Chapter 148: The Voice in Russian

Sorina did not answer in Russian.

That was deliberate. She had learned a long time ago that language choice was a form of positioning, and answering in Russian would tell the woman on the other end that she was still, on some level, operating in the world where that conversation belonged.

“Who is this,” she said in English.

A pause. Then, in English, accented but fluent: “My name is Nadia Reznik. I worked in the Petersburg office under Gregor Matis. You would not have known me — I was structural, not operational. You were operational.”

Sorina stood up and walked to her office door and closed it.

“How did you get this number,” she said.

“With difficulty,” Nadia said. “You have been thorough about not being findable. I want you to understand that I did not go through any Bratva channel to reach you. I went through a former colleague in Vienna who has been out of the structure for three years. This call is not sanctioned by anyone.”

“That is what someone would say either way,” Sorina said.

“Yes,” Nadia agreed. “It is. You will have to make your own assessment.”

Sorina sat back down. She pulled a notepad toward her out of pure reflex and wrote the name at the top: Nadia Reznik. Petersburg. Structural.

“Say what you called to say,” she said.

“There is a remnant,” Nadia said. “Of Volkov’s European operation. Not the American side — that is gone, dismantled, everyone accounted for. The European side was never part of the federal case and was never touched by it. It has been sitting without leadership for eleven months.”

“That is not my concern,” Sorina said.

“It became your concern six weeks ago,” Nadia said. “Someone has begun consolidating it. Quietly. Building the remnant back into something functional.” A pause. “And the first thing they did, six weeks ago, was open a file on you.”

Sorina’s pen stopped.

“Why,” she said.

“Because you dismantled the American operation,” Nadia said. “Because your analysis was the architecture the federal prosecutors used. Because in the internal narrative of what remains of that organization, you are not a defector. You are the reason it collapsed.” A pause. “You are, in their construction of events, the single most consequential person in the destruction of Aleksei Volkov’s empire.”

“Volkov did that to himself,” Sorina said.

“That is true and entirely irrelevant to how you are understood by people who need someone to hold responsible,” Nadia said.

Sorina looked at the notepad.

She thought about the past two years — about carefully building a life in which none of this had jurisdiction over her anymore. The desk. The shop. The Thursday dinners. The email she had sent at seven that morning accepting a legitimate academic position with her actual name attached to it.

She thought about how thin the wall between that life and this call actually was.

“Why are you telling me,” she said.

“Because I spent nineteen years inside that structure and I got out four years ago and it took me two of those years to stop expecting a phone call,” Nadia said. “Because when I saw your name in a file six weeks ago, I recognized the position you were in.” A pause. “And because I do not want them rebuilt. If you know they are coming, you can act. If you do not, you cannot.”

“Who is doing the consolidating,” Sorina said.

A pause, longer than the others.

“I do not have a name,” Nadia said. “I have a designation and a location. That is all I could get without exposing myself, and I am not willing to expose myself. I have a life now too.”

“Give me what you have.”

“Munich,” Nadia said. “The consolidation is running out of Munich. The designation used internally is the Second Chair.” She paused. “That is a Matis term. It was what Gregor called the position beneath himself. Whoever is using it is claiming continuity with the original structure.”

Sorina wrote it down.

Munich. Second Chair.

“Nadia,” she said. “Why did you get out?”

Another pause.

“Because I was asked to do something to a woman who had a child,” Nadia said. “And I did not do it. And then I had to leave very quickly.” Her voice was entirely level. “I have not spoken about it in four years. I am not going to speak about it now. But you asked, and I decided you deserved a true answer rather than a deflection.”

The line was quiet for a moment.

“Thank you,” Sorina said.

“Do not thank me,” Nadia said. “I have given you a problem, not a solution. What you do with it is yours.” A brief pause. “Be careful. And do not be surprised if it is someone you know.”

The call ended.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Sorina sat at her desk for a long moment with the notepad in front of her.

Two words. A city. A designation from a dead man’s organizational vocabulary.

She thought about the seminar list Reyna had sent that morning. About Daniel Park asking for her onboarding specifically. About the version of her life that had been visible and possible ninety minutes ago.

She looked at the notepad again.

Then she picked it up, and stood, and went to find Yara — because whatever this was, she was not going to sit on it for six days the way she had sat on Daniel Park.

She found her in the conference room, alone, reviewing something.

“I need to tell you something,” Sorina said. “And I need you to hear it before you react.”

Yara set down her pen. “Go ahead.”

Sorina put the notepad on the table.

Yara looked at it. Read the two words.

And her face changed in a way Sorina had never seen it change before.

“Yara,” Sorina said. “What.”

“I know that phrase,” Yara said quietly. “The Second Chair.” She looked up. “Diego used it. In his last letter from prison. I thought it was nothing — I thought it was a strange turn of phrase from a man with too much time to write.”