For a heartbeat, no one moved.
The sound of Yelena's voice filled the factory, curling through the silence like smoke. Natalia's pulse hammered in her ears. Her gun remained frozen halfway between her hip and the floor, and her mind refused to process what her eyes saw.
Yelena Ivan, her sister, the woman she had mourned for two years, now stood alive, armed, and aiming a gun straight at Dimitri Volkov.
"Lower your weapon," Yelena said evenly, stepping from the shadows. The pale light from the broken windows washed over her face ,she looks older, sharper, but unmistakable. Her dark long hair was pulled into a braid that gleamed like copper wire. She was clad in tactical black, every movement precise and cold. "I said lower it, Natalia."
Natalia's breath caught. "You're alive."
Yelena's lips twitched. "Disappointed or are you surprised?"
"You… you died in the embassy bombing. I buried you."
"You buried a dead body," Yelena said. "Not me."
The air thickened between them. Dimitri's hand hovered near his holster, his eyes flicking from one sister to the other. He didn't speak ,he didn't dare.
Yelena's gaze shifted to him. "You shouldn't have brought her here, Volkov."
"Then maybe you shouldn't have tried to kill her," Dimitri replied, voice low, controlled. "That sniper ,is it your work?"
Yelena's expression didn't change. "Collateral. I needed her attention."
Natalia's stomach twisted. "You sent men to the docks? You tried to murder me to get my attention?"
Yelena tilted her head slightly. "I tried to make sure no one else could get to you first. You were walking right into a trap. I cleaned it up."
Dimitri stepped forward. "By putting a bullet through your own man's head?"
Yelena's eyes hardened. "Don't lecture me on morality, Volkov. Your father built his empire on blood and dead bodies."
The tension snapped like wire pulled too tight. Natalia could feel her heart tearing between anger and disbelief. "Why didn't you come to me? Why hide away from me all this time?"
"Because I couldn't trust you," Yelena said simply. "Not after what happened with our Father."
Natalia's chest constricted. "You think I murdered him?"
Yelena didn't answer, but her silence was accusation enough.
Dimitri glanced between them, his jaw tightening. "We don't have time for family reunions. Whoever's behind the Council won't stop until that drive is in their hands. We need to make a plan on how to go about this situation, we can't remain here forever."
But neither woman moved.
Yelena slowly holstered her gun and crossed the floor, boots clicking against concrete. She stopped an arm's length from Natalia, eyes scanning her face as if memorizing every structure of it. "You look stronger," she said softly. "Colder."
"You made me that way," Natalia whispered.
Yelena smiled faintly. "Good. You'll need to remain that way."
Something in her voice made Natalia's spine stiffen. "What do mean?"
"Because the war isn't between families anymore," Yelena said. "It's between ghosts, ours."
Before Natalia could respond, Yelena threw a small metal chip onto the table between them. It clinked once.
"The other half of your drive," she said.
Natalia's eyes widened. "That's impossible. The drive was complete."
"No," Yelena said. "What you stole from the Bratva was only the encryption key. She tapped the chip, "this is the data itself. Together they reveal everything Father hid. Accounts, names, projects,his enemies' bloodlines and his own."
Dmitri frowned. "You had this all along?"
"I took it the night the embassy burned," Yelena said. "The night Father died."
Natalia's voice trembled. "You were there?"
"Yes," Yelena said quietly. "And so was he."
She looked at Dimitri when she said it.
Natalia's eyes snapped toward him. "Dimitri, I thought you said you didn't kill him, that it was your father's order ?"
He hesitated a fraction too long. "It's not what you think."
"Then explain," Natalia demanded.
Dimitri exhaled slowly. "Your father was my father's ally once. But alliances rot. When the Volkovs turned on him, I tried to tell you all about it initially . I thought if I could get the data first, we could use it as leverage. But the Council intercepted the signal before I reached you. The bombing wasn't my doing , it was theirs."
Yelena scoffed. "How noble. And yet you were standing beside the man who ordered it."
"Because I was undercover, it was my father's orders not mine," Dimitri snapped. "You think I enjoy living under my father's thumb?"
Yelena folded her arms. "You enjoyed his power well enough."
"Enough!" Natalia's shout silenced them both. Her voice echoed against the steel walls. "If we keep fighting and arguing with each other, we'll all die before sunrise."
She grabbed the chip and slid it into her pocket beside the original drive. "We need to decrypt it. Tonight."
Yelena studied her for a long moment, then nodded. "There's a safehouse outside the city. No signals. No trackers. You'll be safe there."
Natalia narrowed her eyes. "And you'll come with us?"
Yelena hesitated, then said reluctantly, "For now."
Later that night
The safehouse was an old monastery hidden deep in the birch forest beyond Moscow's ring road. The air was thick with pine and secrecy. Inside, the stone walls glowed with firelight from a single hearth.
Natalia sat at a wooden table, the drives connected to a secure laptop. Code streamed across the screen like falling rain. Dimitri stood behind her, silent, his presence a dark comfort she couldn't shake.
Yelena watched from the corner, arms crossed.
For hours, none of them spoke. The fire cracked, snow hissed against the window, and tension hummed in the air like static.
When the final line of code vanished, Natalia pressed Enter. The screen blinked, then displayed a folder marked Project Seraphim.
"What is this?" she asked.
Yelena stepped closer. "Our father's legacy. The reason behind his death."
Files opened: bank transfers, assassination lists, chemical research under coded names. Natalia's stomach dropped. "He was funding black ops across Europe…"
"Not just Europe," Dimitri said grimly. "He was building a private army , genetic modification, human enhancement, psychological control. The Council took his research after he died. They've been using It all along."
Natalia scrolled through the files until one froze her breath , SUBJECT 07: N. IVAN.
Her own face stared back.
"What the hell is this?" she whispered.
Yelena's eyes softened. "He experimented on us, Talia. Memory conditioning. Reflex enhancement. You think you survived Helsinki because of luck? He programmed you to. They are all part of his plans"
Natalia staggered to her feet. "You're lying."
"I wish I were," Yelena said. "We're both his creations, trained to survive, to obey, to kill if necessary. You just forgot. He made you forget it all."
Dimitri moved toward Natalia, reaching out, but she stepped back. "Don't touch me."
"Talia—"
"Stop calling me that!" she snapped. "You knew, didn't you? You knew something about this."
He hesitated again , and that was enough. She saw the truth in his silence.
Her heart cracked open. "You were all just using me."
"No," Dimitri said softly. "I was trying to protect you. My father and yours wanted to use your abilities to rebuild the Volkov empire. I refused. That's why I helped fake your death."
Natalia's throat burned. "And now what? You expect me to thank you for saving me from myself?"
"I expect you to survive," he said.
The fire flickered between them, throwing their shadows across the wall , two figures forever reaching but never truly touching.
Yelena looked away, her expression unreadable. "We can fight later. Right now, we need to move. The moment you decrypted those files, someone would've already traced the signal. They're coming."
"How long will it take before they are here ?" Dimitri asked.
"Ten minutes, maybe less."
He nodded and grabbed his gun. "We'll hold them off while she copies the data."
Yelena's gaze turned toward her sister. "Natalia, once you're out, go east. There's a man in Prague who can decode the rest offline. Trust no one else."
Natalia met her eyes. "What about you?"
Yelena smiled faintly. "I'll buy you time."
Before Natalia could argue, the first explosion ripped through the forest. The windows shattered inward.
"Go!" Yelena shouted.
Smoke and snow filled the room as gunfire tore through the walls. Dimitri pulled Natalia behind him, firing as they make their way through the doorway. Shadows moved between the trees , soldiers, faceless and silent.
Natalia clutched the laptop to her chest. "We'll never make it!"
"Yes, we will," Dimitri said. "Stay behind me."
Yelena was already at the door, firing with good precision. For a moment, Natalia saw the fierce protectiveness in her sister's face, the same expression she remembered from childhood, when Yelena used to protect her from bullies.
Then another explosion rocked the ground, closer this time.
"Dimitri!" Yelena called. "Get her out!"
He grabbed Natalia's wrist. "Come on!"
They burst into the snow, bullets flying past. Flames rose behind them, consuming the monastery. The forest glowed red, a hellish backdrop against the falling snow.
Dimitri pushed Natalia ahead as they reached the edge of a frozen ravine. "We have to jump!"
She hesitated. "What about Yelena?"
"She's gone!" he shouted. "Now!"
She looked back, saw her sister framed in firelight, still fighting , then she jumped.
The ice cracked beneath them as they landed , plunging them into the freezing river below.
The world became a blur of cold and darkness. Natalia surfaced, gasping, her fingers clinging to Dimitri's arm as the current swept them downstream.
When they finally crawled onto the riverbank miles away, dawn was breaking. Smoke still rose on the horizon.
Natalia lay on the snow, trembling, the laptop still pressed tightly against her chest. Dimitri collapsed beside her, coughing. Their breath mingled in the cold air.
"She's dead," Natalia whispered.
Dimitri turned his head toward her. "You don't know that."
She looked at him then, really looked , and for the first time, the weight of everything crashed over her. Her sister's betrayal. Her father's secrets. Her own lost identity.
She reached out and touched his face. "If she's gone, I have no one left."
He caught her hand gently. "You have me."
Their lips met , seeking for warmth, desperate, cold, alive. The kiss was both a wound and a promise.
But before it could deepen, a faint hum broke the silence. Dmitri pulled away, eyes widening.
"What is it?" Natalia whispered.
He reached into his coat , and pulled out a small, blinking tracker.
"It's a locator," he said. "Someone planted it in there ."
Natalia's blood ran cold. "When? "
He looked at her, realization dawning. "When you took the chip from Yelena."
The tracker beeped faster.
"Oh God," Natalia breathed. "They're coming, what are we going to do. "
Dimitri met her eyes , a mix of fear and devotion. "Then we run. Together."
And as they vanished into the snowy woods, the burning glow of Moscow reflected off the sky, the beginning of a new war.