Mikhail cuts the engine and turns to me. “Stay close.”
I nod.
We get out.
The air is bitter and damp, smelling of salt, rust, and old oil. My shoes crunch over gravel as we move toward the side of the building. Mikhail has his gun out now. I still have mine and am trying not to look at it too often, because if I do, I will remember exactly how little I know what I’m doing.
The warehouse is mostly quiet.
Water knocks somewhere beyond the loading bay. A chain shifts in the wind. Far off, maybe from inside, something metal clatters once and then stops. But there is no shouting. No gunfire. No clear sign of a fight still happening.
That unsettles me more than noise would have.
Mikhail raises a hand, and I stop. Then I see them.
Two bodies near the corner of the warehouse, half in shadow, one on his back, one twisted against the wall as if he slid down it and never made it farther. Even from here I can tell they’re dead. The angle of the limbs, the stillness, the dark wet stain under one shoulder.
My heart starts hammering so hard I can hear it.
What happened here? Where is Roman?
Is he amongst the…
No, I can’t even think about it. He has to be alive, he has to be.
Mikhail moves ahead of me, careful now, scanning the open yard, the roofline, the windows. I follow because I cannot make myself stay behind, and every step feels louder than it should.
The dead men come clearer as we get closer. One of them looks barely older than a boy. The other has a shaved head and a knife still tucked into his belt. Neither of them is Roman.
Then a voice speaks behind me.
“Well.”
A gun presses into the middle of my back.
My whole body locks.
Mikhail turns at once, gun up, but I know from his face before I even move my eyes that he’s seeing something impossible.
I turn my head slowly.
Vika.
She’s wearing a dark coat over one of her ridiculous silk blouses, hair pinned back, mouth painted the exact shade of red she always chooses when she wants to look more dangerous than she is. Except now there is nothing performative in her smile. It’s small and cold and horribly real.
For a second, I’m too shocked to understand what I’m seeing. “Vika?”
She smiles wider. “Good,” she says. “You’re here too.”
33
ROMAN
Four Hours Earlier
By the timeI leave the apartment, the city has gone thin and gray.
It’s still morning, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels later than it should, as if the day has already used up whatever ordinary light it was given. I can still see Katerina standing in the hallway when I walked out, white-faced, trying not to fall apart in front of me because she knew if she did, I might not leave at all.
