It was more than he usually gave, more than he should have given. But some promises, once made, couldn’t be undone. The forest road looked different in the daylight. Less ominous, less otherworldly. Just a stretch of asphalt cutting through ordinary trees under an ordinary sky. The fog had cleared, leaving everything sharp and clear and strangely disappointing in its mundanity.
Roman stood beside his SUV, the engine idling quietly behind him. Dean and Matt waited in the car, giving him this moment of privacy. Victor had stayed at the safe house with Ellen and Maya, maintaining the security that had become routine over the past week. A week. That was all it had been since a little girl materialized from the fog and changed the trajectory of several lives with four desperate words: “They’ve got my mom.”
Roman looked toward the edge of the woods where they had entered the brush that morning. The trail was still there if you knew where to look. Still marked by disturbed undergrowth and broken branches, but nature was already reclaiming it, erasing the evidence that anything extraordinary had occurred. The forest kept its secrets. Victor Kostas was now keeping his forever. The talk Roman had promised had happened two nights ago, in the back room of the Sapphire Lounge.
It had been brief, direct, and ended with Kostas understanding exactly how his operation would change going forward—or rather, how it would end. The club was closed now, boarded up and silent. Kostas’s network had collapsed like a house of cards without his hand holding it together. The people he had terrorized were quietly celebrating their freedom. The authorities didn’t ask questions about his sudden disappearance. Some absences improved neighborhoods.
Maya and Ellen were leaving today. Victor would drive them to their new home, help them settle in, ensure they had everything they needed to start over. Roman wouldn’t be there for the goodbye. Goodbyes created attachments, and attachments created complications. He had said what needed to be said; the rest was execution. His phone vibrated—a message from Victor. “They’re asking for you.” Roman typed back: “Tell them I had business. Tell them to be safe.”
A pause. Then: “Maya says thank you. Ellen says… she says she’ll never forget.” Roman pocketed the phone without replying. Memory was inevitable. People didn’t forget the moments that broke them or saved them. Ellen and Maya would carry this experience forever. The trauma and the rescue, the terror and the mercy, intertwined so completely they would never fully separate one from the other. That was the weight of survival.
You carried it all with you. A second car pulled up behind Roman’s SUV. An inconspicuous sedan driven by one of his associates. The woman behind the wheel nodded respectfully. She had been briefed; she knew her assignment—to watch the road, to monitor anyone showing unusual interest in the area, to report anything out of the ordinary. The forest would be watched for the next month, just to be sure.
Roman climbed back into his car, sliding into the rear seat. Dean met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Back to the city, Boss?” — “Yes.” The SUV pulled away smoothly, leaving the forest road behind. Roman watched it recede through the rear window—that stretch of asphalt where everything had changed and nothing had changed. He had saved two lives, ended several others, dismantled a small criminal operation, and created a minor power vacuum someone would inevitably try to fill.
