Chapter 17
Dubai, one week ago…
Katya
The Dragunov estate at night felt different.
Quieter. Cooler. The courtyard was wrapped in a soft, golden glow from lantern lights and there was the gentle chirp of crickets hiding somewhere in the imported palms. The air smelled faintly of spice and sea salt and the city of Dubai glittered in the distance, all the tall towers shining like a cluster of jeweled knives pointed at the stars.
Inside, the house was all shadowed hallways, high ceilings, and the kind of expensive silence that made you hear things you weren’t meant to.
I’d showered again—Dubai heat was no joke—and slipped into one of the new dresses the brothers insisted on buying for me, this one a soft, draping champagne-colored silk that felt like cool water against my skin.
I wasn’t used to luxury, but I wasn’t too proud to pretend it didn’t feel good.
Still, wearing it around the Dragunov brothers felt like wearing a neon sign that said ‘I’m up for grabs.
Please fuck me,’ which wasn’t ideal, but whatever.
I’d deal with the consequences as they came.
I padded barefoot down the hallway toward the kitchen to grab a drink when I heard Andrei’s voice talking softly. He was in the study at the end of the hall, door half-open. I stopped outside the door, just out of sight.
“…alone?” Andrei said. “Why?”
A cold sensation slid down my spine.
The tone of his voice shifted even tighter. “That wasn’t the agreement.”
Silence.
I pressed closer, heart thudding steadily beneath my ribs.
Andrei exhaled hard. “Fine. Yes, I’ll go. But if Revenant thinks making me go alone is going to—”
He cut himself off.
He was listening again. I stayed as silent as I could.
“Understood,” he said at last. “I’ll be ready.”
The call ended with a soft chime.
A pulse of unease tightened in my stomach.
Revenant had asked him to go by himself? Why wouldn’t they want me to go with him when I was their agent, not to mention that this was my mission too? All of ours.
‘Suspicious’ didn’t begin to describe it.
I stepped deliberately into the doorway, so he’d see me. Then he turned, startled for only half a heartbeat before that easy half-smile slid back into place.
“Princess,” he said lightly, “you walk too quietly. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
I folded my arms. “Who was that?”
“No one important,” he said too quickly.
Liar.
I walked in further. “Sounded important.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Andrei.”
He sighed.
“It was Revenant,” he admitted. “They want me to meet with the group we’re supposed to deliver the drones to.”
“Who are they?”
“A client of theirs,” he said vaguely.
“And they want you to go alone?” I asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s business,” he replied. “Sometimes it’s like that.”
Another lie.
His voice tightened again. Not much. Enough that if I weren’t trained to hear tension, I would have missed it.
Revenant didn’t want me there.
Why?
I’d been working under their banner for years. They trusted me. So why shut me out?
The punch of suspicion hit low in my stomach.
Were they hiding something?
He took a step toward me. “Katya, don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”
“Why can’t I come?” I pressed.
He hesitated again.
“You just… can’t,” he said finally. “Revenant asked for me. Alone. Specifically. Not for you.”
“But we’re a team,” I argued. “That’s the entire point of this assignment. They assigned me to you for a reason.”
“Katya.” He rubbed the back of his neck, a sign I was beginning to recognize as one of his signs of stress. “This meeting is just logistics. Nothing interesting. Nothing dangerous.”
He was lying again. He was terrible at lying.
I stared at him.
He stared back.
Neither of us moved.
“It’s suspicious,” I said quietly.
He opened his mouth, then shut it again.
“You’re not answering me,” I said.
“I don’t have an answer,” he replied. “Not one I’ve figured out yet. So let me go. Let me see what this is about. I’ll come back and tell you everything.”
The words should have comforted me.
They didn’t because I recognized the tone. It wasn’t dismissive, and it wasn’t condescending either, but a bit protective.
I let my gaze narrow. “So that’s it? They whistle, and you come running?”
He huffed a faint laugh. “Do I look like an obedient dog to you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Like a very well-trained dog.”
His eyes flashed. “Careful, princess.”
I stepped closer, my heart pounding. “I’m serious. If they’re hiding something, I want to know what. I’m part of this mission too.”
“You’re the part I control,” he said, voice lowering. “And until I know what this is about, I’m not putting you in the same room.”
He said it gently and that made it worse.
“I’ll be back tomorrow night,” he said instead. “Before midnight. I promise.”
Promises meant nothing in this world.
Still, I nodded.
He lingered, as if he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.
Then Mikhail’s voice echoed from down the hall.
“Andrei,” he called. “What was that about?”
Andrei looked at me one last time, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. “Don’t wait up.”
Then he left.
I waited until the footsteps faded before I followed, silent as a shadow, into the hallway that branched behind the study.
I pressed myself into the narrow alcove beside the door, careful to stay out of sight. There was a vent hidden behind carved molding above my head. It was large enough for sound to travel.
The brothers’ voices drifted through.
Mikhail: “Revenant wants you to go alone?”
Andrei: “Yes.”
Viktor: “That’s bullshit. Why?”
Andrei: “They didn’t say.”
Mikhail: “That means they don’t want her there.”
Andrei: “I know.”
Viktor: “They’re hiding something.”
Mikhail: “Likely. And I don’t like it.”
Andrei: “Neither do I.”
Then Mikhail added, his tone going hard: “But until we know what this meeting really is, we keep her clear of it.”
A chill ran through me.
I backed away from the alcove on soft feet, retreating down the hall before the conversation shifted again.
Back in my room, I closed the door quietly, leaning my forehead against the wooden panel as adrenaline leaked slowly from my veins.
Sleep didn’t come.
I laid awake long after the house went quiet, staring at the ceiling fan slicing slow circles through the air. Every word I’d overheard replayed inside my head. Revenant wanted Andrei alone. Revenant didn’t want me anywhere near that meeting. What were they hiding?
I turned on my side, pressing my cheek against the expensive pillow.
It was soft, cloudlike, and completely unfamiliar.
The room itself was more than luxurious, with silk sheets, a velvet throw, and thick, deep carpeting that swallowed every footfall.
All of it was designed to make me forget what the world was actually like.
But I couldn’t let myself forget.
I sat up, swung my feet to the floor, and pressed my palms to my knees.
I was going to that meeting whether the Dragunovs liked it or not.
They could try to shield me. They could try to keep me out.
They could pretend they were protecting me, but I had lived through things none of them had seen.
If there was something dangerous behind this trade, something insidious tied to the drones or the ‘client group,’ I was going to find out what it was.
I stood quietly, moving in the dark with the ease of someone who’d spent too much of her life trying not to be seen or heard.
My go-bag was already packed, as always.
I grabbed the essentials: cash, a change of clothes, a knife, and the little burner phone I kept for emergencies.
I dressed in a black shirt and dark pants, as well as a pair of combat boots.
My phone sat on the bedside table, black screen reflecting my face.
If I took it, Revenant would know exactly where I was.
I left it on the table, screen down.
The corridor outside was silent.
I eased my door open and slipped into the hallway. I moved slowly, listening for anything that suggested one of the brothers was awake, but the estate stayed silent.
I snuck down the hallway, hand tracing the railing as I descended the main staircase. Moonlight filtered through the tall windows, illuminating the expensive furniture and artwork in pale blue hues.
I wasn’t going to wake them. I wasn’t going to ask permission. They would only say no. They meant well. They just wanted to keep me safe.
But I needed to know the truth.
I kept going.
I made a tight turn into a secondary corridor that ran parallel to the main hallway. It opened near the back of the estate, where a long row of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a stretch of immaculate garden lined with palm trees and lit pathways.
Past that: the private runway.
The Dragunov jet sat there in the distance, all sleek and black, its surface reflecting the moonlight. Even from here, it looked predatory.
I needed to get across the garden without being spotted from inside the house.
I slipped out the back French door as quietly as I could, pulling it closed behind me. The cool night air of the desert wafted gently over my skin, carrying the faint scent of night flowers and jasmine.
I ducked low along the edge of the house, staying in the shadow where the building blocked the light. My heartbeat ticked in time with my steps. Halfway across the lawn, a motion light flicked on at the far end of the property.
My pulse spiked.
I dropped immediately into a crouch behind a trimmed hedge, holding my breath. No footsteps followed. No voices. Maybe they’d think it was a stray cat.
I waited ten long seconds before moving again.
The hangar was a shadowed shape beyond the runway lights, guarded by nothing more than a half-bored mechanic leaning against a toolbox. He was maybe twenty and definitely distracted by his phone in his hand.