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In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.

It doesn’t fix anything. It just gives me somewhere to put the fear until I figure out what to do with it.

The room stays quiet enough that I can hear my own pulse in my ears, steady now, slower than it was ten minutes ago.

No footsteps outside the door. No voices. There’s just the low hum of something electrical somewhere in the walls, an air vent maybe, or the kind of quiet a house makes when it’s built to keep sound in as much as it keeps people out.

I try the restraints again, angling my wrist a different way this time, and all I manage to do is scrape a fresh line into skin that’s already raw from the last four attempts.

I give up on that and let my head fall back against the top of the chair instead, staring up at the blank ceiling like it’s going to offer me something useful if I look at it long enough.

5

ARTEM

Yuri’s back before noon the next day, a folder tucked under his arm like he’s already tired of carrying it.

“Scheduling logs from the cleaning company.” He drops the folder on the kitchen counter and flips it open without waiting for me to ask. “Front desk records for the building. Both match. Someone named Miguel signed a key card out under her name yesterday morning, and the unit number on the sign-out sheet says 12A. It should’ve said 12B.”

“A typo.”

“A typo, or he grabbed the wrong card off the rack and didn’t look twice.” Yuri taps the page. “Either way, it’s on him, not her. I pulled his file this morning too. No connections to anyone, no unusual deposits, nothing that reads like he was paid to do it. He’s just careless. Building’s had two complaints about him already this year, both unrelated to any of this.”

I look through the pages anyway, the timestamps, the digital sign-out log that would take real access to fake convincingly. Her employment records check out the same way.

Two years, almost three, exactly like she said. No gaps in her work history that would give someone room to insert a cover story. No financial red flags, no contact with anyone connected to the Sokolovs or anyone else I’ve had reason to watch.

She’s clean. As clean as anyone checks out on paper.

“So she’s exactly what she says she is,” Yuri says, watching my face for whatever reaction I’m not giving him.

“It looks that way.”

“Then let her go.” He says it simply, like it’s obvious, like I haven’t already run through every version of this decision three times since I sat across from her last night. “She’s not a threat. She’s a cleaner who got handed the wrong key card. You keep her any longer than you have to, and that’s on us, not her.”

“If I let her walk out of here today, she goes home with a story.” I set the folder down and look at him. “A gun cabinet. A wall of monitors covering half the building. A room built for things she’s never going to forget seeing. She doesn’t have to mean any harm by it for that story to spread. She tells one friend over drinks, that friend tells someone else, and eventually it reaches an ear that knows exactly what building she’s talking about.”

“You think she’s going to talk?”

“I think anyone would talk, eventually, about the strangest thing that’s ever happened to them. That’s what people do.” I lean against the counter, arms crossed. “And if the wrong person hears it, connects the building to me, they don’t need to know anything else. They’ll assume she saw enough to be worth grabbing. Doesn’t matter if she actually did or not. The rumor alone puts a target on her, and once that happens, it puts one on me too, because now I’ve got a loose end walking around that anyone can use as leverage.”

Yuri’s quiet for a second, turning that over. “So you keep her contained because letting her go is more dangerous than the alternative.”

“Yes.”

“For her, or for you?”

I don’t answer that right away, and the silence stretches a beat longer than it should. “Both,” I say finally, which isn’t a lie, even if it isn’t the whole answer either.

Yuri watches me for a second longer than the conversation calls for, and then he closes the folder instead. “Whatever you decide, I’ll handle the logistics. Just tell me what you need.”

“Her employer needs to think she quit. Today. Something clean, no red flags, nothing that makes them file a report or send anyone looking for her.” I push off the counter. “I’ll have her send the text herself.”

“That’s going to go over well.”

“It doesn’t need to go over well. It needs to happen.”

He doesn’t argue that; he just gathers the folder and heads for the door, pausing halfway there. “You know this doesn’t end when the story’s confirmed clean. Keeping her here creates the exact problem you’re trying to avoid. People notice a woman living somewhere she shouldn’t be a lot faster than they notice a rumor.”