Page 42 of The Pakhan's Captive
Shouting behind me. Muffled voices inside the precinct. I round the corner of the building, my lungs burning, and skid into the car park.
I see them before they see me.
Three men. My stomach drops. They aren’t wearing blue. They aren’t standing with the bored posture of beat cops. They’re standing with the predatory geometry I recognize from Vienna—shoulders squared, eyes scanning in sectors, hands near their waistbands.
Professionals.The word is a death sentence.
One of them has a phone to his ear. Our eyes lock. He drops the phone and his hand vanishes into his jacket.
Move or die.I sprint for the gap between two parked cars. He’s fast…faster than a local cop should be. He lunges to cut me off, and for a heartbeat, I’m back in the training pits, sensing the weight of his reach. I feint left, a hard, sharp jerk of my shoulders, then pivot right. His fingers snag my jacket sleeve, a terrifying, momentary anchor. I twist, the sound of tearing fabric loud in the quiet lot, and I’m through.
The wall is head-height. Brick. Unyielding. I hit it at full speed, using the momentum to drive my palms into the grit. I jam my foot onto a car bumper, heave myself up, and go over headfirst. I tuck, praying my neck doesn’t snap, and hit the pavement on the other side.
Pain. white, blinding, and absolute flashes through my shoulder. I can almost hear the joint grinding.Get up. If you stay down, Theo dies. Get up.I scramble into an alley, my vision swimming. Behind me, the heavythudof someone hitting the bricks and failing to clear them. Cursing in Hungarian. Footsteps pounding toward the long way around.
I hit the main street and force myself to slow down.Blend. Disappear. Be nobody.My hand is slick with blood; I tuck itinside my torn sleeve, leaning into the crowd. I pass a fruit seller, a woman pushing a stroller—God, a stroller. I have to look away before I lose my mind.
I weave through the covered market, the smell of smoked paprika and aged cheese that is usually so comforting is now suffocating.
“Mara! You forgot your—” the cheese vendor starts to call out.
I don’t look back. I can’t. If I look at a friendly face, I’ll shatter.
I duck into a narrow passage between two residential buildings and press my spine against the cold brick. My ankle is throbbing. My hand is bleeding into my sleeve. My shoulder feels like something has been rearranged in it, and I am breathing in these terrible shallow gasps that aren’t giving me enough air.
I slide down, my legs finally giving up the ghost, until I’m crouching in the shadows. I press my bleeding hand against my mouth to stifle the jagged, shallow gasps for air.
They’re in the police. My chest heaves as the thoughts settle, tears threatening to pour down my eyes. Whoever has Theo, they’re already in the police, which means there is no system here that will help me, there is no authority I can walk through a door and reach, and there is nothing in this city with enough power to get my son back.
Nothing here. I have nothing.
I close my eyes, and for a second, I see the library. I see Nadia’s cinnamon tea steaming in the morning light. I see Theo’s dinosaur books scattered on the rug.
It was a lie.The realization is a bitter, cold stone in my throat. Five years of pretending I could be Mara Kovacs. Five years ofthinking I could hide a wolf in a sheep’s pasture. It was never a new life. It was just a stay of execution. And the clock just hit zero.
The pain in my shoulder throbs, a steady, rhythmic reminder that I’m still alive. And if I’m alive, I’m dangerous.
I can be anything, as long as Theo is safe.
I open my eyes. The “Mara” who cried in the courtyard is gone.
I stand up.
There is one option. There has always been only one option and I have spent five years refusing to look directly at it. I am looking at it now. One person in this world with enough reach, enough power, enough men and enough fear in his name to go up against whoever has my son.
I start walking.
My hands are still shaking. My ankle makes every step a negotiation. Somewhere across the city my son is in a car with dangerous men and I am walking and there is only one direction that makes any sense.
His father.
10
RAZVAN
“The numbers aren’t moving fast enough,” Gregor Vasik says for the second time in ten minutes. He leans forward, his expensive silk suit straining across his chest, smelling of heavy cologne and nervous sweat.
I don’t answer him. I don’t even blink. I just watch the way his pulse thrums in the hollow of his throat. It’s a frantic, rhythmic little thing. If I reached across this desk and pressed my thumb against it, it would stop. The world would be quieter. The ports on the Black Sea would still be there, waiting for a more competent hand to steer them.
