Rain lashes against the window of the Bloomsbury flat, blurring the London skyline into a smear of grey and amber. Anya Korovin rubs her eyes, the blue light of her laptop screen stinging after six hours of coding her thesis draft. The silence of the apartment is a shield she has spent four years perfecting. Here, she is just another PhD candidate, not a name whispered in the shadowed corners of Moscow. She is safe behind a fortress of academic journals and cold tea.
A floorboard groans in the hallway. It is a sharp, heavy sound that does not belong to the building's usual settling. Anya freezes, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. She has not ordered food. She has no visitors scheduled for midnight. The rhythm of her pulse shifts, a frantic hammering against her ribs that feels older than her degree. It is nothing, she tells herself, yet her hand moves instinctively toward the heavy silver letter opener resting on a stack of papers.
The footsteps are deliberate, unhurried, and stop directly outside her entrance. There is no knock, only the terrifying weight of a presence waiting on the other side of the oak. Anya holds her breath, watching the threshold as if the wood might give way. A broad shadow eclipses the sliver of light under her door.
