Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Four
For ten seconds after Maksim spoke, Nikolai heard nothing.

Only Maksim’s voice.
"They took them."

The words did not make sense.
Anika had left that morning.
She had kissed him through the open window.
She had promised she would be home before dinner.

“Nikolai.”
Ilya’s voice reached him from somewhere distant.

Nikolai lowered the satellite phone from his ear.
“Lock the estate.”

His voice sounded calm.
That frightened everyone in the room.
“Nothing enters or leaves without confirmation. Deploy every available team to Maksim’s location. Medical units for the dogs. Air surveillance over the route and every surrounding access road.”

The room erupted into motion.
Men moved toward radios. Screens shifted from routine monitoring to maps and live feeds. Red markers appeared across the mountain roads.

Nikolai stared at them.
Lines.
Routes.
Possibilities.
None of them contained her.

“I need the last transmission,” he said.
Ilya pulled up the audio.

Maksim’s voice filled the room.
"Slight delay. Lost visual through the switchbacks. Maintain verbal."

Then Anika.
"Copy. We still have you on GPS."

Nikolai stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
"I'll regain visual in approximately thirty seconds."
"We’ll try not to disappear."
"I’d appreciate that."
A burst of static.
Then nothing.

Ilya killed the audio.
No one looked at Nikolai.
“Play it again.”
“Nikolai—”
“Again.”

The voices repeated.
Light.
Ordinary.
Alive.
"We’ll try not to disappear."

His hand closed around the edge of the table.
The wood cracked beneath his grip.

Ilya’s face tightened. “The jammer came online approximately forty seconds after that transmission. We’re isolating the signal source.”

“Dmitri.”
It was the first time Nikolai said the name.

The room went still.
Ilya did not ask whether he was sure.
Everyone knew.

Only one man understood their security well enough to build a trap around Maksim.
Only one man had spent years watching from inside the walls before revealing the knife in his hand.

“Find him,” Nikolai said.
“We will.”
Nikolai turned toward him.
“And when you do,” Nikolai continued, “you do not touch him.”

Understanding entered Ilya’s expression.
Nikolai wanted him alive.
Because death would be too quick.

A radio crackled across the room.
“Medical team has reached the scene. Both dogs are stable for transport.”

Then Maksim’s voice cut through the channel.
“Two vehicles left through the forestry road. Trail separates six miles east. We found a transfer point.”

“Signs of them?”
“Restraint ties. One torn piece of clothing.”
Nikolai’s vision narrowed.
“Whose?”
A pause.
“Elizabeth’s jacket.”

Maksim said her name differently now.
Not Doctor Park.
Not Elizabeth as a formality.
Like something belonging inside him had been ripped out and left on the roadside.

Nikolai forced air into his lungs.
“Stay with the trail.”
“I am.”

“Maksim.”
Silence.

“This is not your failure.”
The lie tasted like ash because Nikolai knew Maksim would never believe it.

“I lost visual,” Maksim said.
“They designed it so you would.”
“I should have seen it.”

“So should I.”
The admission silenced the room.
Nikolai ended the transmission.

For the next hour, he became the man everyone expected him to be.
He issued commands.
Moved teams.
Called in favors men had once sworn he would never collect.
He closed roads through law enforcement officers who did not know whose orders they were following.
He redirected private aircraft.
He opened intelligence channels buried beneath shell companies and diplomatic protections.
He gave Dmitri nowhere safe to stand.

But beneath every order, her voice repeated—
"I’ll be home before dinner."

By midday, the estate no longer felt like a home.
It was a command center under siege.

Ares arrived sedated on a stretcher.
Nikolai met the medical team outside.
The dog’s fawn coat was stiff and stained with dried blood. His breathing was shallow beneath the oxygen mask.
Nyx limped behind him, refusing the stretcher.
Ares’ head lifted.
His nose worked frantically.
Then he saw Nikolai.
The sound he made was not a bark.
It was a broken, desperate whine.
Nikolai placed his hand against the dog’s head.
“I know.”
Ares tried to rise.
“Stay.”
The dog fought the sedative, legs trembling as he searched beyond Nikolai toward the house.
Looking for her.
Waiting for her to appear.

Nikolai could not remain there.
He turned before anyone saw his face and entered the estate alone.
Her absence was everywhere.
He climbed the stairs.
Each step took him farther from command.
Farther from the men watching.
Farther from the version of himself who could survive this.

The bedroom door stood open.
Morning light crossed the floor, bright and indifferent.
The bed remained unmade from where she had slipped out of it hours earlier. One pillow still carried the shape of her head.
Nikolai stopped in the doorway.
He had entered rooms filled with enemies without hesitation.
This room nearly brought him to his knees.

He crossed to the dresser.
Opened the first drawer.
Nothing.
The second.
Clothing.
He pulled it out completely and threw it aside.
He did not know what he was searching for.
A note.
A warning.
Something she had noticed and failed to tell him.
Some small piece of information that would make this his fault in a way he could fix.
He emptied the wardrobe.
Swept books from shelves.
Tore open boxes.
A lamp struck the wall and shattered.
The room disintegrated around him.
Still, there was no answer.

Nikolai reached the nightstand.
The first drawer held a charger, a book, and the knife she kept within reach.
The second resisted.
He yanked harder.
The drawer came free and crashed to the floor.

Something slid from beneath a folded scarf.
A white envelope.
His name was written across the front in Anika’s hand.
Nikolai stopped moving.
For a moment, he could only stare.
Then he lowered himself to the floor and picked it up.

The envelope had not been sealed.
Inside was a folded note wrapped around a small plastic stick.
Two pink lines.
His mind refused to understand.
He turned it over.
Looked again.
Two lines.
Positive.

Nikolai unfolded the note.
His hands began to shake before he read the first word.

Nikolai,
I have tried to tell you a dozen times, but every time I look at you, the words become too big.
I’m scared.
Not of you. Never of you.
I’m scared because I know what it means to bring something innocent into a dangerous world. I know what can be taken. I know what can be used against us.
But I’m happy too.
So happy it terrifies me.
We made something.
A future neither of us planned, but one I already love more than I know how to explain.
I waited to tell you so we could have our own moment.
I'm excited to see the look on your face when you realize you are going to be a father.
I love you, Nikolai Volkov, and I am excited for this next step towards our future.

Nikolai read the final line once.
Then again.
He pressed the note to his chest.

Anika was gone.
Their child was gone with her.

The sound that tore from his chest did not resemble anything human.