The knock came at three in the morning, three hard pounds that echoed through the safehouse like thunder. Kira was awake in an instant, her hand reaching for the gun on the floor beside the couch, her eyes darting toward Alexei. He was already on his feet, moving toward the door with his own weapon drawn, his grey eyes cold and focused. He looked through the peephole, and his body tensed.
"It is Yakov," he said, unlocking the door.
The man who stepped inside was older than Alexei, maybe forty-five, with a weathered face that looked like cracked leather and eyes that missed nothing. He was tall and broad, built like a man who had spent his life in combat, and he moved with the quiet efficiency of someone who had learned to be invisible. His clothes were dark and nondescript, and there was a fresh bruise forming on his jaw.
"The safehouse is compromised," Yakov said without preamble. "Dimitri's men found it an hour ago. They are searching the city."
Alexei's jaw tightened. "How did they find it?"
"I do not know. But they did, and we need to leave. Now."
Kira stood up, her heart pounding. She had known this was a possibility, had known that Dimitri had eyes everywhere, but hearing it confirmed made it real in a way that planning never could. She grabbed the folder and her jacket and her gun, shoving everything into a bag that Alexei tossed to her.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"The old warehouse on Cherry Street," Alexei said, already moving toward the door. "No one uses it anymore. Dimitri does not know about it."
Yakov nodded and slipped out the door first, checking the hallway before gesturing for them to follow. They moved quickly and quietly, down the stairs and through the back exit and into the alley where Alexei's black SUV was parked. Kira climbed into the back seat, and Alexei slid in beside her while Yakov took the wheel.
The engine roared to life, and they sped off into the night.
Kira watched out the window as the city blurred past, streetlights and shadows and the occasional car. She could see headlights in the distance, too many of them, moving in patterns that did not look random. They were being followed, or maybe she was just paranoid. It was hard to tell anymore.
"How bad is it?" Alexei asked Yakov.
"Bad," Yakov replied, his eyes on the road. "Dimitri has put a price on your head. Anyone who brings him information about your location gets ten thousand dollars. Anyone who brings him your body gets a hundred thousand."
Alexei did not react. He sat in the darkness, his grey eyes fixed on the window, his face unreadable. But Kira saw his hands clench into fists, saw the tension in his shoulders, and she knew that this was personal in a way that went beyond business.
"He is really trying to kill you," she said quietly.
"He has been trying to kill me for years," Alexei replied. "This is just the first time he has been public about it."
The warehouse was exactly as Alexei had described it, old and abandoned and forgotten, a relic of a time when this part of the city had been filled with factories and workers and the sound of machinery. Yakov parked the car inside the loading bay and killed the engine, and they sat in silence for a moment, listening to the rain tap against the metal roof.
"This way," Alexei said, climbing out.
He led them through a maze of dusty corridors and broken machinery, past piles of rusted scrap and faded shipping labels, until they reached a small office in the back of the building. It had a desk, a couch, and a window that looked out onto the alley. It was not much, but it was dry and hidden and far away from the men who wanted to kill them.
Yakov pulled a chair to the door and sat down, his eyes scanning the darkness beyond the window. "I will keep watch," he said. "You two get some rest."
Alexei nodded and turned to Kira. "You take the couch. I will take the floor."
She wanted to argue, wanted to tell him that she was fine, that she did not need special treatment. But she was too tired to argue, too tired to do anything except lie down on the old couch and close her eyes. The cushions were lumpy and smelled like dust, but she did not care. She pulled her jacket over her body and listened to the rain.
She heard Alexei settle onto the floor somewhere near her, heard his breathing slow as he tried to sleep. She heard Yakov shift in his chair, heard the soft click of his gun as he checked the chamber. And she heard something else too, something that made her blood run cold.
Footsteps. Outside the window.
She sat up slowly, her hand reaching for her gun. Alexei was already on his feet, his weapon drawn, his grey eyes locked on the window. Yakov had moved to the door, his body pressed against the wall, his breathing silent.
"Kira," Alexei whispered, "get behind me."
She did not argue. She slipped off the couch and crouched behind him, her gun raised, her heart pounding so loudly that she was sure the men outside could hear it.
The footsteps stopped. For a moment, there was nothing but silence and the rain and the sound of her own breathing.
Then the window shattered.