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“Keep him alive,” I say, closing the staff image. “Record every detail, then move him to the estate.”

I pick up Marina’s photograph. The young nurse’s dark hair has fallen across one cheek, and her mouth is slightly open. Vera will blame herself. She’ll go back through every conversation, every missed call, every moment she chose work or sleep or Misha, and she’ll ask whether answering sooner would have changed anything, even though the men who killed Marina had already chosen the ending.

“Vera doesn’t hear this from anyone else,” I say, placing the photograph facedown.

Dmitri studies me. “You plan to tell her?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When her son is asleep and she isn’t standing near anything sharp.”

His gaze drops briefly to my open shirt. “That may narrow the schedule.”

Abramov’s secure phone rings. He checks the screen and takes the call.

“Report.”

His expression changes.

“Send the recovery team in through the rear stair. Laptop, documents, anything tied to the debt. Move now.” He listens for two seconds, then his voice hardens. “Stop the van. Take the driver alive if you can. The second man doesn’t leave the alley.”

Dmitri straightens. “What happened?”

Abramov turns the tablet toward us as images begin arriving.

Flames climb through Vera’s kitchen window. Fire swallows the broken glass, smoke rolls above the third-floor frame, and orange light spreads across the brick outside.

“The team watching the house saw a maintenance van enter the alley,” Abramov says, reaching for his radio. “One man got out and threw a firebomb through the kitchen window before our men could stop him.”

Abramov presses the radio to his mouth. “Seal the exits. I want every traffic camera between the building and the river.”

A reply crackles through the speaker.

“One man down,” he says. “The driver broke through before the cordon closed.”

Dmitri steps closer to the monitor. “They waited until we were gone.”

I remember the smoker watching our convoy leave. “They had someone on the building.”

Vera left with one bag. Everything else she built for Misha is burning while he sleeps in my house, and I want to put my hands around someone’s throat.

Dmitri watches me. “You’ll tell her.”

“Not yet.”

“You can’t hide her home from her.”

“I’m not hiding it.” I push the photograph away. “I want the facts before I tell her.”

Abramov opens the report from Vera’s rescue. “We checked the rifle taken from one of the men. Its serial number appears on a Sable Crown shipment list. The crate was marked as medical equipment and cleared using an old New Harbor number.”

Dmitri studies the report. “They’re using the old transport routes.”

The monitor changes to a live body-camera feed. A Volkov guard wearing a smoke mask crouches beside the passenger who threw the incendiary. The man is dead. Firelight moves across his shoulders as he reaches inside the dead man’s coat and holds a half-burned clinic card toward the camera.

“Found this behind his badge,” he says, his voice rough and muffled through the mask. “There’s a code written on the back.”