Page 63 of Mission Shift

“What?” I demanded.

He tapped a key, then turned the laptop toward me. “FSB intel chatter about Lieutenant Colonel Melnichenko. Encrypted communications I just intercepted from a military server.”

I scanned the translated text. One phrase stood out.

Clean up the loose ends.

The words sent a cold pulse through my veins. “They want her dead.”

Nik nodded grimly. “If she doesn’t prove useful under interrogation, she’s expendable.”

A cold silence filled the room. We were running out of time.

I rubbed the back of my neck, forcing myself to stay in control. I’d seen men react to stress in two ways. Some broke. Others burned.

I sure as hell wasn’t going to break.

I was going to burn the whole fucking world down to get her back.

Nik continued to work like a man possessed.

His fingers flew over the keyboard, tapping into a world most people didn’t even know existed.

I let out a slow breath, forcing myself to stay alert.

We had a job to do.

Standing, I gathered our empty plates and took them to the kitchen. I needed something to keep my hands moving. My muscles ached, and my body was sluggish with exhaustion. Bythe time I was finished washing up, Nik had already relocated to his war room.

I made coffee and followed him, stepping into the other half of the apartment. The bright screens flickered between surveillance feeds and real-time intelligence chatter pulled from dark-web servers. One screen tracked Russian government communications. Another sifted through satellite imagery. A third ran facial-recognition software, scraping data from security cameras across the country—looking for any trace of Daria.

Nik didn’t acknowledge me as I sat down. His eyes remained locked on his screens, his hands moving over the keys in a blur. His focus was absolute.

For hours, I sat there, watching him pull classified intel like it was nothing and keeping him supplied with fuel, alternating between vodka and coffee.

Chapter nineteen

Aclatter jolted me from the semiconscious daze I’d slipped into. My body tensed as the sound of metal scraping against concrete echoed in the tiny cell.

A dented, rusted tray skidded to a stop near my cot. Food, if you could call it that, had been shoved in through the slot at the bottom of the door. Cold porridge, a chunk of black bread, and a metal cup of water. Standard Russian prison fare. Barely edible, but enough to keep a prisoner from starving.

I stared at it for a long time. Food meant they weren’t planning to kill me just yet.

I forced myself up, ignoring the burning ache in my muscles, the ghost of electricity still crawling beneath my skin. My fingers were stiff, my knuckles raw and split from struggling against the restraints. Still, I needed sustenance. I picked up the bread first,tearing off a piece with my teeth. It was dry, coarse, and almost stale. I chased it down with a sip of water, swallowing past my sore throat.

I would survive one step at a time.

An hour or so passed in the suffocatingly small, nasty cell while I drifted in and out of sleep. Then—another sound.

The door opened and shut again within mere seconds. Something soft and heavy landed on the floor.

Clothes.

I pushed off the cot and moved toward the pile, kneeling to inspect the rough, worn fabric. Gray men’s trousers, a gray button-up shirt, black socks. Not fatigues, of course. The bastards weren’t about to give me anything decent—I was a traitor now. But it was better than being naked.

And—thank God—my own worn leather combat boots had been included.

I quickly tugged on the clothes. They were too big; the pants hung loose at the waist, so I rolled them down to tighten them. The shirt smelled like old sweat and mildew, but at least it was something. I jammed my feet into the socks and set the boots next to me on the cot.

---