Quickly orders ..the driver thug to return to red brick.

"Turn around," you say. Your voice is flat, certain, cutting through the drone of the engine and the muffled sounds of Lina's ragged breathing behind you. "Take us back to Red Brick."

Dima's eyes flick to the rearview mirror. "Back? Viktor said—"

"I know what Viktor said. Turn the van around."

Razor shifts on the metal bench beside you, the leather of his jacket creaking. "Doc, are you serious? We just left that place. She already hit it once — what if there's more of them? What if she's got backup?"

You meet his gaze in the dim cargo light. "She doesn't have backup. Look at her. She's been doing this alone. Every hideout, every attack — solo. No tactical coordination, no support team. Just one woman in a diamond suit walking through the front door. If she had people, she wouldn't need to be invulnerable."

Razor opens his mouth, then closes it. His eyes drift to Lina's curled form on the floor — the bare curve of her spine, the trembling in her shoulders, the way her bound hands twitch against the zip ties behind her back. Something in his expression shifts. Not agreement exactly. Resignation.

"Fine," he mutters. "Your funeral. Our funeral. Whatever."

Dima swears under his breath in Ukrainian but pulls the van into a wide U-turn on the empty street. The tires hiss on wet asphalt. Five minutes later, the familiar silhouette of the Red Brick building looms through the windshield, its upper floors dark, the shattered front door gaping like a wound.

Dima parks in the basement garage — a low-ceilinged concrete space lit by a single buzzing strip light. The van's engine dies. Silence fills the space, thick and oppressive, broken only by the faint drip of water from a pipe somewhere overhead and the shallow, unsteady rhythm of Lina's breathing.

You turn to face her. She's lying on her side, knees drawn up, the wool blanket tangled around her calves. The lead helmet is still duct-taped firmly in place, the visor slit angled toward the van's ceiling. Her bare skin is goosefleshed from the cold metal floor, her ribcage expanding and contracting with each breath. The tiny green LED between her clenched thighs blinks its patient, steady pulse.

"Hey," you say. Quiet. No aggression, no command. Just a word, offered into the silence like an open hand. "Listen to me. I don't want to hurt you. I never wanted any of this. They dragged me into this the same way they dragged you into that apartment — by ****. I'm not one of them."

She doesn't move. Doesn't respond. The helmet faces the ceiling, inscrutable.

"I just need to understand what's happening," you continue. "Who you are. Why you're targeting these specific places, these specific people. That's all. Just talk to me."

The silence stretches. Ten seconds. Twenty. The dripping pipe marks time in the garage outside. Razor's breathing is audible — tense, shallow. Petro has twisted around in the passenger seat to watch, his gold chain catching the dome light.

Then her voice comes. Small. Raw. Nothing like the diamond form's velvet contralto, and nothing like the fury she spat at you minutes ago. This is the voice of a young woman lying naked and bound on a van floor at one in the morning, stripped of everything that made her powerful, and arriving at the only decision left.

"I need privacy."

The words are barely above a whisper, muffled by the helmet and the duct tape, but every person in the van hears them clearly in the stillness.

"If my life ends tonight..." A pause. A swallow. Her bound hands clench and unclench behind her back. "...then it ends with some fucking dignity. Not with four men staring at me like — like I'm something in a cage." Her voice cracks on the last word, and she presses her lips together hard behind the visor slit, fighting something back. "Tell them to leave. I'll talk to you, doc. Just you. But not... not like this. Not with them watching."

Razor's eyes snap to yours. His expression is complicated — fear, uncertainty, and something that might be the faintest echo of shame.

You hold his gaze for a beat. Then you tilt your head toward the van's sliding door.

"Everyone out."

"Doc—" Razor starts.

"Out. Now. Wait in the garage. Stay within earshot if it makes you feel better, but you don't come back in until I say so."

Razor's jaw works. He looks at Lina — at the **** curve of her naked hip, the trembling in her bound hands, the helmet that makes her look less like a prisoner and more like something from a nightmare. Then he stands, hunched under the van's low ceiling, and slides the door open with a bang that echoes through the concrete garage. He drops out. Petro follows, his rifle slung over one shoulder. Dima kills the dome light from the driver's console, plunging the cargo area into near-darkness lit only by the faint green blink of the piercing and the ambient glow leaking in from the garage's strip light, then climbs out and pulls the driver's door shut.

The van settles into silence.

You're alone with her.

The garage light seeps through the van's windows in pale, anemic bars that stripe across the metal floor and across her body — the ridge of her hip, the hollow of her waist, the dark fan of her hair escaping the helmet's edge. Her breathing has changed. Slower. Deliberate. She's gathering herself.

You sit on the metal bench and wait.