Bring them back.
That was all she said in the end.
I carry those words with me all the way to the warehouse.
The address my father sent sits in my pocket like a dare. I know it’s a trap. Mikhail was right about that. He said it plainly, and I let him say it because there was no point pretending otherwise. A man like Andrei Morozov does not send an address unless he wants more than a meeting.
None of that changes the fact that I have to go.
The warehouse sits by the water in a stretch of city no one cares about until something goes wrong there. It’s one of those old industrial buildings that should have been torn down years ago and somehow never was. Corrugated metal. Rusted loading dock. One yard light burning above the side entrance and not nearly enough light anywhere else.
Three cars came with me, and the men inside them know better than to ask whether this is a trap. They know it is. They also know I’m going in anyway.
I leave the car a little way off and walk the rest.
The ground under my boots is damp gravel and broken concrete. The river is somewhere behind the building, black and slow and carrying the smell of metal and old oil with it. Nothing moves in the yard. No visible guard, no cigarette ember in the dark, no obvious sign of the children.
I stop near the loading dock and listen.
Nothing.
No voices. No crying. No movement inside except the faint hum of electricity somewhere deep in the building.
I turn to the closest team. “Water side first. Two around the back. Nobody fires unless they have to and nobody loses sight of the exits.”
They nod and move.
Another pair heads for the loading bay. One man stays near the road with the vehicles. The rest spread wide around thewarehouse, using the parked trailers and old concrete barriers for cover.
I head for the side door.
The moment I reach the wall, the first shot cracks from above the loading bay.
Concrete spits dust near my boots. One of my men shouts and drops behind a truck. Then the whole place erupts.
Shots from the roofline. From the upper windows. From the rear yard by the water.
I drop behind a concrete barrier and fire twice toward the upper window where the first muzzle flash came from. One of the men on the loading side returns fire with me. Glass bursts inward. Someone screams.
“Move!” I shout.
My right-side team starts pushing toward the side entrance under cover. One man goes down on one knee, still shooting. Another drags him behind a rusted forklift parked near the wall.
I make the door in the middle of the noise and go in low.
The service corridor inside smells like oil, wet concrete, and old rope. Gunfire outside keeps hammering through the walls. Good. Let them stay focused out there.
A man appears at the far end of the corridor with a pistol in his hand and surprise all over his face. I shoot him before he gets his arm all the way up. He slams into the wall and slides down it, leaving a dark streak behind.
I keep going.
The main floor opens up in front of me. Crates. A forklift. Metal stairs at the far end. Office box above the floor. The kind of place built for bad business and worse endings.
Too quiet at first.
Then movement on the catwalk.
I fire once. The shooter ducks. Another appears near the stairs, aiming low, expecting me to come through the center. I cut left behind the forklift instead, come up on one knee, and shoot him through the railing. He folds sideways and disappears down the steps.
