I shoved the car into gear and pulled out onto the road.
I parked on the street and killed the engine, jaw tight, whole body thrumming with a frustration I couldn’t shake. Not even ten seconds inside and I was already yanking my hoodie over my head, kicking off my shoes, stripping down to nothing as I stalked to the bathroom.
The cold shower hit me like a brick wall. I stood under it with my palms flat against the tile, eyes shut, breath ragged. But even with the icy water dragging goosebumps over my skin, all I could think about was her.
I pressed my forehead to the wall.
Kira.
Malaya.
My poor girl.
I dried off and walked back into the living room, towel wrapped around my hips, water still dripping down my chest. My mind was still back in that car.
Getting pulled into someone else’s family shit was never part of the plan. Least of all my boss’s mess. I’d seen enough of that crap over the years—broken wives, scared kids, men who drank too much and pretended they were still kings of their little rotten kingdoms. That’s the world I worked in. No fairy tales there.
So normally I would’ve stayed out of it. Kept my head down. Done the job and moved on.I used to not give a damn aboutany of it. Not my drama. Not my problem. I’m nobody’s fucking savior.
That’s exactly why I’d never have kids of my own. Fuck that. I’d ruin one just by breathing near it. A man like me doesn’t get to play father.
But Kira.I gave her my word.Which meant I was going to find out where the hell her mother had been taken. Whether I liked it or not, I was already neck-deep in this family mess.
And the truth was… for that girl, I’d do just about anything.
Still in my thoughts, I wandered to the kitchen, made myself a coffee, and headed for the balcony to light a cigarette. But something stopped me mid-step—the cabinet across the room. Its door was slightly ajar.
That was odd. I always closed it.
I stepped closer and pulled it open, the hinges creaking. Inside, the folder waited. And then it hit me—fuck. I was about to dig into the files from that cop I killed a few months ago—right before Kira knocked on my door and made me lose my mind and… fuck her.
I pulled it out now.
It was heavier than I remembered. Thick. A folder swollen with papers that hinted at something buried deeper. I dropped onto the couch, towel still wrapped around my waist, and flipped it open across my lap.
Photocopies. Scans. Handwritten notes. Police memos. News articles that never made front pages.
And then came the list.
Hundreds of names.
I kept turning pages.
Boys. Girls. Some as young as two. Cities I recognized. Villages I’d never heard of. Case numbers. Sloppy handwriting. Warnings scrawled in the margins.
And then I saw it.
Kovalenko Mila Igorevna.
Female. Age 3. Abducted 2003. Kharkiv.
My lungs seized. Air wouldn’t come. For a second I thought I was dying—then I realized I wished I was.
Wait—
What the fuck is this?
I flipped through the papers like a man possessed. Every report, every article, every scribbled note screamed the truth I didn’t want to believe.
