Page 17

17

SAbrINA

I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting in this armchair, curled beneath a throw blanket near the smoldering embers of the fire in our suite. Hours maybe. The sky outside the window has shifted from indigo to charcoal, and I can hear the rustle of trees whispering in the wind beyond the glass.

I should be sleeping.

But I can’t.

Instead, I’m hunched over Oleksi’s laptop with the SD drive inserted, my fingers curled around a mug of lukewarm coffee. The screen glows dimly in the otherwise dark room, documents and folders sprawling across it like the threads of some tangled conspiracy board. Because that’s what this is—a goddamn web of lies, corruption, and state-sponsored horror.

I scroll through lines of code, obscure chemical logs, budget allocations, medical data tables that don’t match up between reports. There are two versions of everything.

Two experiment logs.

Two outcome assessments.

Two financial reports.

Valeska had noted it in her voice memo. However, now I see it for myself—experiments that were officially terminated due to human rights violations were still going, and not just going—rebranded, shuffled under new project names, with slightly tweaked goals and forged ethical approvals. They were burying the truth under a layer of bureaucracy. It’s brilliant, in a monstrous kind of way.

I might not have the qualifications to understand every single compound or neural pathway diagram here, but I know how to read between the lines. And the story those lines tell is terrifying.

I know I’m close to something—something big. I scroll through another file cluster labeled with innocuous acronyms until I freeze.

This one wasn’t in the earlier folders.

“Facility Epsilon - Contingency Archive”

I double-click.

There’s a pause as it loads, and then—bam. Rows of documents. Scans. Footage.

And that’s when I find it.

The reason Yelena and the RMSAD think they’re untouchable.

The reports detail how Facility Epsilon—supposedly decommissioned fifteen years ago—was secretly reactivated. Not as a research site, but as an execution chamber for failed experiments. Test subjects with mutations or mental breakdowns were terminated and their bodies incinerated, the waste listed as “biohazard disposal.” Some of the images… I can’t look at them. Not fully. But I force myself to keep reading.

My hands tremble slightly as I grab my phone.

I can’t risk this being lost.

Not now. Not ever.

I open the encrypted app Marco gave me—the one he insisted I memorize and use if I ever got my hands on “something too big to keep local.” My hacker best friend might spend his days drunk off Red Bull and writing Bitcoin laundering scripts, but when he builds something, it’s bombproof. This cloud isn’t Google Drive. It’s hidden on a private server farm in Iceland with a double-deadman switch. If I don’t log in every 48 hours or manually delay the countdown, it auto-forwards everything to a preset list of journalists, media outlets, watchdog groups, and whistleblower forums.

And the first destination?

The media company that is owned by my best friend, Leigh.

Even if I disappear, this truth won’t.

I encrypt the folder, tag it “Red Swan,” and send it into the cloud. As it uploads, I lean back, heart racing, watching the progress bar tick up. 32%... 47%...

When it hits 100%, I exhale.

Done.

No going back now.

But what I do need is expert advice on what I’ve been reading to ensure that I’ve understood everything. I know someone who can help. I stand and stretch out my back, grab the laptop, and head down the long, dark corridor of the palace and shudder. This place is eerily quiet.

I get to my mother’s room, and as I’m about to knock, the door opens and my mother yelps.

“Jesus, Rina!” She hisses, holding her heart.

“Sorry, I was coming to speak to you,” I tell her. “I need your help.”

“At five in the morning?” Carla asks.

“Yes, I have something I need you to…” I frown, seeing the hardcover book folded in her hand and her phone. “What were you going to do?”

“I had some things to go over,” Carla answers. She glances back into the room to where Mark is sound asleep. She puts her finger over her lips and gently pulls the door closed. “Let’s go to the landing lounge. It has a gas fire.”

I nod and shiver as it’s freezing in this corridor. We pad quietly into the small seating area on the second-floor landing where all our bedrooms are, and I sit cross-legged on the sofa with my mother beside me. She puts her books next to her as I open the laptop.

I flip the laptop back open and turn the screen toward her.

“I found something.”

Her brow furrows as she leans in. I explain what I uncovered—the twin reports, the faked shutdowns, the dark resurrection of projects under fake titles.

She stiffens. “This... this is the kind of thing that gets people disappeared.”

I nod. “I know.”

She closes her eyes for a second. “I warned them. I begged them to shut it all down. The former head of the division was going to, but then Ergorov took over, and everything changed. That man has no conscience, Sabrina. He’ll sacrifice anyone, even his own people, for what he thinks is progress.”

“Well, I’m done playing defense,” I say, my voice sharper than I intend. “I backed everything up to Marco’s server. If anything happens to me, it goes wide.”

Her eyes widen. “You... you did that?”

I nod. “Leigh’s outlet will be the first to run it.”

For a moment, my mother just stares at me. Then she shakes her head slowly, a sad smile creeping across her face. “You are so much like your father.”

I swallow hard at that. “Thanks, I think.”

She glances at the laptop again. “But it won’t be enough.”

“What?”

“This kind of leverage might get them to flinch. But it won’t stop them. Yelena will bury it, bribe the right people, kill the rest.”

“I have a lot more than just the documents,” I tell her. “I have video of the facility, experiments, and even your sister and Ergorvo fucking all over the science labs.”

“What?” My mother splutters, her eyes widening. I find the footage and show it to my mother. “Jesus. Turn it off.”

“I did. I read their internal policies at the RMSAD,” I say, my brow furrowing. “Although, considering what it is, I was shocked they had any policies at all. But one of them was very clear—strictly no unsanctioned interpersonal relationships.” I snort. “And I’d say that was a big no, no.”

“Do you think that would faze them?” my mother says. “Like the rest of it, Yelena will just get it buried. She’s fucking the boss, and she established herself as one of the most important people in the scientific research division a long time ago.”

“Yes…” I say, pulling up another document—compliments of Valeska. “But General Ergorov has a very strict prenuptial contract, and I found out he’s married to the big boss’s daughter.” I pull a face and shake my head. “I thought he was the big boss.”

“No, he reports to a board and a chairman,” my mother explains.

“Then he’s not going to be happy to see his son-in-law having an affair,” I say, showing my mother the contract. “And then there is this.” I look at my mother. “Be prepared, it is brutal.”

She nods and turns toward the monitor. I switch it on, and she sucks in a breath.

The video starts in a dimly lit medical room. Cold, sterile. Bleach white walls. Cameras in the corners. But the focal point is the woman strapped to the gurney.

She’s not screaming. That would almost be better.

My mother leans forward to get a better look at the woman. “Oh my God, that’s Evelina,” my mother whispers in horror. “She is Ergorov’s wife.” She puts a hand to her mouth. “What the fuck are they doing to her?”

The woman, my mother has identified as Evelina, is murmuring. Slurring. Her head lolls to the side like she’s too weak to lift it. Her face is puffy, her pupils so dilated they’re practically eclipsing her irises. Saliva glistens on her lower lip.

“She’s completely sedated,” my mother murmurs, horror dawning in her voice. “This isn’t treatment. This is suppression.”

On-screen, a nurse enters the room and injects something into the IV line. Evelina’s red hair is matted to her face, skin pale and clammy, and she moans softly. Her fingers twitch.

“She doesn’t even look like she knows where she is,” I whisper. “They say she’s an alcoholic. That this treatment is for her own good.”

My mother squints, then leans closer. “That’s not a detox protocol. That’s too much benzodiazepine... and I think—God, is that droperidol?”

Before I can ask what that means, the door in the corner of the video opens, and General Ergorov steps inside. Yelena follows a second later, clipboard in hand, dressed like she just walked off the set of a Cold War thriller.

“Sedation holding?” Yelena asks the nurse, her tone as casual as if she were ordering lunch.

“She’s stable. We increased the midazolam drip this morning as instructed.”

The camera shifts slightly, as if someone had adjusted its zoom. It catches Ergorov’s face as he walks to the bedside and peers down at the woman with disdain.

“She’s barely responsive,” he grunts. “We can’t up her dose anymore. Not without risking respiratory collapse.”

Yelena clicks her pen. “We don’t need to increase it. Not yet.”

“Her father doesn’t retire until the end of the year,” Ergorov mutters. “We need her alive until then. After that—” He makes a slicing gesture with his hand. “—we increase the cocktail, make it look like she got drunk, took pills. An accident.” He looks at the woman in disgust. “I personally can’t wait to be rid of her.”

“Tragic,” Yelena says flatly. “Unsurprising, considering her history.”

“Stupid bitch ruined her own image with all that ‘mood disorder’ talk anyway. No one will question it.” He fobs it off icily. “She should never have tried to go to her father with those lies about Mikhail. That was the final straw.”

The nurse in the room doesn’t flinch. He’s heard this before.

Yelena walks up to the gurney and gently, almost lovingly, pats the woman’s cheek. “Don’t worry, darling,” she says, voice dripping with venom. “You’ll be a national tragedy soon enough.”

I slam my finger on the keyboard and stop the footage.

My mother’s knuckles are white. She doesn’t speak for a long moment, just stares at the black screen like it’s still playing.

“Is she…” she finally croaks. “Is that?—?”

“I believe she’s still alive,” I confirm. “Do you know her?”

My mother nods. “We started at the RMSAD together.”

“Valeska told me that her mother became an alcoholic because Mikhail was abusing her,” I explain to my mother.

“How long have they been doing this to her?” My mother’s eyes are wide with shock.

“Years, if Valeska’s story about her mother’s alcohol problem is correct,” I answer.

“We need to get her out of there,” My mother whispers. “That woman has been through enough hell.”

“I wonder why her father doesn’t wonder where she is?” I say.

“Ergorov has probably spun some lies about her being sick,” my mother says in disgust, “We need to find her and get her out of there. She’s being chemically imprisoned.” My mother’s eyes narrow with fury. “This… this is what Yelena is part of. This is what she’s enabling.”

I nod. “And this is what we’re going to use to end her.”

“This can still all be covered up.” Her eyes narrow angrily. “We need to catch them red-handed and have all the people who matter witness it.”

“I could help with that,” the deep, heavily accented Russian voice makes me jump, and my head shoots around to see Timofey standing, watching us. “Sorry, I couldn’t sleep, and when I saw you two sitting here…” His voice lowers. “It was so nice to watch my little girl with her little girl.”

My heart squeezes. “Would you like to join us?”

“If you do not mind?” He is speaking English.

“Russian, Dad,” my mother tells him and looks at me. “Sabrina needs the practice now that she’s with a Russian man.”

“I’m glad he is Russian,” Timofey says, sitting on the other side of my mother. “But… I’m still not sure about the family.”

“Dad!” My mother hisses and rolls her eyes. “Galina has helped us a lot.”

“I know.” Timofey holds up his hands. “I just…” He looks at me. “This life has been hell for all of us. I want peace for my children and grandchildren.”

“We won’t have peace at all if we cannot get Yelena’s head out of her ass,” my mother says.

“I don’t know what went wrong with my eldest,” Timofey says with a sigh. “She was always so competitive and had to try to outsmart her mother all the time.”

“Jealous,” my mother says. “She was always jealous of anyone she thought a threat to her or more intelligent than her.”

“There’s a word for that,” I say dryly. “Narcissism.”

“We never wanted to admit it,” he replies, voice heavy. “But as the years went by, it got harder to keep pretending.”

My mother nods slowly. “I’ve never been able to fathom why my sister had to be such a cold bitch.”

“Psychopathic narcissist?” I offer, only half-joking.

“It pains me, but you are probably right,” Timofey’s eyes are filled with a sad resignation. “I’ve tried to reach her many times. She’s my daughter.” He shakes his head. “But you have to get to a point when you realize it’s just not going to happen.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say, but that bitch is going down,” I tell him and he looks at me with raised brows. “Do you want to show me what you’ve got, and I can see what I can do to help ensure the right people are made aware of what is going on with General Ergorv’s special project?”

I look at my mother for confirmation as I know the man is a legend and my grandfather, but I don’t know him, and his daughter is a fucking psycho. Well, his one daughter, and I always think a trait like that had to come from somewhere.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” my mother says with a nod. “You can show him.”

I’m still skeptical about trusting anyone else with this, so I show him the part where they have General Ergorov’s wife heavily sedated, and I’m shocked at Timofey’s reaction.

“Jesus, is that Ergorov’s wife?” His eyes are wide with disbelief. “I thought she was in a mental institution after suffering a nervous breakdown over twenty years ago.”

“No way!” I give a low whistle. “Her father put her in a mental hospital? Her daughter thinks she’s an alcoholic.”

“I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it,” Timofey says.

“As long as I’m included in this idea,” Oleksi’s voice sends my heart slamming against my rib cage, and I turn to see him leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Count us in,” Ivan’s voice comes from the stairs.

“What the fuck are you four doing sitting down there?” Oleksi asks them.

“We were just watching out for Sabrina and Carla,” Syd says standing up. “We are in Dmitri’s mausoleum after all and we were just making sure she didn’t get kidnapped by him.”

“Jesus, Syd.” I look at her skeptically. “You couldn’t come up with a better story than that?” She shakes her head. “You were eavesdropping.”

“No, spying,” Lev corrects her. “We were worried about you.”

“You are a good man,” Timofey tells Lev.

“Thank you, sir,” Lev says politely.

“So where are we going?” Ivan asks.

“Yes, Sabrina, where are we going?” Oleksi asks, his eyes boring into mine.

Uh-oh, he’s pissed.

“I…” My eyes dart to my mother who nods then I look back at Oleksi. “My mother and I are going to meet Yelena—together.”

“Over my dead fucking body,” Oleksi hisses.

“I agree,” Timofey says. “I can’t let you two go and meet Yelena. It is a trap. She will have the RMSAD guards with her. “You took a lot from her when you left.” he looks at Carla. “And she will not let that go easily.”

“She tried to take everything from me,” Carla responds. “And now she’s trying to do that again only this time…”

“You have us with you,” Syd tells her.

And suddenly mine and my mother’s two person mission becomes a team effort.