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Misha comes closer and presses both palms against my knee. “Write jam.”

“Under medical history?”

“Important history.”

I add jam.

The move takes two hours because Misha supervises every bag. He rejects one suitcase because the green dinosaur can’t breathe beneath the sweaters, then orders Sergei to carry the dinosaur separately. Sergei accepts the assignment with more seriousness than he gives most armed escorts.

We make it halfway down the corridor before Misha’s small suitcase opens and spills cars, blocks, and plastic animals across the floor. A red truck rolls between Sergei’s boots, two bears disappear beneath a bench, and Misha makes everyone stop while he counts each toy. We’re missing one zebra. Two armed men search for it everywhere until Vera finds it inside his sweater.

Oksana arrives with a clean bandage above her eyebrow and Irina walking beside her. She reaches for a toy box.

“You were knocked out less than twelve hours ago,” Vera tells her. “Put it down.”

“I can carry toys.”

“No.”

Misha takes one wooden block from the box and hands it to her. “You carry this.”

Oksana looks at me.

“I believe the command is clear,” I say.

She carries the block.

Inside the new suite, Vera checks the locks, window latches, bathroom, kitchen, and connecting door before unpacking anything. I wait by the sitting-area table and keep my men outside.

She expects me to choose the bedrooms.

I don’t.

“Misha decides,” I say.

Misha walks into the larger bedroom, turns once, and rejects it. “Too big.”

He chooses the smaller bedroom because the window seat makes a garage and the wardrobe has two handles shaped like circles.

Vera puts the green dinosaur on his pillow.

I consult the notebook. “Stuffed animals.”

She closes her eyes briefly. “The dinosaur sleeps nearest him. The bear goes by his feet. The rabbit only comes out when he’s sick.”

“Why?”

“The rabbit is a nurse,” Misha says.

“Of course.”

The biometric lock causes the first failure.

Abramov’s technician kneels beside the new suite door and asks Misha to place his thumb on the scanner. Misha gives him his index finger, then his smallest finger, then the yellow car.

“The car isn’t authorized,” the technician says.

“It lives here,” Misha replies.