I nod, but something heavy settles in my chest. Protecting Zoya means destroying the last connection to her old life. It means watching her grieve for a brother who never really existed.
"Set it up," Rolan says. "I want them all dead by midnight."
I spend the next hour coordinating with unit leaders, mapping intercept points, and reviewing contingency plans. The operation is complex but manageable. We'll hit them on a stretch of highway outside Tver, far from civilian traffic. Clean, fast, final.
By dawn, every piece is in place. Five teams are positioned along the route, each with specific targets and fallback positions. Traffic cameras are hacked to provide real-time feeds. Drones are in the air, invisible in the morning sky.
I drive back to the safehouse as the sun rises over Moscow. Zoya is awake when I arrive, sitting by the window with a cupof tea. She looks better than she did last night, less fragile, but there's still a haunted quality to her eyes.
"How are you feeling?" I ask, settling beside her on the couch.
"Better." She touches her stomach reflexively. "The baby's fine."
"Good." I take her hand, feeling the warmth of her skin. "I need to tell you about tonight."
Her body tenses. "You found him?"
"Yes. We found Damir."
She sets down her tea with shaking hands. "What's going to happen?"
"We're going to stop him. Him and the people he works for." I choose my words carefully. "It's going to be over after tonight."
"You're going to kill him." It's not a question.
"Zoya—"
"You're going to kill my brother." Her voice is steady, but I can see the tears building in her eyes. "Aren't you?"
I want to lie to her, want to tell her that we'll capture him, that there's another way. But I've never lied to her, and I won't start now.
"He's Karpin," I say quietly. "He's a threat to you and the baby. To our family."
"He's still my brother."
"He stopped being your brother the moment he sold you out."
She looks out the window, watching the city wake up below us. "I know you're right. I know he deserves whatever happens to him. But I can't help feeling?—"
"What?"
"That I'm losing the last piece of my family." She turns to me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "When he dies, that's it. There's no going back to who I was before."
"Would you want to go back?"
She considers this for a long moment. "No. But it's still hard to let go."
I pull her closer, feeling her lean into my warmth. "You're not losing anything that was real. The brother you loved, the one who protected you and brought you tea—that person was a lie. He never existed."
"I know." Her voice is barely a whisper. "I know that. But knowing it and feeling it are different things."
My phone buzzes with an incoming call. Unit leader checking in, confirming positions. I silence it without looking.
"I have to go soon," I tell her. "The operation starts at ten."
"I want to ask you something." She sits up, meeting my eyes. "And I want you to be honest with me."
"Always."
