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Thank fuck she understood why I said no. Or, if she didn’t, she trusted me enough not to question me. Static hissed through the speaker before Sokolov’s laughter crawled out. “You still believe you’re in control. How quaint.”

I slammed the butt of my gun into the rusted box. The red light survived the first blow but died on the second, satisfaction blooming hot in my chest as I ripped the wires out. “Now he can listen to himself.”

“That fucker probably talks to himself in the mirror.” Kirill snorted at my side.

Roman knelt beside the dead pump with his tablet on his knee. A single image showed in splashes of black, white, and red. “Men at every exit. Eastern shaft has enough shooters on it to shred anyone who comes up.” He puffed out his cheeks. “Which means that’s the exit he expects us to take. If the information here is correct, there’s a ladder behind the rubble.”

Kirill shifted Alina higher when her body slid, Anika going with her and helping keep water from her wounds. “How considerate of him. He didn’t have to fucking blow us up to guide us to the ladder.”

“He covered every exit in the original plans.” Roman shoved his knife beneath the pump’s control panel and leaned his weight onto the handle. “He has no idea what my men do on their days off.”

“Roman…what did you do?” Kirill bent closer to Roman, and I couldn’t help smirking at the image the two of them created. Kirill was like an eager little boy, desperate to know the secret.

A bark of laughter shook Roman’s shoulders. “I added new tunnels after the customs ambush a few years ago.”

Anika pressed her hand over the wound on Alina’s side. More water gushed in, and she hissed a breath between her teeth. “Then stop admiring your ingenuity and open the damned thing.”

Our woman had reached the limits of her patience with all four of us, Sokolov, and the entire fucking city. She’d earned the right, and I gave her an approving nod.

The control panel came loose with a metallic shriek, exposing a grease-blackened wheel. Roman threw the metal aside. “The release feeds into an old storm line. The first section is bad. The second worse.”

I holstered my gun, braced one boot against the concrete, and hauled on the wheel. My shoulder pulled taut, tendons and muscles complaining at the pressure before the corroded metal finally shifted. A gate opened beyond the wall, wrenching the current at my boots and sending water gushing toward a narrow gap in the pipes.

We crowded into the storm passage with water rushing around our thighs. Roman led, I stayed behind Anika and Mikhail, and Kirill carried Alina in his arms, her head tucked beneath his chin. It would have been a sweet sight if it wasn’t for the single, annoying fact that we were in this shithole because of her.

The tunnel narrowed around a bend, and Alina clawed at Kirill’s shoulder. “My boot.”

Kirill never slowed. “Be specific, sweetheart. I’m carrying most of you.”

“Left one. Lining.” Her head dropped as Anika tugged the boot free and pulled out a strip of waterproof paper hidden beneath the leather. She passed it to me, lips in a flat line. Blue lines crossed between the same tiny cranes we’d followed to the shipyard.

Roman studied the paper over my shoulder, then closer when I handed it to him. His frown almost matched Anika’s when he compared it to the first map.

Alina’s head lolled to the side. “That’s where Nora is.”

“I’ll get her.” He said it with enough conviction I knew better than to argue. Which was good, because that was my plan anyway. We all had our roles to play, and Roman was the best to go after Nora.

Anika grabbed Roman’s arm, and the current spun her sideways before I steadied her. “I’m going with you.”

“No.” He covered her hand while we moved toward the junction. “The path on this map is nothing more than an old crawlspace. I’ll reach her faster alone.”

“She’s my daughter.” Anger sharpened each word, but her terror had already paled her face and turned her body into a stiff pantomime of her real self. “I won’t sit somewhere safe while you go after her.”

“You won’t be sitting anywhere.” I pulled Mikhail around a broken pipe and returned his hand to hers. “Kirill has to carry Alina. Mikhail needs someone he trusts, and right now, that’s you.”

Mikhail lifted his chin, ready to deny it, but a surge knocked him into Anika, and he wrapped both arms around her waist.

Kirill adjusted his grip on Alina. “I can get them through the southern branch, but I can’t carry her and keep him from doing something heroic and stupid.”

“I’m not stupid.” Mikhail glared over Anika’s arm, and Kirill’s mouth twitched.

He’d planned for that reaction, triggering Mikhail’s indignation to keep the boy from panicking. He was good at that, which was why I wanted him with Mikhail, because Kirill was also apt to do something heroic and stupid.

“Then you outrank most of our men.” Kirill’s amusement died when Alina’s breath hitched and slowed. “We need to fucking move.”

I checked Roman’s shattered feed while we advanced. Sokolov had left the eastern shaft open because he expected someone to bring him the evidence. Even though I’d told him no, he’d be too curious when he saw me. And to take me alive would be a rather large feather in his cap. He wouldn’t be able to pass up the opportunity to take a Pakhan.

“Roman takes the northern branch and gets Nora.” I returned the tablet and pointed Kirill toward the south. “You take Anika, Alina, and Mikhail beyond the perimeter. I’ll climb the eastern shaft and keep Sokolov looking at me.”