Page 14 of Blood & Snow

"The alternative is apolitseyskiyexplaining to your sister why you never came home from your interview tonight."

She stares at the device in her palm, understanding that accepting it means crossing a line she can't uncross.

But refusing means immediate consequences for her and everyone she cares about.

"If you tell anyone what you've seen here, if you go to the police, if you try to run away from this arrangement, everyone you love will suffer the same fate as the man you just cleaned."

I let the threat sink in.

"Your sister, her children… Others I will find and torment."

Her face goes as white as paper.

There's no escape from the situation she's stumbled into.

"I understand," she says in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Good. Go home. Tell your sister the interview went well and you'll be starting work soon. Answer the phone when it rings. Follow instructions exactly."

Nadya nods and walks toward the apartment door inshock.

Her life has been permanently altered by answering a classified advertisement.

I watch her leave, then begin my own cleanup of the scene—removing the last traces of my presence, ensuring the apartment will remain empty and forgotten until the building's eventual demolition.

I'll send a team for the body and that will be that.

Nadya Korshin has forensic training and the analytical mind to read crime scenes like a pro.

Skills that could prove invaluable in my war against the Sokolov Brotherhood.

Instead of disposing of a witness, I've acquired an asset, and what an asset she'll be.

The question now is whether that asset will prove useful enough to justify the risk of keeping her alive.

4

NADYA

The street outside the apartment building feels different than it did three hours ago.

The same broken streetlights flicker over the same cracked pavement, but now every shadow could conceal someone watching me.

Every footstep behind me could belong to one of Xander's associates, making sure I follow his instructions exactly.

I force my legs to carry me toward the metro station at a normal pace.

Running would draw attention, and attention means questions I can't answer.

The stack of rubles burns against my side where I clutch it inside my coat.

More money than I've held in months, payment for scrubbing a man's blood from floors while his killer sat watching me work.

The burner phone weighs nothing in my other pocket, but I'm reminded of its presence with every step and every time it thuds against my leg.

An electronic leash that connects me to a world I never wanted to enter.

A world I never believed truly existed until now.