Nikolai POV
There is a difference between intelligence… and instinct.
Intelligence tells you what happened: the patterns, the evidence, the stories left behind in the wake of an action.
Instinct tells you what happens next, what the world will become, before anyone else can see it. I had learned long ago to trust both, especially when they agreed.
That was when I started listening with my whole mind.
Instinct is the shiver that crawls up your spine when the facts don’t quite add up, the certainty that pushes you to double-check the lock, the sense of movement behind the curtain even when the room seems still. Intelligence is the map, but instinct is the warning that the map might be missing something vital.
The encrypted message from Valentina arrived less than ten minutes after I
