“To limit you,” he corrects. “Access first. Influence after. If that doesn’t work, then they’ll decide what comes next.”
“Anyone pushing back?” I ask.
“Not out loud,” he says. “And not for free. If you listen and follow instructions, they might leave you standing. If you don’t, they won’t.”
I thank him without warmth and end the call.
I don’t return to Ana. I move instead, changing locations like cafes, late-night markets, a bus depot, touching ground I haven’t in years, watching who flinches and who doesn’t. Maksim’s exit vehicle gets burned, stripped, and forgotten. Another favor paid forward, another thread cut clean.
By midnight, I’m alone with the truth I’ve been circling all day. Leaving her won’t save me. I stand in a room with no windows and I think about Markov, about how he believed visibility waspower and never understood that endurance mattered more. I think about Ana, about how her refusal to bend reads as a threat. They don’t want her married. Marriage is only a way to contain her. And they don’t want me anywhere near the decision.
I check my phone. Another contact goes dark. Another route compromised. The board is clearing space. Good. If they’re moving this carefully, it means they’re afraid of what happens if I don’t fall fast.
I sit down, not to rest, but to plan with the understanding that the rules I lived by no longer apply. The council has decided to cut me off systematically. They’re waiting until I’m out in the open, with no clean way through.
10
ANA
Time hasn’t moved straight since Dominik pulled me out of the transit house. Some days blur together with driving, switching names, keeping doors locked. Other days drag like they’re holding their breath, like something’s about to snap. But nothing does. The pressure just stays.
Dominik moves me twice after the rescue before we end up at a safehouse on the edge of the city. It’s tucked behind a row of garages and a workshop that smells like oil and rust. From the outside, it looks like a supply unit, no number, no nameplate, just a metal door with a keypad. Inside, it is bare but orderly. A cot pushed against the wall, a table near the window, shelves with tinned food and water bottles. The curtains are thick, and the room carries the scent of dust and lime plaster.
He sets the bag down near the cot and glances around the room.
“What do you need in here? Food, clothes, anything specific?”
“Just something warm,” I say.
He nods, then slings the smaller bag over his shoulder.
“Keep the door shut. Don’t answer unless it’s me.”
I don’t say anything.
“Settle in,” he adds, pausing at the door. “I won’t be long.”
Then he’s gone.
Dominik is gone more than he’s here. When he is home, he talks less. He checks his phone less. He watches the street longer. I ask once what’s wrong. He doesn’t look at me when he answers.
“It doesn’t concern you.”
I press anyway.
“Contacts stopped answering,” he finally says. He doesn’t sound angry or alarmed. He says it like he’s naming a fact.
My stomach drops. He sees it happen and reaches for my wrist.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll manage.”
He takes me to a garage off the ring road one day, one of those concrete boxes wedged between a tire shop and a shuttered warehouse. A man looks up from under a lifted hood and grins through tobacco-stained teeth.
“Mr. Nikolai,” he says, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Your car’s ready.”
He points to a dented silver Tiggo parked near the wall. It’s just another car no one remembers after it passes.
“Nikolai?” I ask.
