Chapter 25
The vent hisses wrong.
I’ve listened to this mansion breathe for twenty years, learned every wheeze and rattle the way other men learn prayer, and this sound carries an electronic hum that doesn’t belong—threading through the familiar noises.
Luka catches it half a second after I do, his hand drifting toward the Makarov beneath his jacket in a motion that looks casual unless you’ve spent more than a decade learning to read violence in the way a man’s breathing changes. His chin lifts, and his eyes find mine across the mahogany.
No words. Wolves who’ve hunted together long enough don’t need them.
Kto-to slushaet. Someone is listening.
Across the table, Sergei keeps his gaze fixed on the ledger I handed him five minutes ago—supply routes, shipment manifests. He hasn’t looked up once, and that absence of curiosity tells me everything I need to know. An innocent man would have turned. A guilty man freezes.
I let three seconds pass.
“Sergei.”
His eyes lift. Brown, too wide, wearing a shape that doesn’t fit, because real surprise should make a man scan for threat first, should square his shoulders. His hand moves to his collar, tugging at it with the nervous energy of someone who knows the ground is about to open beneath him.
“V koridor.” Into the hall. The words come out flat, stripped of anything that might soften the command into a request.
His fingers fumble with the ledger’s edge—that instinctive grab for something solid when everything starts shifting. I almost hope I’m wrong. I’m not.
“Boss, I need to finish the—”
“Seychas.” Now.
Sergei goes.
The ledger stays clutched against his chest as he crosses to the door, and I watch every step the way my father taught me to watch—reading a man’s walk toward judgment for everything it reveals about how he lived. His shoulders curve inward, and his gait shortens, walking like a dead man.
Luka moves before the latch clicks, crossing the room in four fluid strides while his knife snicks open. The vent cover comes away with a metallic shriek, and something small and black tumbles into his palm—a circuit board catching the light before his fingers close around it.
Zhuchok.
Bug. Professional grade. FSB surplus.
“How long?” My voice stays level even though something cold and vicious is uncoiling in my chest.
Luka examines the oxidation with the attention of someone who’s disarmed enough surveillance to read its history in the dust. “A week. Maybe ten days. Recent enough that whoever planted it thinks they’re still listening to something useful.”
Ten fucking days.
Ten days ago, I was still calling Anya an asset, still telling myself the way her eyes caught light when she solved a problem was irrelevant to her value, still planning to deliver her research to Vadim and pretend it was strategy.
The bug heard all of it.
And everything that came after.
Anya’s in the east wing lab right now—I checked the security feed twenty minutes ago, and she was bent over her workstation with her hair twisted up and that focused look she gets.
Safe. Mine. Working on something that might get us both killed, but at least she’s here, where I can reach her in under sixty seconds if anyone so much as breathes wrong in her direction.
The list of people with war room access is short. The list of people who could have planted that bug without triggering alarms is shorter.
Sergei’s name sits on both.
“Katya.” I dial the encrypted line, and she answers before the second ring. “Run financials. Sergei. Last six months. Offshore accounts, crypto, cash deposits over five thousand American.”
“How deep?”
“Do kostey.” To the bone.
“Twenty minutes.”
The line goes dead.
I pour two fingers of whiskey and don’t drink it, just hold the glass and let the amber catch the light while I think about all the ways a man can convince himself betrayal is just business.
Sergei has three daughters—the oldest just got accepted to Moscow State’s chemistry program, and last summer, I remember her spilling grape juice on my boots.
I remember telling her it was fine. I lied.
Dyadya Roman, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.
I set the glass down without drinking.
“Bring him back.”
* * *
Sergei sits in the chair across from me with his hands folded on the mahogany, fingers interlaced so tightly his knuckles have gone white. His wedding ring catches the light, and I don’t let myself think about his wife, don’t let myself think about three girls who are about to lose their father.
I think about Anya instead.
About the way she looked at me when I told her the truth, when everything I’d built between us crumbled into ash and betrayal.
About the fact that she stayed anyway, that she’s downstairs right now creating something that could save lives.
About how if Sergei told Vadim anything about her research—anything about the real antidotes she’s synthesizing—she becomes a liability my uncle will want eliminated.
Luka positions himself behind Sergei’s chair, making it clear that leaving isn’t an option unless I permit it.
“Tell me about the vent.”
Sergei’s face stays neutral with confusion worn so carefully I can see the effort behind it. “What vent, boss?”
Luka sets the bug beside the ledger.
Red light pulses once. Twice.
Sergei’s lips press together, going bloodless, his shoulders curling inward, his eyes dropping to the table and staying there.
“Blyad…” The word escapes him before he can stop it.
“Try again.”
His Adam’s apple jumps. “Boss, I swear I don’t—”
My phone buzzes.
Katya’s message glows: Cayman Islands. December 8. Wire transfer. $47,000 USD. Recipient: Sergei Dmitrovich Vetrovin.
I turn the phone so he can see.
The transformation happens in stages—lips parting, hands unclenching and pressing flat against the table, his whole body deflating inward with the posture of a man whose foundation just crumbled.
“I can explain—” His voice cracks on the second word.
“Then explain. Fast.”
His eyes dart left before he answers, hunting for a story that might hold under pressure, and I’ve interrogated enough men to know what that fraction of a second means.
“My mother.” The words tumble out too fast. “Stage four pancreatic. Vadim said he’d cover the treatment in Switzerland if I just kept him informed about—”
His hand moves toward his glasses again—that nervous tell.
I grab his wrist and twist until something pops.
He screams.
“Focus, Sergei.” I hold the pressure steady, watching sweat break across his forehead. “What did you tell him about my wife?”
“Everything—” He’s gasping now, face grey with pain. “That you told her the truth and she stayed anyway—” His voice breaks into a sob. “That she’s synthesizing antidotes now.”
The last part lands in my chest and stays there, burning.
“What’s he planning?”
“An auction.” Sergei’s shaking so hard the chair rattles against the floor. “Private. Tonight at midnight on Polina’s yacht, in Odessa. He’s selling MX-42 synthesis to the highest bidder. FSB, Chechens, whoever pays. Starting price: three hundred million euros.”
Three hundred million fucking euros.
“And Anya?”
“He wants her dead before the auction closes.” His voice drops to something barely audible. “Said a weapon only has value if no one can defend against it. Said the chemist who created it, becomes a liability the moment she understands what she made. Said if you won’t eliminate her—”
“He’ll do it for me.”
“Da.”
I release his wrist and straighten, pulling the Makarov from my shoulder holster. This time I point it—center mass.
“My girls—” He’s begging now, tears tracking down cheeks gone grey with terror. “They can’t know, they can’t grow up thinking their father was—”
“They’ll know what I tell them to know.” My voice comes out flat, emotionless, the way it always does when I’m about to pull a trigger.
“Your wife gets the story you died with honor. Your mother gets the treatment in Switzerland. Your daughters get protection and pension and a father they can be proud of.”
“Thank you, Roman, spasibo—”
“Don’t thank me.” I check the magazine with hands that stay steady through will alone. “You could have asked. You sold me out.”
I chamber a round.
“Goodbye, Sergei.”
The sound is swallowed by stone walls that have heard worse. Sergei slumps forward, and I’m already holstering the Makarov before his body settles.
“Wine cellar,” I tell Luka without looking back. “Make the calls. His family gets everything I promised.”
I’m halfway up the stairs before I let myself think about Masha—about grape juice on my shoes and a girl who won’t understand why her father never came home. I think about it for exactly three seconds.
Then I hear Anya scream, and I stop thinking about anything else.
Anya.
My blood goes cold and then immediately fucking boiling, and I’m running before the sound finishes with the Makarov already in my hand and every thought in my head narrowing to a single point: mine, mine, if anyone touched her I’ll tear this house down with my bare hands—
The lab door is open.
Wrong. She never leaves it open—containment protocols, she calls it.
I hit the doorway at full sprint and stop.
Anya stands in the center of the lab—not hurt, no blood, no visible threat—but she’s frozen.
In her hands: a thick envelope. Expensive paper.
The blood has left her face in a wave I can almost watch moving, draining downward until even her lips look grey, until she’s gripping the envelope with both hands and her whole body is trembling.
“Solnyshko.” I cross to her in three strides, holstering the gun. “What happened?”
She doesn’t answer.
Just holds out the envelope with hands that shake so badly the paper rattles against itself, and I take it because she can’t hold it anymore.
The cover shows a molecular structure I recognize instantly.
MX-42. Her nightmare was made real and printed on cardstock.