Not the way a man cries from grief or pain. He made a thin, miserable sound, like an animal that has finally understood it is trapped. There was nothing human in it, only fear—the raw fear of someone who, for the first time in his life, had run into a force he could not control.
I listened to him and felt no pity at all. I thought about my daughter sitting on the floor in the corner of his office, shaking with that same helpless fear. I thought about the dozens of other girls in Denis’s cloud archive, girls who didn’t have a father like me and had been left to carry their nightmare alone.
Volkov had earned every second of that terror, and what was waiting for him next was only a down payment on what he deserved. Peshkov waited until Volkov quieted down and repeated his offer. Write a full confession, identify Denis, Igor, and Maxim as accomplices, take responsibility for organizing and leading the criminal group, cooperate with investigators.
In return, Peshkov promised him “safe placement”—a special facility for former law enforcement officers where he would be protected from the general prison population and could quietly serve seven or eight years. Peshkov said the words safe placement with such confidence that for one second even I could almost believe he could arrange it. But only for one second, because I knew something neither Peshkov nor Volkov knew.
Prison placement in this region passed through people who answered to me, not to the prosecutor’s office. Volkov agreed. Not because he trusted Peshkov, but because he had no other options.
A cornered animal walks into a trap if the trap looks safer than the open field where the wolves are waiting. Peshkov called his lawyer, a dependable man who specialized in cases with outcomes already decided. The lawyer arrived an hour later with a prepared confession template.
Volkov signed it with shaking hands, barely reading it. He just wanted it to be over. He didn’t understand that it was only beginning.
That was when I made the move no one expected. I got out of the car and walked to Peshkov’s house. Alone. No security. No weapon.
Zhora tried to stop me. Said it was reckless, that Peshkov might call the police or try some kind of setup. I looked at Zhora and said, “Have you ever seen a rat call for a cat?” He fell silent and stepped aside.
I pressed the intercom. Peshkov answered cautiously, and I gave him my name. Just my name. Sergei.
The gate opened three seconds later, because Peshkov understood that refusing to open it meant signing his own immediate death warrant, while opening it at least offered the possibility of a conversation. He still believed he could make a deal. Prosecutors always believe that. Their whole careers are built on deals.
I walked into Peshkov’s office and saw a picture I will never forget. Peshkov sat in a leather chair behind a massive oak desk, a glass of brandy in his hand, his face arranged into a mask of polite composure behind which sat plain old terror. Across from him on a sofa sat Volkov.
When I entered, Volkov jumped up so fast he knocked over the coffee table. His face twisted, his eyes darted, and he instinctively backed up until he hit the wall. A mirror image of what I had seen the night before, when my daughter sat in the corner of his office with her back pressed to the wall.
The difference was that Alina had been an innocent victim, and Volkov was a trapped predator. The distance between those two things is the distance between the sky and a sewer. I didn’t sit down. I stood in the middle of the room and looked at both of them, and a silence settled over the office so thick it felt almost solid.
Peshkov tried to speak first. He started in on some line about a misunderstanding, about how he hadn’t known, about how Volkov had acted on his own, and how he, Peshkov, was prepared to cooperate in any way. I raised a hand, and he stopped mid-sentence.
I didn’t raise my voice. I never do. A quiet voice is more frightening than a shout.
I learned that a long time ago. I looked at Volkov and asked whether he remembered what he had said to me the night before. He didn’t answer.
His lower lip was trembling, and a bead of sweat was running down his temple, slow and heavy, and I watched it the way you watch sand in an hourglass. Then I repeated his words back to him. I said, “You told me to get on my knees.”
Volkov opened his mouth and what came out was not even a word, just a broken sound, and in that sound was everything—pleading, regret, the full understanding of what he had done. I walked up until I was an arm’s length away. He pressed himself into the wall as if he could pass through it.
I said quietly, almost in a whisper, “I don’t bow to anyone. Never have.”
“But you’re going to answer for what you did. Not to me. To the people you broke.
“To those girls you dragged into your office. To their mothers and fathers who lie awake at night. You’re going to answer to the law you wore on your chest and treated like a joke.”
Volkov slid down the wall and ended up on the floor right there. Not because I ordered him to, but because his legs gave out. He started mumbling about forgiveness, about how he understood now and would do anything.
I looked down at him and felt nothing. No anger, no satisfaction, no pity. Only the cold, clear certainty that everything was proceeding exactly as planned…
