She swings her legs over the side of the bed and snatches the phones, fully awake now. She scrolls fast, eyes narrowed, face blank. Then she stops, thumb taps out a reply, almost too fast. She waits, watching the screen, her face scrunched. Then she types some more, fingers flying.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Seeing what’s urgent,” she says, already turning the phone off.
She doesn’t look at me when she sets it down.
Morning comes gray and thin. By the time I come back from a reconnaissance of the neighborhood, she’s dressed, scarf wrapped tightly around her face, goggles on.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Irina wants to meet,” she says, already typing. “She says it’s urgent.”
“Send me the address.”
“At a hotel near Leninsky Prospekt,” she says.
“I’ll come.”
“No.” Her voice is sharp now. “She asked for me. Not you.”
She’s already at the door. “It’s just a couple of hours. I’ll be back soon.”
I study her for a second, weighing the risk against the fight it would take to stop her.
The lock turns. The door opens, then shuts.
That’s the last I see of Ana. The next call is from Irina. The phone rings once. I answer before the second vibration finishes.
“Madam has been taken,” Irina screams, voice breaking, breath raw like she’s running while she talks.
“But Ana went to meet you?” I ask.
“Yes,” Irina says, breath hitching. “I needed to tell her something urgent.”
“Where?”
“In the hotel foyer.”
“Calm down,” I bark into the phone, my mind already firing through scenarios, every possibility shredding into the next even as a part of me knew this was coming.
“Taken by whom?” I say once Irina catches her breath enough to speak clearly.
“They came in an SUV. Four of them. Guns out. They didn’t shout, they just took her,” she says, voice thin and trembling.
“Did you notice the number?”
“It had no plates, Dominik, it was a black…” She trails off, frantic.
“I’m calling you straight, not Viktor Andreyevich or anyone else,” she wheezes, trying to regain control of her voice.
“Good,” I say. “Stay where you are. Send your location now. Can you do that?”
She does. Coordinates flash on my screen almost at once. The hotel is far enough that by the time I get there, they’ll be long gone in any possible direction, and the trail will be colder than I can afford.
“Now tell me what happened,” I say.
“She stepped into the foyer when they came,” she says. “I tried to follow. One of them stopped me. He said my name.”
