Chapter 1 The wreckage

Rain had a way of making ruin look poetic. It glossed over the charred beams and pooled in the ashen puddles, reflecting a sky the color of bruised steel. Katerina Volkova stood just beyond the perimeter of yellow tape, the collar of her trench coat turned up against the damp chill. In her hands was a professional-grade camera .

The smell was the first thing that hit you—disgustingly acrid and thick, the smell of whatever had burned here still clinging to the air. It was a language she understood. The London Docks were full of scorch marks and structural collapse. This one, a warehouse belonging to "Neva Imports," was just another case file. Or it was supposed to be.

"Total loss, I'm afraid," a voice chirped beside her. Her assistant, Ben, a young man with perpetually wide eyes, gestured with his clipboard. "Forensics says it started in the back office. Electrical fault, most likely."

Katerina didn't answer immediately. She lifted the camera, the click of the shutter a soft, decisive sound in the drizzle. She zoomed in on the skeletal remains of a steel support beam, the metal twisted into a grotesque sculpture by the intense heat. "Most likely isn't 'definitely,' Ben," she said. "Our job is to find the 'definitely.'"

She was good at this. Being an insurance adjuster for Lloyd's meant you had to have a stomach for disaster and an eye for the lie hidden in the wreckage. You pieced together the truth from fragments, from inconsistencies. It was a puzzle, and Katerina loved puzzles. They were clean and logical as she likes to call it. They didn't ask about the five-year void in your memory or the nightmares that sometimes jerked you awake in a cold sweat.

"Right. Of course," Ben stammered, scribbling a note. "The owners are… anxious for a swift resolution."

Aren't they always, Katerina thought. She moved closer to the tape, her boots sinking slightly into the mud. Through the gaping hole where a wall had been, she could see the blackened interior. Desks were reduced to lumps of charcoal, filing cabinets burst open like metallic fruit. It was a like a graveyard of commerce.

Her boss, Mr. Henderson, had been sweating when he’d given her this file this morning. His office, always too warm, had felt suffocating. "The Neva Imports claim, Katerina. It's high priority." He'd mopped his brow with a handkerchief. "The clients are… well, they're Russian. Very… insistent. Just be thorough and be careful."

She'd taken the file, wondering why he was all jittery on the case. Now, at the scene, she understood a little bit. This looks like anything but accident.

For an hour, she worked methodically. Photographing the exterior from every angle, noting the proximity of other buildings, the access points. The fire crew had done their job, but the story was in the details they'd missed. The way the glass from the office window had blown outward, not inward. The peculiar pattern of burn marks on the concrete floor near the loading bay, too localized for a simple electrical fire.

"Ready to head back to the office?" Ben asked, shivering. "We've got the preliminary report from the fire brigade."

Katerina nodded, lowering her camera. As she turned, her eye caught on a glint of metal half-buried in a pile of wet ash near the base of the collapsed office wall. Something that didn't belong with the rest of the debris. She ducked under the tape.

"Kat? We're not supposed to—" Ben called out nervously.

Ignoring him, she knelt, careful not to touch anything. She used a pen from her pocket to gently brush away the soot. It was a lighter. Heavy and solid gold, by the look of it. It was scorched and battered, one side slightly melted. But the engraving was still clear, a falcon in mid-flight, its talons outstretched, a single, diamond set as its eye.

The moment she saw it, her breath hitched.

It was like a key turning in a lock that didn't exist. A jolt of pure, unreasoning fear shot through her, so violent it made her hand tremble. Her stomach clenched. The sounds of the dock, of the distant foghorn, the patter of rain, Ben's worried voice, faded into a dull buzz. All she could see was the falcon and all she could feel was a cold dread that licked up her spine.

"Kat? Are you alright?" Ben was at her side, his hand on her elbow.

She blinked, pulling her gaze away from the lighter, and immediately the world rushed back in. She took a shaky breath, forcing her professional mask back into place. "I'm fine. Just… slipped in the mud." Her voice sounded strange even to her own ears.

She stood up quickly, backing away from the lighter as if it were a live serpent. "Let's go. We have enough for now."

Her heart hammered against her ribs as she walked away, back to the silence of her car, the heater blasting away the chill, she could still see the falcon burned on the back of her eyelids everytime she closed her eyes to stop herself from trembling.

“What the fuck?”

Getting to her minimalist apartment that night, Katerina threw her bag onto the country and poured herself a glass of wine and walked to the small table and took a seat, opening the Neva Imports file, she spread the photos out. The warehouse, the damage reports.

Her fingers hesitated over a particular file, she pulled out the close-up shot of the melted gold lighter she had taken on her phone, a secret she hadn't shared with Ben or Henderson, they would either flip out, since Henderson is done control freak and Ben would shit his pants, scared they'd be found out. She zoomed in until the falcon filled the screen. The diamond eye seemed to stare right back at her, accusatory, and oddly familiar.

She wasn't much of a smoker. Vape? Yes, but cigarettes? Not really.

She sighed.

Why did this thing, this trinket from a fire, scare her more than any nightmare?

She had no answer. Only a deep, unsettling certainty that the orderly life she had built was about to be burned to the ground.