Page 89 of The Bratva's Secret Baby
The road into Saint Petersburg flattens and thickens at the same time. The trees pull back. Long stretches of gray barrier and squat industrial buildings look half asleep even in daylight. Traffic starts to layer instead of flow. Trucks from the ports. Commuter buses with tired faces behind the glass.
The car shows how far we’ve come, with dust caked along the doors and insects dried across the windshield. We don’t talk much as the city starts to come back in parts, bridges first, then signs, then blocks of buildings. Mila watches it all through the window. Ana sits beside her now, close enough that Mila leans into her without thinking.
Coming back doesn’t make anything easier. This is where things get written down, checked, and remembered. This is where choices start to hold. We didn’t end up here by accident. We came here because this is where the answers are, and where people finally show their hand.
I keep my speed steady and stay in an easy lane. I don’t cut across traffic or rush yellow lights. I let the city take us in the way it takes everyone, slowly and without caring.
I don’t take us to the main address. I was never going to. The first place people expect you to go is the first place they watch. I turn east instead, toward the river, and drive into a row of garages under an old tram depot that hasn’t been used in years.
I pass the first entrance, then the second, then pull into the third, the one with the dead light over the door. I stop halfway in, kill the engine, and listen for a few seconds. No car comes in after us.
My phone buzzes once. A text from the caretaker. Key is taped under the pipe by the back stair door. Cash in the paint tin where we agreed. He adds that he’ll stay gone unless I call.
I pop the trunk and lift Mila out. Ana takes her bag, and we move through the back stairwell, past dust and old metal, then into a narrow service corridor. I take the key from under the pipe, unlock the door I set up months ago, and lead them up three flights, out through a fire exit, and across a small courtyard where weeds crack through the concrete. I leave the cash in the paint tin by the utility shelf on the way through.
The apartment is above an old lighting shop, and it catches them off guard the second they walk in. There’s a lot of light from the big windows. The walls are white and clean, and the place feels open. This is where we’ll stay for now.
The building across from us has no sign, and the windows are covered from the inside so they look blank from the street.
I let them look around and settle in. I help Ana put Mila’s things away, then tell them I need to step out and that I’ll be back.
I give Ana the second phone and point to the far bedroom. “Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me.”
She nods.
I’m out a few minutes later. By the time I cut through an alley and get into a different car parked under a tarp two blocks away, the first car is already pulling out with another driver behind the wheel, someone who knows how to make a wrong turn look normal.
I check the mirrors when I pull away and don’t see anyone behind me. That tells me enough. They think they’re already ahead.
I keep driving. I take one slow loop around the block to read the street and see who’s hanging around. Then I stop at an ATM that still gives cash without questions. After that, I make a quick stop to see a man who never asks for names and keeps spare phones, fresh cards, and clean SIMs in a drawer under his counter.
I call Irina. She answers on the second ring.
She doesn’t use my name. She never has.
“Yes,” she says.
“Things shifted,” I say.
“They do.” Her voice stays even. I hear what sits under it, anyway.
“I need you,” I say. “Not for me.”
A pause, short but clear.
“For the child,” I add.
“Yes.”
She doesn’t ask who. She doesn’t ask where Ana is. She doesn’t ask anything that would slow this down.
There’s a breath on the line. Then, “Where?”
“Outside the city,” I say. “Past the pipeline road. Take the turn by the old water tower, then keep going until you reach the building on the corner. It’s old and empty enough that you won’t miss it.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
