Chapter Text
The Hollanov house sat on a quiet street in a beautiful Ottawa suburb. Seventeen years had turned the modest build into a proper home: a wide cedar deck in the back yard, beautiful bedrooms with plenty of sunlight, and a driveway lined with hockey sticks drying in the late-summer sun. The garden was Irina's pride - wildflowers and herbs lined the fence that she tended to every weekend. Anya, grey and slower now, had long since laid claim to the sunniest spot on the deck. Everything was peaceful and safe.
Inside, the kitchen smelled of leftover pasta and the faint hint of dish soap. Shane was already asleep upstairs, sprawled across their bed the way he always did after a long day of coaching little league. He snored softly and had on arm flung over the pillow Ilya usually used. The house was quiet except for the low hum of the fridge and the occasional creak of settling wood.
Ilya sat at the kitchen island, phone in hand, staring at the Find My Phone app. It was 11:57pm and Irina had exactly three minutes to walk through the door before she was past curfew. But the little blue dot on Ilya's phone had not moved from the same spot for twenty-three minutes. Ilya was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but what was his daughter doing at an industrial lot two miles always from the house party he had taken her to?
She texted at 10:42pm: home by 12, promise. That was the last message he had gotten from her.
Ilya watched the dot beginning to drift away from the house party around 11:15. He texted twice, the first casual: Everything okay? The second not so much: Where are you going? Shane had been half awake by then, checking in on his worrisome husband throughout the night.
"She's probably just losing track of time with friends." He mumbled. "Come back to bed."
But Ilya didn't budge. He waited and waited, and when the clock hit 12:01, a sense of dread settled into his gut.
He stood quickly. Any average father would be frantic by now but Ilya's training never really left him. His body was oddly calm for not knowing where his child was or why she was there. Still, he had to check. He moved silently throughout the house: coat from the hook, keys from the dish by the door, and a small go-bag that he always had prepared. Lastly, the burner phone that he hadn't touched in years. It sat locked in a drawer in the home office, charged and checked once a month like clockwork. He hadn't felt the need to take it with him since Irina was nine.
The drive took nineteen minutes, probably longer if Ilya had paid attention to the speed limit. Ottawa at midnight was empty streets and sodium lights, an atmosphere that once would have brought comfort to the former sleeper. He kept the radio off, this wasn't the time for distractions. Ilya's mind raced in various directions. Did the party move? Did someone take her phone? Was she hurt? Did his past come looking for her?
That last played in Ilya's mind like a sick loop. Seventeen years of quiet didn't magically erase what he once was. Sure the SVR had gone silent after his defection, but that didn't mean forgiveness. And Irina - seventeen, brilliant and mouthy - was the biggest vulnerability he had ever created.
The industrial lot was dark. A chain link fence sagged in places and weeds bloomed through cracks in the pavement. A few abandoned trailers sat at the far end. There were not streetlights, just the moon and a faint glow from the highway overpass near by.
Ilya parked on the shoulder, killed the engine, and sat for a few seconds to listen to the silence. No cars. No voices. Nothing. He stepped out, locked the door quietly, and climbed through a hole in the fence.
Something caught his eye, an object reflecting what little light there was. Ilya walked towards it slowly, keeping watch of his surroundings while he did. There, in the middle of the lot, sat Irina's cell phone, cracked in the screen and covered in dirt. It lit up with a text notification fer her friend Mia: where are you? This wasn't the first text Mia had sent either.
Ilya pulled a glove over his hand and picked up the phone. He punched in her passcode - something he demanded to know as a condition of her having said device - and filtered through her texts. The last thing she sent was to a boy named Ethan. Brb, bathroom. Nothing went out after that.
Something crunched behind him. Ilya spun, hand resting on the pistol inside his jacket, but there was no one there. Just wind moving past him.
The the burner phone rang.
The sound was shockingly loud in the empty lot, it had an old school trill that cut sharply through the silence. He pulled it out - unknown number, no caller ID. Ilya's thumb hovered over the key pad before accepting the call. He didn't say a word, just listened.
"Rozanov," a Russian voice rang low and deep, "long time to see."
Ilya's grip tightened until the plastic creaked. "Where is she?"
The man chuckled. "Safe, Ilya. So long as you comply."
"If you hurt her-" Ilya spat.
"Then don't give me a reason to. Children are fragile Rozanov, you know that better than most." Ilya stayed silent, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. "You have forty-eight hours. We will be in touch with instructions. And Ilya? Don't think about running again."
The line went dead. Ilya stood in the empty lot trying to grapple with what he had just heard. He looked down at the cracked screen of Irina's phone and closed his eyes once. His baby girl was somewhere, probably scared out of her mind, and probably thinking her that her Dads have no idea she's even in trouble.
Ilya drove home through the empty streets, shaking in silence. Both phone sat on the passenger seat next to him.
Shane would be waking soon, and there would be no pretending that everything was still normal.