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“Wait for me at the gate.”

I hang up.

“The warehouse,” Arina says. It isn't a question.

“Volkov came back with Rusakov's men. Andrei wouldn't let them in.”

She's on her feet before I've finished the sentence.

I stand too. I catch her wrist gently as she reaches for her coat.

She looks down at my hand. Then up at me. Her eyes are sparking, and I know exactly what she's expecting. Go home, Arina. Let me handle it. This is no place for you.

“It's your warehouse,” I say. “I won't tell you to stay away.”

Some of the fight goes out of her shoulders.

“But I'm asking you,” I say, “to stay where I can see you. This time, let me go first.”

She searches my face for a long moment.

“Fine,” she says. “This time.”

***

The Port District docks are lit up like a stage.

Floodlights on the warehouse roof. Rain slanting gold through the beams. Six of Rusakov's trucks lined up along the north dock with their engines running, exhaust curling white into the cold.

Timur's car is waiting by the gate. He climbs out as we pull in, Kolya and Mika behind him, all three of them in dark coats with their hands where they can reach what they need.

“They're by the loading bay,” Timur says. “Five of them. Volkov, Belov and three others.”

Yuri Belov. Rusakov's right hand. A man who likes to wear expensive gloves so he doesn't have to wash blood off his hands afterward.

“And Andrei?”

Timur's jaw tightens. “On the ground.”

Beside me, Arina makes a small sound. It's not fear. It's fury.

I look down at her. “Behind me.”

For once, she doesn't argue.

We walk across the yard together. The rain is cold and fine, the kind that soaks through a coat without you noticing. My men spread out on either side of us without being told.

They're standing in the mouth of the loading bay.

Volkov is in front, his face blotchy and furious. Belov is beside him, leather gloves on, smoking a cigarette like he's waiting for a train.

And at their feet, Andrei is on his knees on the wet concrete. His face is a mess. One eye is already swollen shut. Blood running from his nose and mouth and dripping off his chin onto the ground. Someone's holding him by the back of his collar like a dog.

He lifts his head when he sees Arina.

And he tries to stand up.

He doesn't make it. The man behind him shoves him back down. But he tried. With his face broken and his hands bound and five men around him, that boy saw a Maximova, a woman, walk across the yard and tried to stand up.