The clinic room went silent.
The only sound was the machine’s shaky beeping and Sasha’s soft, terrified sobs as she clung to her mother.
Nora’s pulse thundered in her ears.
Demetri stepped toward the door with a stiffness she had never seen in him before—like his muscles were fighting memories, not movement. Ivan shadowed him, gun raised.
Then—
A shadow moved again.
Slow.
Purposeful.
Human.
The man on the other side of the steel door exhaled, the sound low and deliberate.
“I said,” the voice drawled, “open the door, nephew.”
Demetri’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t move to unlock the door.
Nora lifted her gun higher.
Ivan glanced at Demetri.
“Sir. Orders?”
Demetri didn’t answer.
He was frozen.
No—paralyzed.
Not with fear.
With recognition.
Sasha whimpered, burying her face a
