is, that they’re chasing a dead lead.
Maybe I can feed him a story so convincing, he’ll have no reason to doubt me and therefore will have no reason to hurt Leo.
I have to get ahold of that burner phone and contact him before I run out of time.