The sterile air of Operating Theater Three bit at Anja’s lungs, a familiar chill that usually calmed her but now felt like a tightening band around her chest. The surgical light overhead, a cold eye, glinted off the polished steel of an instrument tray. She stood with her back to the main door, ensuring no one could interrupt. Katarina Orlova, her face pale, was meticulously arranging scalpels by size, her movements precise, almost robotic. The silence stretched, taut and brittle, until Anja finally broke it. “You missed a spot,” Anja said, her voice a low thrum against the hum of the ventilation system. Katarina’s fingers locked mid-air, stainless steel catching overhead glare. She didn’t turn. “Dr. Volkov?” Katarina’s voice was thin, carefully neutral. “The parking garage, Katarina,” Anja continued, her gaze fixed on the younger woman’s reflection in the glass of the surgical suite’s observation window. “The data stick. Chernov’s man. You must have thought I wouldn’t be watching.” Katarina’s shoulders slumped, a subtle collapse. The scalpel clattered onto the tray, echoing in the quiet room. She turned, her usually vibrant eyes dull and shadowed, her mouth a tight, worried line. The illusion of professional calm shattered, revealing a tremor in her hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The words were automatic, a rehearsed defense lacking any conviction. Anja stepped closer, her shadow falling over Katarina. “Don’t lie to me. Not now. Not when Luka Petrov is gone.” The name hung between them, a heavy accusation. “You’ve been feeding Chernov information. You helped him. Now he has Luka. Tell me why.” Katarina flinched as if struck, her eyes darting away. She scraped the heel of her hand against her cheek. “It’s not… it wasn’t like that.” “Then how was it, Katarina?” Anja pressed, her voice sharp, unforgiving. “Did he threaten you? Your family?” She watched for the tell, the flicker of fear, the guilt. Katarina hugged her arms, twisting her hands together. “He… he’s my father.” The words were barely a whisper, a ragged sound that cracked the sterile silence. The syllables dropped like lead sinkers. Dmitri Chernov. The patriarch was her blood. The ruthless patriarch, who had orchestrated a car crash into Luka’s bistro, who had abducted him in broad daylight, was this young woman’s blood. It was a twist Anja had not anticipated, a knot of betrayal and familial obligation that complicated everything. “Your sire?” Anja repeated, dry bile rising in her throat. The cold betrayal she had mapped had dissolved into frantic domestic misery. She saw not a simple traitor, but a pawn, caught in a generational war. Katarina nodded, a torrent of words finally breaking free. “My mother… she has a rare autoimmune disorder. Chernov’s labs developed the only workable gene therapy. But he withheld her infusions when I refused to sign with him. Said he’d resume doses if I took residency under you and relayed your logs.” Her voice was raw with shame and anguish. “He watches me. He watches her. He knows every move I make. He promised me… he promised he’d keep her alive, as long as I was useful.” Her gaze met Anja’s, brimming with a tortured plea. “He holds her vials in his vault. What else could I do?” Anja stared. This was no clean corporate theft, but a resident trapped in a patriarch's vise, bartering loyalty for ampoules. The rage Anja felt towards Chernov intensified, deepening into a bitter contempt for his manipulation. But it also softened, ever so slightly, the hard edges of her judgment of Katarina. The girl wasn't malicious; she was cornered. Anja paced a slow circle around the operating table, her mind racing. Katarina was a liability, a compromised asset, but also her only direct link to Chernov’s inner workings. Discarding her cut off the only artery into Chernov’s private network, yet running her risked the patient waiting on those treatments. “He’s using you, Katarina,” Anja stated, not as an accusation, but as a stark fact. “He doesn’t care about your family. He hoards leverage, and you are a lever.” Katarina wiped furiously at her eyes. “I know he is! But if I stop transmitting files, he cuts the cold chain. She dies within a fortnight.” She took a shuddering breath. “He knows about the EMP. He’s furious. He said… he said he’s going to make you pay for humiliating him.” Her voice dropped, laden with fear. “He said he would show you what happens when you cross Dmitri Chernov.” Anja stopped, her gaze piercing. “Where is Luka, Katarina? What is he doing with him?” Katarina hesitated, glancing toward the locked door before meeting Anja's stare. “There’s a clinic. Not the main facility. A secret one. Underground. It’s where they conduct the… the patient replacement protocols. Where they harvest what they need. And where they keep those who get too close to the truth.” She swallowed, her voice barely audible. “Luka… he’s there. They took him to the ‘Regeneration Wing.’” Regeneration Wing. The phrase hit like ice water across raw skin. It sounded like something out of a horror story. It confirmed her worst fears about Alistair’s chilling note. This was where the true horrors of Chernov’s ambition unfolded. And Luka was in the heart of it. Katarina had just handed her a precise map to the enemy’s stronghold, a weapon to wield against her own father. “The location, Katarina. Give me everything.” Anja demanded, her voice an urgent command. Katarina reached into her scrub pocket, her knuckles stark white under the fluorescent tube. “It’s beneath the old St. Cyril’s Orphanage, in the Vlasov District. The one that was condemned two decades ago. There’s a hidden entrance through the boiler room, disguised as a service tunnel. Only Chernov’s inner circle has access codes. He thinks it’s impenetrable.” She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a raw whisper, heavy with a new, terrifying resolve. “Help me destroy him.”

An Unwilling Confession