Chapter 63

Chapter 63
Lina

In the rearview mirror, the fire consuming the warehouse had long since vanished.

That orange halo had shrunk and dimmed, bit by bit, until the thick darkness of night swallowed it whole—as if it had never existed at all.

And yet the acrid stench of burnt-out flame still lingered in my nostrils. That sharp, choking smell seemed to have lodged itself deep inside me; no matter how hard I exhaled, I couldn't drive it out. Only after the car had traveled a long way did the nauseating smell finally begin to fade.

The cabin was almost unnaturally quiet. Luca hadn't said a word.

He steered with one hand, his long fingers resting steadily on the rim of the wheel, his eyes fixed on the pitch-black road ahead. Lights from outside swept across the side of his face, casting shifting shadows between his brow and the bridge of his nose—leaving his expression all but unreadable.

But I knew his mind was nowhere near as calm as it appeared.

Dmitri's disappearance, the exposure of the mole, and the encryption key that had suddenly surfaced—

Any one of these alone was enough to knock the entire plan off course.

Now all three had struck almost at once. Even Luca couldn't be immune to that kind of pressure.

I eased back against the seat. The leather had already warmed to my body, and it molded softly against my spine, soothing in a way I hadn't expected. Warm air from the vents brushed against my cheek, and as it passed my left ear, the shallow knife cut there prickled faintly under the heat.

My body was only now catching up with its exhaustion, though my mind refused to truly let go. Just as my thoughts began to drift, a low voice pulled me back.

"We're here."

I lifted my head. The car had already rolled into the apartment's underground garage. As we passed, the motion-sensor lights flickered on one after another, a pale white glow stretching forward section by section, washing the dim driveway in harsh brightness and turning the concrete walls a cold, ashen gray.

Luca guided the car smoothly into his reserved spot and cut the engine. It shuddered once, then fell completely still.

With the engine off, the whole garage seemed to sink into silence. All that remained was the steady hum of the heating ducts and the slow, distant drone of the ventilation system, echoing back and forth through the empty space.

Neither of us moved to get out right away. Silence spread through the cramped cabin like an invisible mist.

Then Luca pushed his door open first.

"We'll talk upstairs."

I nodded and followed him out.

The electronic chirp of the car locking rang out crisp and clear in the empty garage, echoing twice before slowly dying away.



Inside the elevator it was still just the two of us, surrounded by silver-gray metal walls that threw back two slightly blurred reflections. In the sheen of them, I caught myself glancing at my own profile.

The wound on my left ear had stopped bleeding, though its edges still carried a faint red that stood out sharply under the cold white light.

I raised my hand and touched it lightly. The instant my fingertip met the cut, a thin sting shot along the nerve, like the prick of a needle. Nothing serious—nothing that would slow me down, at least.

Luca stood beside me and pressed the floor button.

The elevator began its slow climb. He faced the doors the whole time, hands loosely tucked in his pockets, his stance as relaxed as if he were wrapping up an utterly ordinary meeting.

But as I lowered my hand, I still caught it—his gaze lingering for a fraction of a second on my left ear, so brief I almost doubted I'd seen it, before it slid away as though nothing had happened.

By the time we got back to the apartment, it was already two in the morning. I peeled off my coat and draped it over the back of a chair. The motion tugged my bulletproof vest askew; one shoulder strap slipped down to my arm, chafing until my shoulder ached, but I couldn't be bothered to fix it.

Hours of relentless tension had worn my patience thin. All I wanted now was to sort out the information in my head as fast as I could.

I picked up a blank notebook from the coffee table, grabbed a ballpoint pen, and sank into the couch. Closing my eyes, I began replaying everything that had happened that night. The scenes rolled backward, frame by frame, until they settled on the moment just before Dmitri was taken away.

As he passed me, he suddenly murmured a string of Russian—so soft it might have been to himself, or meant for my ears alone.

In that instant, I froze.

Because the way those numbers sounded was like a key, wrenching open a long-dusted door somewhere deep in my memory. Almost reflexively, I looked up at him, my confusion no doubt written plainly across my face. I could even feel my eyes going wide, my pupils contracting sharply with shock.

But Dmitri didn't repeat himself.

The two men escorting him tightened their grip on his arms and half-dragged him forward. He never looked back, never spared me another glance.

At first I'd always assumed it was just a habit of his. Back when he was training me, he liked to recite a string of Russian numbers without warning at the end of every session.

In the training room, beside the shooting range, at the close of language lessons, even before meals—different places, different times, and the numbers never once repeated. Then he'd have me say them back.

In the beginning I always got them wrong. A number missing, the order scrambled, a mispronunciation—any slip at all, and with a blank expression he'd make me start over. Only later, once I could repeat the whole sequence flawlessly after a single hearing, did he finally give a satisfied nod.

He said he was training my memory, and I'd always believed that was all it was—part of the drills. It wasn't until today that I finally understood: those numbers had never been random.

Or at least… never only training.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. The soft glow of the desk lamp pierced my pupils, and I couldn't help blinking twice.

Then a thought took full shape in my mind—one that nearly stopped my heart. Dmitri hadn't been training my memory. For fifteen years, he had been hiding the key to the Raven organization inside it, one piece at a time.