While Karim secures our exit and radios Mikael, Sandi, and I move through the manor—door by door, hope burning with each threshold crossed. Whether Tarmo waits in chains or cowering in decades-old terror, I won’t abandon this borderland until we’ve carved our own ending into history.

I slam through the study door, lungs burning, sweat cold on my neck. Candlelight flickers across a table of chaos maps, cypher notes, and torn correspondence. There—upright in his chair, unbound, utterly composed—sits Tarmo. His eyes are knife-sharp, and beneath the bruise blooming on his cheek, something like amusement flickers.

My stomach drops. No ropes. No chains. A coffee cup still steaming beside his elbow.

“You came.” The words rasp out—but there’s no relief. Only dark satisfaction.

I freeze, pulse spiking with a different kind of adrenaline. “What the hell is this?”

He doesn’t flinch. “The only way, Elena.” His gesture takes in the room—the organised chaos, the methodical notes, days’ worth of surveillance work spread across every surface. In the corner, I spot it: rope coiled neatly, unused. Props for a performance that never needed a final act.

“You staged this?” My voice comes out raw. “The distress call, the trail, the—”

“All of it.” He cuts me off, leaning forward. “I needed to vanish. Needed to see who would follow the breadcrumbs I left—and who would tell our enemies exactly where to look.” His mouth hardens into a bitter line. “The traitor had to think I was vulnerable, exposed. Had to believe they’d finally gotten me out of the way.”

“So we’re—” The realisation hits like ice water. “We’re bait.”

“You’re the verification.” He stands, moving to the window with the ease of a man who’s been in control the entire time. “I fed different details to different people. Only two knew about this location. You and Mikael—you’re clean, or you wouldn’t have come alone.” His eyes narrow. “But whoever tipped off the Russians converging on us right now? That’s the answer I needed.”

Before I can unleash the fury building in my chest, Bartek appears at my side: “Movement at the rear. Heavy footfalls—ex-Soviet, maybe, or worse. Sandi’s holding the hall.”

Tarmo’s expression doesn’t change. “Right on schedule.”

The door shudders. Heavy boots. The metallic whisper of safeties clicking off.

Sandi crashes in, pistol ready, eyes wild. “Company—Russian, definitely Russian. Tarmo, we need to—” She stops, taking in the scene. The unbound hands. The calm demeanour. “Oh, you bastard.”

“Yes.” Tarmo’s voice is granite. “And now we know. Someone in our inner circle sold this location within the hour. The enemy’s already here.”

The manor groans under the weight of what’s coming. Tarmo moves to the desk, pulls out a pistol that was clearly within reach the entire time.

“This was always the endgame. Now we see it through—find out who’s on the other side of that door, and who put them on our trail.” His eyes meet mine. “Watch everyone. Trust no one. And know your exits.”

Karim takes position, coiled tight, catching Bartek’s eye—but now there’s doubt flickering there. Sandi’s gaze finds mine, her expression caught between fury and grudging respect: “We extract him, even if the son of a bitch orchestrated the whole damn thing, and then we can kill his stupid ass afterwards .”

In the breath before violence, I finally understand: this was never about rescue. It’s an interrogation by fire. Everyone who came, everyone who didn’t, everyone who told someone else—all of it mapped, measured, exposed.

I meet Tarmo’s stare. “You used us.”

“I trusted you,” he corrects. “There’s a difference. And if we survive the next five minutes, you’ll know who I can’t.”

The door splinters inward. Shadows surge through torchlight—death s-head faces, rifles raised. The ancient stones seem to hold their breath as the first shots crack through the air: allies and traitors, past and present, faith and betrayal all collapsing into one more border war, one more trap sprung in Transylvanian darkness.

As muzzle flash strobes across Tarmo’s calculating face, I know: he turned his own kidnapping into a crucible. And whoever survives it—we’ll finally know who we can trust.

The old games don’t end here. They just got deadlier.

“We’ll find them. We’ll finish this—and whoever sold you out doesn’t leave these walls.”

But even as I say it, the pieces shift into focus. Hasna. The UNESCO liaison knew this location, too. My breath catches—Dakhla, Narva, the operations where Tarmo captured their queen and forced checkmate. This isn’t just about a traitor in our ranks.

This is payback. Or checkmate.

“Tarmo—” I start, but the door splinters inward.

Shadows surge through torchlight—faces like death masks, rifles raised. The ruin’s old stones hold their breath as the first shots crack through the air, the dance begun: friend and traitor, past and present, survival and faith all collapsing into another border skirmish, another story written in the smoke and fear of Transylvania’s twilight.

As muzzle flash strobes across Tarmo’s face, I see it clearly now: he played his gambit to expose our inner circle, but someone else was playing a longer game. Dakhla. Narva. The defeats he dealt them. They’ve been waiting for exactly this moment—when he’d isolate himself, make himself vulnerable in the hunt for betrayal.

We came to rescue him from a trap he set. But we walked into one he didn’t see.

The old games don’t end here. They just became someone else’s move.

And maybe—if we survive the next five minutes—we’ll finally learn who’s been playing us all along.

The world explodes in gunfire—plaster shredding, Russian voices shouting, the sharp crack of Sandi’s pistol echoing down the narrow hall. My ears ring. Still gripping Tarmo’s arm, I half-drag, half-haul him past the shattered desk as Bartek lays down cover fire over our heads.

Tarmo’s voice cuts through the chaos: “Down! Elena, LEFT—the bookshelf!”

I lunge, hands clawing at the heavy frame. It groans, then slides aside with a hiss of stale air. There: a narrow stone stairwell descending into darkness, the tunnel lined with worm-eaten beams and rotting crates.

“Smuggling routes—Hungarian wars?” I gasp as Bartek shoves me in after Tarmo.

“Older,” Tarmo rasps, already moving.

And then I’m running, crouched low, and I feel it—my breasts bouncing heavily beneath my torn blouse, the bra lost somewhere in the chaos. Each jarring step sends them swinging, and somewhere between the adrenaline and absurdity, a thought crystallises with perfect, bitter clarity:

Is any man worth this much trouble?

I’ve risked everything for a riddle wrapped in bruises and shadows. Here I am, half-crawling through centuries-old smuggler tunnels, breasts bouncing wild and free, no dignity, no armour—just raw flesh and stubborn resolve.

Each lurch sends me colliding into Bartek’s back, into Sandi’s boots. The slap of wet stone against my knees barely registers over the ricochet of my own frustration. What kind of anthropological fieldwork ends like this? The archives never mentioned this much sweat, or the way your chest aches from more than just fear.

Breathless, I bite back a bitter laugh: Does desire always have to come laced with gunpowder and panic? Or is it just me, chasing answers across every border, collecting bruises and betrayals like folklore motifs?

We burst out onto the lakeshore—rain-soaked, half-dressed, gasping. My torn blouse clings to my skin, and a wild laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep in my chest. All this chaos—gunfire, traitors, staged kidnappings, bruises in places I didn’t know I could bruise—and for what?

For men whose mysteries, it turns out, are catastrophically overrated.

Sandi catches my eye, her mouth twisted in a knowing, wicked grin. She’s blood-streaked but radiant, pine-filtered sunlight catching in her tangled hair. I look at her, then at the battered team sprawled at the water’s edge, and just shake my head, half-laughing, half-wheezing.

“Bartek, Karim—wonderful running partners,” I croak, “but I’m done chasing men for a while. From now on, I want bruises that come with softer hands and better conversation.”

Sandi’s eyebrow arches, fire dancing in her eyes. “Took you long enough, cybulko.”

The word hangs between us—onion, all those layers—and suddenly the meaning shifts, deepens. Not just the nickname. Something else entirely.

Behind us, the manor burns. Ahead, the hydroplane waits. And somewhere in the smoke and ruin, the traitor’s identity lies buried.

But right now, standing soaked and half-naked on a Transylvanian lakeshore, I realise: the mystery I actually want to solve is standing right in front of me, grinning like she’s known the answer all along.

I stare at her, then at myself—torn and wild and utterly alive—and for the first time in days, laughter comes easy. Let the archivists puzzle over the data. When it comes to survival and pleasure, I’m due for a new story.

We break through the thicket at the lake’s edge, breathless, soaked, half-crazed with relief at the sight of Mikael and the hydroplane idling just offshore. Gunshots crack from the tunnel mouth behind us. Bartek and Sandi wade through the shallows, half-carrying Tarmo. Karim’s right behind, splashing and shouting for everyone to hurry.

My feet hit the cold water. I’m halfway there when something clamps around my ankle.

I shriek—sharp, swallowed by morning mist. Then I’m yanked under.

Lakewater floods my mouth, my ears. The world spins, green and heavy. I thrash, kick, rake my nails across solid muscle, but hands—impossibly strong—lock around my calves, my waist, dragging me deeper into the murk.

My lungs scream. Panic tears through my ribs like claws.

Then a mask is shoved roughly over my face. I gasp—oxygen floods in, cold and metallic and precious.

I keep fighting, fumbling for a face, an arm, anything, but the grip never loosens. Just the brush of neoprene, the implacable pull. I’m being towed parallel to the silty floor, away from the light, away from everything.

Above, muffled by water and distance, I hear engines roaring, shouts, splashing chaos.

In the shallows, Sandi hauls Tarmo up the ladder. Bartek lays down cover fire. Karim turns mid-stride, eyes scanning the water—

“ELENA!” His scream pierces the air, raw with panic.

But all that’s left is a swirl of bubbles where I’d been.

He lunges toward the water, but Mikael drags him bodily into the plane. “Move or they kill us all!”

The hydroplane lurches away, propeller biting air and spray. As they vanish into the sky, my absence blooms like blood in water—fresh terror cutting through their victory. Through the small window, Karim’s fists hammer against the glass, wild with grief and fury.

While above they escape into the night, below I’m pulled relentlessly through the cold—alive, captive, fate rewritten in the iron grip of my captors.

Unknown. Unseen. Somewhere beneath the mirror of lake and cloud.

And in that long, cold silence, one truth crystallises with absolute clarity:

The border story isn’t finished. Not by rescue, not by betrayal, and certainly not by love.

Not until I save myself.

The hands keep pulling. The lake swallows everything. And somewhere in the darkness ahead, new answers wait—answers I’ll have to fight for alone.

This time, no one’s coming to save me.

This time, I’m the one who has to be dangerous.

I.Ph.