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7

VERA

Iwake after less than an hour because I don’t sleep well in strange places, especially with armed men outside the door.

Misha is curled beneath the blanket in the adjoining room. One hand holds his yellow car, and the other rests under his cheek. He struggled to stay asleep after everything that happened, even though the room had been carefully prepared for him. Someone has brought dinosaur toothpaste, small slippers, and a moon-shaped nightlight. His clothes are folded in the dresser, while the kitchenette holds milk, jam, crackers, and three kinds of juice. The bathroom shelf even has the same fever medicine I keep at home.

I’m grateful they thought of everything, but the stocked shelves and folded clothes also tell me how easily the Volkovs prepared a life for my son inside their walls. I get up, check Misha’s breathing, pull the blanket higher over his shoulder, and leave the adjoining door open before stepping into the corridor.

The guards have moved back as promised. One stands near the entrance to the wing, and I catch another guard’s reflection in the glass over a framed map.

Alexei’s question is still clear in my mind.

How old is he?

He studied Misha’s face before he asked, and I waited too long to answer. He noticed.

Light shows beneath his office door, so I cross the corridor and enter without knocking. A lean man sits across from the desk with hospital records open on the monitor. He looks younger than most of the Volkov men, and one knee moves beneath the table while his fingers work across the keyboard.

Alexei stands beside him in a black shirt open at the collar. An IV runs into his arm, and a chest drain hangs at his side. He looks at me but says nothing.

At four in the morning, six days after surgery on his chest and abdomen, he’s standing through a security meeting.

The younger man looks between us and rises. “I can come back.”

“Who’s this?”

“Kirill.” Alexei keeps his attention on the monitor. “He finds records people buried and connections they hoped no one would notice.”

I step aside and gesture toward the corridor. “You can go now.”

“He was working.” Alexei looks up from the screen and gestures to a thin folder lying on the table.

I gesture toward the sweat on his face. “So was your immune system, but you keep getting in its way.”

Kirill gathers his tablet and phone against his chest and slips past me. “I’ll send the rest to your secure line,” he says, giving Alexei a nod before leaving.

After closing the door, I point toward the inner hall. “Bed.”

Alexei keeps his eyes on the file and taps one line with his finger. “No.”

I fold my arms. “You have a fever, fresh bleeding, and less sense than a drunk tourist.”

He slides a second report from beneath the first. “I have evidence moving through systems while Belov’s men are out for blood.”

My finger aims at the dark patch beneath his shirt. “You also have stitches.”

His hand stops beside a printed access log. “Someone tried to enter Misha’s preschool account.”

I step closer and brace both hands on the desk. “What did they get?”

“Nothing useful,” he says, turning the report toward me. “The login failed before they reached the pickup list, and Yuri closed the connection.”

My fingers press into the wood. “Can they try again?”

“They can try.”

“That answer isn’t helpful.”