Chapter Thirteen
From the rooftop of an abandoned building, Olesya watched the coast of Kaliningrad. Steel cranes hung over the docks and thawing water while seagulls circled them, calling into the night.
While Illarion was in Moscow, she was the standing commander. It felt like everyone expected her to just fix it all: their dwindling funding; Purity’s covert takeover of Europe; and the Fifth Column’s witch hunt that almost wiped out both Sophia’s team and her own, along with a large chunk of Poland.
For years, she’d fantasized of hitting the Fifth Column hard and bringing it down. It felt real to her, something that had to happen. Something she would make happen. But now it was starting to feel like a dream that she knew would never be realized.
Maybe this was it. The end.
A part of
