Chapter 14 #2
The road outside blurred past—a long stretch of unlit asphalt carrying us away from the tower and away from Revenant.
Viktor dug a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket with hands that weren’t quite steady. The tip flared orange as he lit one and dragged hard, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling like he could purge the night from his lungs.
Then Viktor leaned forward, putting one forearm on his knee as his eyes locked on Katya.
“Hey,” he said softly. “You did well back there.”
Katya looked up quickly, as if she hadn’t expected that. “What?”
“Yeah,” Viktor said. “I’m proud of you.”
Her breath caught.
I felt my heart twist in my chest, not jealousy exactly, just a feeling painfully close to that.
Because she had done well. Better than that. She’d been a damn force, dragging us through the vents, blowing out servers, and sending drones slashing through the night like avenging spirits. I wouldn’t have succeeded in the mission to rescue the others without her.
I leaned forward too, catching her gaze.
“Viktor’s right,” I said. “You were incredible.”
Her eyes flicked between us, uncertain for a moment. Vulnerable in a way she rarely allowed herself to be outside of the bedroom.
“I almost got myself shot,” she muttered.
“So did we,” I returned. “Difference is you kept going. You kept all of us moving.”
“That drone hit on the north ramp?” Viktor added. “I’ll be dreaming about that one.”
Katya tried to hide the smile curving her mouth, but it broke through anyway.
“You saved all our lives tonight,” I said quietly.
She swallowed, throat working. “I just… did what I had to.”
“Katya,” I said. “You did more than that.”
Viktor leaned back, crossing his arms lazily. “Face it, kotenok. You were an absolute badass.”
The blush hit her cheeks so fast she looked like she’d been caught doing something indecent.
“Don’t call me that,” she grumbled.
“What?” Viktor smirked. “Badass? Or kotenok?”
“Both.”
He chuckled. “You love it.”
She glared. “No, I don’t.”
I raised a brow. “Lie again. I dare you.”
Her mouth opened, then shut and her blush deepened a bit further.
I let myself smile, albeit slowly. “Good girl.”
The limo hit a stretch of clean road, the engine humming like a predator settling into a long-distance pursuit. City lights flickered ahead, distance making them shimmer like stars.
For the first time since this nightmare began, I let myself breathe.
Viktor did too. He slouched back, stretching one arm along the seat behind Katya, not quite touching her. Just close. Protective in his own reckless, careless way.
I leaned forward again, elbows on my knees. “We’re not out of this,” I said. “But the hardest part is over.”
“Is it?” Katya asked.
She wasn’t afraid. She was calculating.
“Until Revenant figures out that we have their drones,” I corrected.
The driver’s voice crackled over the intercom, nervous but still calm. “Two minutes to the safe route. The other vehicle is behind us now.”
“Good,” I said.
Katya’s fingers brushed my arm.
Only for a second in a touch so light she could claim it never happened. But it did. And it hit me like a small explosion.
She drew her hand back quickly, staring out the window as if the world outside suddenly mattered more than this small, electric moment inside the car.
I didn’t push it.
But I knew what it meant.
Viktor studied her profile for a beat more, his eyes uncharacteristically soft. Then he looked at me, smirked, and said in Russian:
“She’s ours, little brother.”
I didn’t correct him.
For once, he was right.
For a moment, the limo was quiet and we all settled back into our seats. Katya looked from me to Viktor, before leaning back and pressing her head against the headrest behind her.
“Where are we heading?” Viktor finally asked.
“Point Alpha for now,” I said. “Then we break and scatter to secondary locations. I don’t want to go straight to anywhere where Revenant can guess where we are.”
Katya, seated between us, still watched out her window. “Those drones are going to have them occupied for a while.”
“Not for long,” I said. “But long enough for us to get some distance.”
She nodded, her jaw flexing.
The driver took the next turn, tires humming over smooth pavement. We crossed an underpass, then angled toward a wider road that would feed into the outskirts of Dubai proper.
That’s when I saw the tiniest shift in the driver’s posture. The way his hands tightened on the wheel. The way he glanced into the side mirror one too many times. I wasn’t the only one who noticed; Viktor’s smirk faded too.
“What?” Viktor asked him. “Talk to me.”
“Sir,” the driver said, voice clipped now. “We’ve got company.”
I twisted in my seat and looked back.
The second limo was still there.
Behind it, two dark, flat silhouettes rolled into view, lights off.
It took me only a second to figure out that they were armored trucks.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“What is it?” Katya asked nervously.
“Visitors,” Viktor said dryly.
“Not the friendly kind,” I added.
As we cleared an intersection, the road opened up just enough to give a clear view of our flanks.
Two more trucks slid out of side streets ahead and to the right, movements too smooth to be improvised. These weren’t random vehicles. They had been waiting for us.
“Brake!” I yelled. “Back—”
Too late.
The lead truck swung sideways across the lane, cutting us off completely.
The other one surged up on our right and veered in, forcing our driver to slam on the brakes to avoid being crushed.
The limo fishtailed, skidding before halting at an angle that pinned us between the trucks and a concrete divider.
The second limo didn’t hesitate.
Our driver shouted a few words in Arabic into his radio, and I watched in the side mirror as the car behind us jerked, paused, then shot forward through a narrow opening as more trucks closed in on our rear.
The other limo threaded the gap like a bullet, barely missing being boxed in. One of the trucks tried to correct and block the move, but the driver floored it and disappeared down a side road.
Gone.
“Good,” I said under my breath. “Go. Don’t come back.”
The truck blocking our nose slammed into park. I could make out just enough of the emblem on the side door to realize that these people were from ARCHEON. The doors to the trucks flew open in unison. Men poured out wearing dark uniforms, helmets, rifles, and visors.
“Stay down,” I snapped, hand already moving toward my sidearm.
Viktor had his hand on his weapon too, eyes narrowed, posture tense. Katya went absolutely still between us.
The first man out of the lead truck gave a hand signal. Two more men moved to our flanks, weapons raised, covering every exit angle. One of them shouted toward our driver in English.
“Cut the engine! Hands where we can see them!”
Our driver complied immediately.
“What the hell is ARCHEON doing here?” Viktor muttered.
“Either coincidence,” I said, “or—”
“No,” Katya cut in, voice tight and flat. “They don’t do coincidence.”
The front passenger door of the lead truck opened slowly.
A woman climbed down, stepping neatly onto the asphalt in polished shoes that did not belong anywhere near a service road. She wore a luxurious navy suit, tailored to perfection, dark hair twisted into a severe knot. Her posture was elegant, but there was nothing soft in it.
I knew who she was before she even spoke.
ARCHEON’s director.
She walked toward our limo, stopped a few feet in front of the hood, and studied the tinted glass like she could see straight through it.
Then she spoke, voice perfectly calm, like water over ice.
“Are we done playing games, Mr. Dragunov?” she asked.
For a moment, my brain tried to decide which Dragunov she meant.
Then she lifted her gaze and added, “Both of you.”
Yeah. She knew exactly who was in this car.
“Fantastic,” Viktor said. “The fun police.”
“Open the doors,” the director said. “Slowly. Hands visible. I’m not in the mood for theatrics.”
“Neither am I,” Viktor muttered. “And yet here we are.”
“Do it,” I told the driver.
He hesitated, then complied, hitting the release.
The locks thumped open.
Viktor glanced at me. “Fight?”
“Not yet,” I answered quietly.
Guards approached both side doors, rifles up, bodies angled. One yanked my door open with a curt motion.
“Out,” he snapped.
I slid out with both hands raised, posture relaxed, eyes doing a full sweep. There were four trucks in total. Twelve guards, at least. All ARCHEON.
Viktor followed, every line in his body radiating aggression, but he played it smart, keeping his hands up and his mouth shut for once.
Katya climbed out last. I stepped slightly in front of her without thinking.
The director’s gaze flicked over all three of us with clinical interest. She reached no more than halfway to a smile.
“Mr. Dragunov,” she said. “And Mr. Dragunov.” Her attention slid to Viktor. “You’re in worse shape than your brother.”
“Thanks,” Viktor said. “It’s been a rough night. Had some walls fall on me, some bullets just miss me, someone tried to blow me up… I swear, the customer service around here is appalling.”
Her mouth twitched. “You must be Viktor.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed.”
Her gaze cut to Katya. “And Ms. Volkov. You’re a bit harder to keep track of.”
Katya’s voice came out low and clipped. “Just the way I like it.”
Viktor shifted closer to her. “All right,” he said. “I know I missed some memos, but are we all on the same side now, or are you here to shoot us and ship our bones back to Moscow in a decorative urn?”
“No one is shooting anyone,” a new voice said.
Deeper. Russian. Achingly familiar.
Mikhail leaned into view a moment later from inside one of the armored trucks, the perpetual faint frown on his face deepened by fatigue. He took in the situation in one glance—his two younger brothers, hands up, surrounded by ARCHEON guns; Katya, standing rigid; the director, standing calm.
Then his gaze landed on me.
“Andrei,” he said. “You look like hell.”
“Nice to see you too,” I quipped.
He ignored that, eyes already scanning Viktor next, then Katya. “Everyone intact?”
“Mostly,” Viktor said. “A few bruises. Someone threw a grenade at me. It was very rude.”
Mikhail’s jaw flexed. “So I heard.”
The director gave Viktor a cool look. “Mr. Dragunov agreed to speak with us under certain conditions.”
“Among them,” Mikhail added, voice flat, “that ARCHEON doesn’t shoot my brothers or any of their allies on sight.”
“You orchestrated this.” I tried to hide my surprise.
“Yes,” he replied.
“You might have warned us,” I cut back sharply.
“Would you have listened?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. He had a point and he knew it.
Viktor’s eyes narrowed. “So, this is you coming to our rescue?”
Mikhail’s gaze sharpened. “Revenant wants you dead. ARCHEON wants revenge. I chose the option where you walk out of this with your hearts still beating.”
“Debatable,” Viktor muttered. “Feels like I had a mild heart attack back there.”
Katya said nothing.
She stared at Mikhail, then at the director, then back at Mikhail.
“You expect me to trust ARCHEON?” she asked quietly.
“No,” Mikhail said. “I expect you to trust me. And I expect them”—he nodded toward the director and her men—“to honor the terms of our agreement. Because if they don’t, this entire partnership is going to blow up in their faces.”
“Partnership,” Katya repeated, almost like it tasted bitter in her mouth.
The director cleared her throat. “Revenant has become more trouble than they’re worth,” she began. “We have an alignment of interests. For now.”
I didn’t like that ‘for now.’
“And the others?” I asked. “The Markovs and Kara. They got clear. ARCHEON isn’t going after them?”
“For the moment,” the director said, “we have no intention of interfering with the Markovs or our rogue agent.”
“For the moment,” Viktor mimicked under his breath.
“Drop the guns,” Mikhail said to the ARCHEON team. “You don’t need any bullets for this.”
The director nodded once. The muzzles dipped and pointed to the ground.
The tension in the air loosened by a degree.
Mikhail’s shoulders dropped slightly, showing the faintest sign of relief. “How are you?” he asked, eyes flicking between me and Viktor.
“Been better,” I answered honestly.
“Been worse,” Viktor added.
He looked at Katya last. “And you?”
She held his gaze, jaw set, eyes bright. “I broke out of Revenant.” Her lips slid up into a slow smirk. “I broke back into Revenant. I destroyed their servers. I blew up a few things with their own drones. Maybe a few people, too.”
He smiled in her direction. “You did well, malyshka. I’m proud of you.”