Chapter 36: The Shortest Run

The air was sharp and cold against my face. I walked for what felt like ten minutes, but couldn't have been more than four. The gym bag was digging into my shoulder, but I didn't care. I was breathing uncontrolled air. I was walking on a street where no one knew my name.

Eight blocks. I’d made it past the Residence perimeter and into a quiet, mixed-use commercial district. I could see the glow of a twenty-four-hour diner sign in the distance, a small, vulgar beacon of freedom.

I am doing this for Mom. The thought was the only thing holding me together, overriding the scream of terror that wanted to send me diving into the nearest shadowed doorway.

My mind started to race ahead, planning the next step. I’ll get to the subway, take it to the regional train line. Head north. Anywhere north. I can call Sasha from a payphone tomorrow, tell her I’m safe, and start figuring out how to survive on eighty dollars and a lie.

The sheer audacity of the escape, the foolishness of it, gave me a brief, intoxicating high. I had defied the Volkovs' control, even for this fleeting moment.

I turned the corner onto a wider, emptier avenue. I was focusing on the far side of the street, where the light seemed brighter, when I heard it: the silent, non-aggressive approach of professional security.

It wasn't a squealing siren or a screeching tire. It was a black, unmarked sedan—so discreet it seemed to absorb the light—that simply materialized at the curb beside me, slowing to my pace.

Before I could register panic, two large, impeccably dressed men were out of the car, moving with the terrifying efficiency of people who never make mistakes. They didn't grab me violently; they simply flanked me, one on each side, their hands resting lightly on my shoulders, guiding me.

"Mr. Vance," one of them said, his voice flat and neutral, like recorded static. "We're just going to take a short ride back to the Residence."

I tried to pull away, a useless, pathetic little jerk of resistance. "No! Let go of me! I'm calling the police!"

The security guard on my left looked down at me with an expression of polite boredom. "There's no need for that, sir. We're here for your protection. The Volkovs are very concerned about your safety outside the approved hours."

They steered me toward the rear door of the sedan. The whole process was over in less than ten seconds. It was humiliating because it was so quiet, so swift, and so utterly inevitable. They hadn't needed to use force; my capture was a formality.

They ushered me into the spacious back seat. I stumbled, my gym bag falling to the floor. The guard didn't even acknowledge the bag; he simply sat beside me, creating a wall of polite, impervious muscle. The door closed, and the car slid back into the stream of traffic, turning not toward the Residence, but pulling over in a secluded, darkened alcove less than two blocks away.

I slumped against the leather, the breath knocked out of me not by struggle, but by the sheer, crushing reality of my failure. Less than ten blocks. I was a joke. I was never out.

I didn't have time to panic before the second car arrived—a sleek, powerful black vehicle that pulled up directly in front of us, blocking the small road. The driver's side door opened, and Ivan stepped out. A second later, Dmitri followed from the passenger side.

They walked toward the sedan I was trapped in, the streetlights reflecting off their expensive, tailored coats. They looked impossibly tall, untouchable, and utterly furious.

The bodyguard beside me opened my door. "They're waiting for you, Mr. Vance."

I stepped out onto the cold asphalt. I felt small, ridiculous, and exposed. The fear was a cold, liquid burn in my throat.

Ivan was the first to speak. His voice wasn't raised, but it cut through the night air with an agonizing precision.

"It took us precisely seven minutes to initiate the lockdown after you left the room, Leo," Ivan said, his eyes glittering with cold, intellectual disappointment. "And it took them three minutes to collect you. I expected more creativity. I expected a better play."

His focus wasn't on the betrayal; it was on the inefficiency.

But then Dmitri stepped forward, and his fury was something else entirely—raw, possessive, and deeply hurt. He didn't look like a calculating businessman; he looked like a man who had just been betrayed by the only thing he had risked caring about.

Dmitri didn't speak to me at first. He walked right up to the security guard who had caught me, his eyes locked on the man.

"You found his belongings?" Dmitri asked, his voice low and dangerous.

The guard held up my pathetic gym bag. "Yes, sir. He had this. And a small amount of currency."

Dmitri took the bag, his movements slow and deliberate. He stared down at the nylon fabric, a symbol of my desperate, pitiful rejection of his opulent life. He looked not at the item, but at the implication.

Then, he looked at me. His eyes were dark, filled not with the cold control I was used to, but with a betrayed, primal rage that was far more terrifying.

"You left a note, Leo," Dmitri said, the words barely a rasp. "You tried to explain your departure. You tried to tell your mother it was your weakness, your failure to cope."

He threw the gym bag onto the hood of his sedan, the sound a dull thud.

"When we offer protection, we offer certainty," Dmitri continued, stepping closer until his shadow consumed me. "You didn't run from the cage, Leo. You ran from us. You ran from the security we gave you. That is not weakness. That is disloyalty."

I couldn't meet his eyes. I dropped my gaze to the street, my humiliation complete.

Ivan stepped up, placing a hand on Dmitri’s tense shoulder—a familiar gesture of unified control.

"We knew this impulse was possible, Leo," Ivan said, his voice regaining its analytical calm. "The guilt of your previous life is a psychological poison. But running only confirms that you do not trust the life we have built to contain that poison."

He tilted my chin up forcefully, forcing me to look at their unified, furious faces.

"You risked your mother's peace for eight blocks of false freedom," Ivan stated. "Now, we will show you exactly what happens when you break the Vow. Your fear will be redefined, Leo. Because the cost of challenging us is far greater than the cost of your surrender."

Dmitri grabbed my arm, his grip hard enough to bruise. I was too defeated to resist. They turned me around, ushering me toward their waiting vehicle. The swift, silent operation was complete. I was back in the Volkov

system. The shortest run was over.