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“He’s claimed both of us,” I say it plainly, refusing to let this become the crack they’re clearly hoping to find, keeping my voice as steady as I can manage even with my heart hammering against my ribs. “Whatever you’re trying to get out of that question, it isn’t going to work. I’m not giving you anything else.”

The man studies me a moment longer, and something in his expression shifts, a flicker of genuine consideration rather than performance.

He stands, nodding once to the other man near the door, and they leave without another word, the metal door clanging shut behind them, some mechanism locking with a heavy, final sound that echoes longer than it should in a room this small.

Alone again, I let myself shake for exactly one minute, my whole body finally releasing the tension I’ve been holding rigid through the entire exchange.

My teeth chatter despite the fact that I’m not sure I’m actually cold, some delayed reaction to everything I just held back finally catching up to my body now that there’s no one left to perform steadiness for. Then I stop myself, forcing the shaking down the same way I’ve forced everything else down since I woke up in this room.

I press my bound hands as close to my stomach as the restraints allow, and I breathe, counting, holding onto the two things that matter more than any fear this room can manufacture.

The baby, still safe. Artem, somewhere out there right now, tearing the world apart to find me. I picture him exactly as I last saw him, easy and unguarded over coffee that morning, and I hold onto that image like a rope thrown down into a well I refuse to let myself fall any further into.

I hold onto both of those facts like they’re the only solid ground left anywhere, and I wait for whatever comes next, unbroken, giving them nothing more than I’ve already given, no matter how many times they come back through that door to try again.

I don’t know how long I sit there in the quiet after they leave, wrists raw against the restraints, but every minute that passes without them coming back to break me feels like a small, private victory I refuse to let myself take too much comfort in yet.

The bulb overhead flickers once, then steadies, and I keep my eyes on it rather than on the drain in the floor or the door I still can’t see a handle on.

Artem is coming. He is. He has to.

I have to believe that. I have nothing else in this room to hold onto besides that certainty and the steady, stubborn fact of my own heartbeat, and the smaller one beating somewhere just beneath it.

35

ARTEM

Two days pass without sleep worth counting, the house running on coffee and grim determination while Yuri’s people work through every lead we have.

I’ve slept in one- or two-hour stretches at my desk when exhaustion finally overrides everything else, waking each time already reaching for the phone before I’m even fully conscious of doing it.

The first day yields nothing but dead ends. Three warehouses checked and cleared, a safe house in the industrial district that turns out to be exactly as empty as its utility bills suggested it would be.

I sit through each disappointment without letting it show, because the men working this search need to see certainty from me even when I don’t fully feel it myself.

Every failed lead costs us hours we don’t have to spare, and I feel each one of them like a physical weight settling somewhere behind my ribs, heavier each time than the one before it.

The second day breaks differently.

Yuri finds me in the study just past noon, laptop already open, something in his posture telling me before he even says a word that this isn’t going to be another dead end.

“We’ve got something real now.” He turns the screen toward me, a financial trail laid out in a spreadsheet dense with numbers I don’t need explained to understand the weight of. “Tomas had a second phone we never fully cracked. Turns out he wasn’t just reporting information. He was also receiving payment through a shell account tied to a property management company.”

“Whose company is it registered to exactly?”

“Registered to a name that traces back through two more shells before it finally lands on a warehouse complex outside the industrial district. North side, near the old rail yard.” Yuri taps the screen. “My contact confirmed increased activity there over the last week. Vehicles coming and going at odd hours, more security presence than a supposedly empty warehouse would ever reasonably need.”

“You’re confident in this lead?”

“As confident as I get without eyes actually inside the building itself.” He meets my gaze directly. “It’s the strongest lead we’ve had in two full days. I’d stake the entire operation on it.”

That’s enough for me to move on. Yuri doesn’t say those words lightly, and years of trusting his read on situations exactly like this one isn’t something I’m going to second-guess now, not when every hour that passes is an hour I can’t afford to keep losing.

“Get me everything you have on the building. Layout, entry points, guard patterns, anything at all your contact could give you.”

“Already compiling it now. I’ll have a full breakdown ready within the hour.”

He turns to leave the room, and I stop him before he even reaches the door. “I’m leading the extraction myself, tonight.”