12. Ana
ANA
The Bratva doesn’t summon men like Dominik in a rush. It uses procedure.
The call comes just after dusk, routed through a channel he can’t ignore without consequence.
A compliance review gets framed as routine.
Poor-quality fodder under a Markov contract, animals sick, some dead, the fallout loud enough to reach political offices in Moscow.
Dominik’s name is on the original approval.
The language is dry, administrative enough to pass.
He reads the message twice, his mouth tight, then deletes it.
“They want me across the river,” he says, already reaching for his jacket.
“For what?” I ask. My voice hovers on the edge.
“For clarification. Not at a council meeting.”
I keep my face calm. I ask the usual how long it will take, who’s expected to be in the room, and what floor they’re sending him to. He answers everything without hesitation, voice steady, nothing guarded.
He bends and plants a kiss on my lips. “ Whatever exists, it's outside the room, not between us.”
“No,” I say, kissing him back.
“They’re tightening things,” he adds, more to himself than to me. “This is just pressure.”
I move closer, slide my hand down his arm like it’s nothing new. “Go,” I say. “I’ll be here.”
He believes that. He wants to. He kisses my forehead, lingers longer than usual.
“Keep the door locked.”
He steps out. A moment later, his keys turn in the lock.
I stay at the table, eyes on the screen, tapping just enough to pass for routine.
The door opens again.
“Forgot the wallet.” He grabs it off the shelf and gives me a quick look. “Don’t open the door without checking.”
Then he’s gone.
When the door closes behind him, the apartment changes. The silence turns watchful. It starts working.
I pick up the phone and call Irina. “Wait at the station,” I tell her. She knows which one. I don’t repeat it.
There’s nothing to pack. Everything I need is already in a locker at the station. I check my handbag. Passport. Keys. Two phones. Chargers. Some loose cash. A small makeup kit. A folded handkerchief. That’s it.
I shower and dress. My clothes are plain, chosen for movement, not memory. The apartment feels like someone else’s place now. I walk through it like a guest, careful not to disturb anything. I leave the cushions untouched. The toothbrush in its holder. No dishes out. No signs of absence.
Irina knows where I'm going. She’ll buy the tickets.
When I step into the hallway, I don’t pause. I don’t look back. There’s no note. No voice message. Nothing for Dominik to find and take apart. If I leave even a sentence, he’ll turn it over until he pulls a clue from it. Silence gives him nothing.
He’ll notice the chargers first. By their absence.
I cover my face, pull the scarf higher, and keep my eyes hidden behind dark glasses. When the cleaning woman crosses to the far end of the hall, I move. Fast steps. No sound. I take the stairs and exit through the side. A taxi’s already waiting, booked a minute before.
I get out near the intersection where we agreed.
The taxi doesn’t idle and pulls away without hesitation.
I wait until the rear lights vanish into morning traffic, then cross the street, cut through a row of shuttered kiosks, and wait near the bus stop.
I take the next northbound line headed straight for the station.
By the time the bus drops me off at Ladozhsky Station, I’m no longer replaying anything.
I’m counting steps. At the station, my first stop is the locker section tucked behind a row of kiosks.
A key from my coat pocket fits the lock, and the door swings open to reveal the bag with papers, jewelry, documents, everything I couldn’t afford to carry home that night.
Across the concourse, I spot Irina almost instantly. She’s wearing the blue frock we agreed on, the hem edged with lace, red pumps under her feet. A blue scarf is tied around her face and huge sunglasses cover her eyes.
She’s near a magazine kiosk when my eyes find her.
She looks at me once, then past me, like she’s scanning for someone else in the crowd.
She pays the shop owner, folds the magazine under her arm, and moves toward platform five where the overnight sleeper trains gather, the announcements calling destinations over the speakers and people pulling bags behind them.
I follow her across the station, the sound of rolling wheels and conductor calls around us. The train is already at the platform, sleeper cars lined up, doors open, people boarding or settling into their compartments.
Irina steps into a kupe, just the two of us in our own compartment and a sliding door that locks. I step in behind her.
Once we’re inside, she slides the compartment door shut and hands me our ticket.
She takes my luggage, drops it into the storage area above the bunks, and then pulls off her parka.
She swaps it for a black windcheater, loosens her hair from where it was pinned, and hands me a phone, some cash, and a SIM card.
I don’t say anything. She holds my gaze for a moment, then steps off the train.
She has the other ticket. I don’t expect anyone to join me in this compartment. Once she’s past the platform edge, she walks forward without looking back.
The train lurches forward with a hard pull. Metal grinds against metal, followed by a long mechanical breath. The platform starts to slide away, and with it goes the last clear chance to turn back. The city I grew up in disappears fast. What lies ahead isn’t fixed yet. I’ll figure it out as I go.
I sit on the lower bunk and keep my hands in my lap. The station fades from a structure to a line, then a point, then nothing. Only when the train clears the edge of the city and starts gaining speed do I lean back. My head touches the wall.
The compartment smells of detergent, metal, and the kind of floor cleaner they use in places that are supposed to feel neutral. I think about Dominik again.
He won’t come for me just because I’m gone. He’ll come when he understands why. That’s the risk. Not his temper. His certainty. He’ll search with everything he has, and every step will pull more eyes to him. If I leave a trail, they’ll follow him down it.
Irina doesn’t get a call or a message. She’ll understand soon enough.
The first phone goes dead before we clear the outskirts.
I pull the SIM, snap it in half, and drop both pieces into the toilet.
I flush twice and don’t look back. The new SIM goes into the spare phone Irina gave me.
This one will be used for as little time as possible.
For now, it stays powered on but silent, buried deep in my bag.
When the conductor comes through, I change seats. At the next stop, I do it again. I don’t try to vanish. I try to blend. People shift, settle, nod off. I blend into the flow, another passenger killing time.
At dawn, I get off at a small station north of Petrozavodsk. Irina’s hometown sits another hour out by bus, surrounded by woods and broken roads that only show up on maps when zoomed in too far.
Her mother’s cousin lives on the edge of the village. The house leans, but it holds. Valentina answers the door in a sweater two sizes too big and boots without laces. She smells like bread, even before the oven is warm.
She doesn’t ask for a name or reason. She looks me over once—face, hands, posture—and decides what I am.
“You can stay until you’re not scared,” is all she says and then goes on prattling about husbands who run too wild and don’t care about their wives.
“They’ll come to senses soon enough, dear.” She comforts me as she hands me a thick wedge of black rye bread and a pint of milk. I thank her and eat the bread. I decline the milk after a few sips. She says nothing and leads me through the house.
“You’ll take the back room,” she says. “It’s warmer.”
The room holds a single bed with wool blankets, a table under the window, and a lamp that clicks once before it lights. I fold my coat over the chair and lie down without taking off my boots.
The next morning starts early. Life here is narrow and still. Chickens scrape in the yard. A radio plays from the kitchen, the sound bent by a bad signal. The snow is already thick around the fence, and more is coming.
Valentina doesn’t give instructions. I take the mop from its hook and scrub the floors. I peel potatoes. I stack wood until my arms ache. At night, I lie under the blankets and listen to the house shift and settle, the roof answering the cold with brief knocks.
I don’t stay long. Villages remember faces. They talk without trying to.
Two weeks later, I leave before dawn wearing a different coat and carrying a different bag.
I catch a train heading further north, toward a city that smells like cold water and diesel.
Arkhangelsk is big enough to hold strangers and small enough not to ask questions. Ships come and go. People stay busy.
I rent a room from a woman who only takes in women. No visitors. No exceptions. The wallpaper is cracked, the bedframe squeaks, and the lock works. That’s enough.
I find work at a packaging warehouse near the docks.
The shifts run early, and the building stays cold even after midday.
I tell the supervisor that my husband died in an accident and that I’m carrying his child.
I say he left debts I can’t pay and that I had to leave my old address.
It’s close enough to the truth. She nods once, says nothing, and writes my name in the register. She tells the others to leave me alone.
No interviews and no questions after that. My job is simple—check labels, stack boxes, log numbers. The work repeats. It doesn’t require stories.
I wear the same clothes every day. I eat lunch at the far end of the breakroom. I show up on time, leave on time, and give no one a reason to remember me.
My nausea and headache settle, slowly. Food stays down. The light doesn’t sting. I move through the room without bracing for the next wave, and for a little while, everything feels strangely open. Welcoming, even.
The clinic is three tram stops away. I enroll under the name I got from Andrei. The papers pass inspection without a second glance. The nurse at the clinic is brisk but not unkind. She moves through the steps, blood drawn, measurements taken.
The doctor reviews the chart, checks the scan, and tells me it’s a girl. He says it plainly, but something inside me unlocks.
I don’t speak right away. I nod, get dressed, and leave. On the way home, I press a hand to my stomach and feel her shift.
That night, I speak to her for the first time. Then again after work, after the lights are out. I press my palm to my stomach and tell her I’ll keep her safe. That whatever comes, she won’t face it alone. I don’t know what she’ll need yet. I tell her I’ll learn.
After that, I start waking earlier, even before the trams start running. I stretch before work. I eat what I should, not just what’s available, drink warm milk before bed, cut back on coffee, stop skipping meals.
I start checking shop windows for warm frocks and padded mittens, looking at soft caps, rubber toys, and thick blankets. I don’t buy anything. But I take note of what’s there and where to find it.
Work doesn’t change, but how I move through it does. I sit when I can. I walk slower on ice. I speak less, stay aware.
When the water breaks, it’s night. A snowstorm rages outside, wind thick against the glass. The city sounds far away, as if it’s pushed back to make room. The pain starts, sudden and exact. There’s no one to hold my hand. No one to call. I chose it that way. The safest option.
When they place her on my chest, she’s warm, loud, and alive. I’m soaked in sweat, but I don’t cry. I breathe.
“Mila,” I say. And the name holds.
No one calls. No one sends flowers. We leave the hospital two days later. A taxi takes us across town, slow through icy roads, back to the rented room with a working lock. It’s warm enough, and no one asks what I am doing alone.
I learn Mila’s signals, the short breath before a cry, the twist of her fingers when she wants to be held. I learn my own responses too. The sound I make when I soothe her. The words I repeat when the rest of the world is asleep.
Our days take shape without needing to be planned. Feed her. Change her. Hold her. Walk until she sleeps. She rests with her hand against my chest, and I wake before she does. Nothing drifts. Nothing slides. The hours are full, and they stay that way.
Time moves without gaps. I don’t go back to Valentina’s.
I don’t contact Irina. After a few months, I move again, south this time, to a coastal town that smells like salt and old concrete.
Tourists come in summer, fill the streets for a few weeks, then vanish.
No one stays long enough to ask questions.
I find work at a municipal office in a side building near the harbor.
My job is to scan old property records, sort paper, label files, and sit under lights that flicker if you lean too far back.
The hours are fixed. No one talks much. It’s the kind of place where people finish their work and go straight home.
I dress plainly, speak less, and stick to my routine. I don’t try to stand out. I become easy to miss.
I wonder whether Dominik is safe now. Whether stepping away forced him to stop. Whether leaving nothing behind finally did what explanations never could.
He would have kept going until something gave. I made the choice he couldn’t make for himself, and I don’t second-guess it. There wasn’t another version that kept him alive.
Mila sleeps against me, her fingers curled tightly into the fabric of my sleeve. She has my face. She doesn’t carry his eyes or his name, or anything that would pull her backward. She belongs here, with me. That’s all that matters.
One afternoon, I sit with my phone in hand while Mila coos at the rattle I tied to her cot. I keep one foot on the base, pushing her gently as I scroll through old messages.
Most of it is routine clutter, old notes. Things that don’t matter. Then I find it in a folder I haven’t opened in weeks, a single line with coordinates and a time that’s already gone.
There’s a photo attached. Blurry, but clear enough to me. The side entrance of the clinic I used during my first trimester. The date is from this week. My first thought is Dominik. I dismiss it just as fast.
I shut the phone off and pull Mila into my arms. I hold her long after she’s asleep.
This isn’t a mistake.
Someone found me.