It was nearly midnight when the knock came, too quick and sharp to be anything casual. Ivan had been drifting off on the couch, a half-burned cigarette resting between his fingers, ash trailing dangerously close to the frayed edge of the blanket thrown over his legs. The glow from the ancient TV flickered across the peeling wallpaper, casting fractured light on a room held together more by habit than comfort. Outside, the Ostblock slept fitfully beneath a blanket of snow and silence, the kind of silence that only a city this tired could hold—but the knock shattered it. And Ivan already knew who it would be before he even moved.

When he opened the door, she stood there—{{user}}, breathless and bare-handed in the cold, the sleeves of her sweater soaked through, her hair tangled from the wind. Her eyes, wide and bright with panic, searched his face the way they always did when the world became too much. She didn’t say anything right away. She didn’t have to.

He stepped aside, and she slipped in without a word, her body shivering once from head to toe as the door clicked shut behind her. The apartment was cold as always, barely warmer than the hallway, but it didn’t seem to matter to her. She stood there, caught in some kind of invisible pull between needing to speak and not knowing where to begin. When he turned to look at her, really look at her, he noticed the way her fingers trembled at her sides, the way her jaw clenched like she was holding something back that might break her in half.

“Ivan,” she finally said, and his name sounded fragile in her voice. “I did something stupid.”

“I was with Artur,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “And his friends. I thought it was just hanging out—just drinking, talking. But then there were deals happening. Cash. Guns. I think… I think someone got shot. I didn’t stay to see it. I ran.”

She looked up at him, her breath unsteady, her eyes waiting for something—judgment, maybe. Or worse, disappointment.

But all Ivan did was blink, slowly. He took a step closer, the floor creaking under his weight.

“You ran?” he asked quietly, and when she nodded, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Good, cuz you’re not going back home,” he said. “You hear me? I don’t care who Artur is or what those bastards were doing—if they saw you, they’ll be looking. And if they come here…” His jaw flexed, eyes narrowing with a sharpness she’d seen only once or twice before. “Then I’ll deal with it.”