The Traitor's Daughter

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Mochat Doma - Судно

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Snow had been falling since dawn thin flakes mixed with ash from the factory chimneys of District III welcoming the first day in Krasnovar. The same sounds of activity always rose: the creak of train rails, the roar of factory engines, and the footsteps of thousands of workers rushing toward a place they cursed every day, for the filthy wages they always received in exchange for a mouthful of food that demanded two months of their labor.

Iveline Scarapova swept the concrete floor of the northern port office with a broom whose bristles had worn thin. Her work uniform was two sizes too large. The long sleeves covered her wrists down to the base of her thumbs, the hem dangled at her knees. Her black hair was cut short and tied carelessly at the back.

Among the port workers men built like refrigerators, walking with shoulders as wide as doorways Iveline was nearly invisible.

Invisibility was her only purpose.

She swept with a constant rhythm the posture of someone who had done this work for years, who knew exactly how much pressure was needed to keep the broom from squeaking against the floor. Her hazel eyes moved slowly, scanning the room without turning her head. Her ears recorded every sound, every sigh, every whisper that fell from the mouths of people who treated her as part of the furniture.

In the corner of the room, a thin man in his thirties stood with his head bowed before the warehouse manager. His face was flushed red, his hands clenched at his sides.

"Do you know how much has gone missing from this week's shipments?" The manager's voice was loud, full of anger performed for an audience. "Twenty percent! And you're responsible!"

"I didn't—"

"No excuses!" The manager cut him off, pointing at the door. "Get out before I fire you!"

The thin man walked out with slumped shoulders, his eyes red with suppressed rage. Iveline stopped her work, waited until he had passed through the empty corridor, then followed him from behind with quiet steps.

She stopped right beside him when they reached the empty back area of the warehouse. A place without security patrols only stacks of moldy wooden pallets, the smell of salt clinging to the walls, and a corner invisible from the main guard post.

"They take two percent from every shipment you oversee," Iveline whispered, her voice low and certain. "You know it. They know you know it. And they keep doing it as if you don't exist. They always do because it's easier to step on the weaker ones."

The man turned, his eyes widening with anger and suspicion. "Who are you?"

Iveline didn't answer. She unbuttoned the top two buttons of her uniform, just enough to reveal the gunshot scar on her right shoulder scar tissue that had hardened, but whose shape was still unmistakable.

The man gasped.

"Not because I've heard about it," Iveline said, buttoning her uniform back up. "But because I've felt it."

The man moved slowly, following Iveline to a more secluded spot. When they reached the far corner, behind a stack of old containers with peeling paint, she stopped.

"I know where they hide the records that prove the embezzlement," she said. "And I know someone who can give them to you. If you're willing to do something for me."

The man swallowed, his eyes darting, searching for a way out. "What do you want?"

"Later." Iveline turned. "For now, you only need to know that you're not alone."

She walked away without waiting for an answer. Desperate people didn't need much pushing. They only needed a reason to explode and Iveline had just given him one.

One pawn was already on the board. And Iveline knew exactly where it would move.

She continued her work before walking home toward the house she never wanted to call home. She wanted to erase the image of that house, but she couldn't.

The house was still standing.

At the end of Kirov Street, District II a row of cracked red-brick buildings, windows boarded shut, streets never cleared of snow.

House number seventeen was no larger than the others. Two floors, a rusted tin roof, an iron fence leaning left because tree roots had pushed through its foundation.

Iveline opened the front door with the key she kept sewn into the inner lining of her coat. The key was fifteen years old, and she had never replaced it.

The air inside was cold and dusty. The furniture was still in the same place as the last time she had seen it—a wooden dining table with four chairs, an old brown sofa whose back was torn open, a bookshelf tilted under its own weight. On the living room wall, a family photo in a wooden frame still hung. Her father stood behind, his hand on her mother's shoulder. Young Iveline stood in the center, grinning wide with two missing front teeth.

On the living room floor, there was still a dark stain no one had ever been able to clean. A stain that had dried, hardened, turned the wood almost black.

Iveline sat on the floor, her back against the leg of the sofa, right beside that stain. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and stared at the opposite wall.

She didn't cry. She hadn't cried in a long time.

She only sat. One hour. Two hours. Sometimes until dawn. Sometimes until she forgot why she had come.

Her right shoulder throbbed the bullet wound from fifteen years ago, which somehow always chose moments like this to remind her that she was still alive. A heat that spread from her shoulder blade to her fingertips. She didn't push it away. That pain was the only thing left from that night that she could still feel physically.

---

The next morning, Iveline returned to the port. Punctuality was the best machine to lure her motivation back, even when she didn't want it. She remembered her work schedule precisely. Six o'clock sharp. She always arrived first—before the workers, before the supervisors, before anyone. A habit that had never changed in the past three months. Since she had decided to play openly.

As she walked past the break room—a room that didn't even deserve to be called a break room. What could be expected from a narrow space with a folding table, a broken thermos, and a yellowed party propaganda poster? Nothing. But her eyes caught something.

An old man sat on a folding chair in the corner. He was around sixty, his hair entirely white, his face full of deep wrinkles like carved wood. He was rolling up his sleeve, and when the fabric lifted, Iveline saw the ink on his wrinkled skin.

A thorned rose wrapped around an inverted cross.

Iveline's steps halted for a fraction of a second. Her heart, which usually beat with the constant rhythm of a machine, jumped once slamming hard against her chest, painful, as if something had struck her bone from within.

The muscle of her right shoulder throbbed instantly. Heat spread from her shoulder blade to her fingertips. Her fingers clenched behind her uniform until her nails pierced the skin of her palm.

She recognized that tattoo.

She had recognized it since she was fourteen, standing in the blood of both her parents on the living room floor of their home. The night before they died, her father had shown Iveline an old photograph. His voice was quiet, full of warning.

"Remember this tattoo, Iveline. This is the mark of the secret cleaners. The ones sent to erase members who don't obey."

That man was the same man. The one who had stood in the doorway of their home that night. The one who had shot her father first, then her mother. Then watched his friend shoot Iveline in the right shoulder after which they left, certain that the twelve-year-old girl was surely dead.

Now that man sat in the port break room, laughing freely while drinking vodka from a bottle he hid in his work bag, telling stories about his life to younger workers as if everything he had done in the past was a medal of honor.

Iveline stood in the doorway, silent, for three full seconds. She didn't move. She didn't breathe. Her face remained flat, empty, like a lowly worker who happened to pass by.

Then she turned, continued her steps toward the warehouse, and began sweeping the floor.

Her hands trembled. But her broom did not squeak.

---

That night, Iveline sat in the back room of Mizakael's underground clinic a narrow space that smelled of alcohol, medicine, and wet earth. Mizakael himself was a thirty-five-year-old man with blond hair beginning to gray and hands that were always clean despite working in a place like this. He didn't ask why Iveline had come at night with a pale face. He only poured tea into a cracked cup and set it on the table.

"You found him," Mizakael said. He didn't need to ask.

Iveline didn't answer. She took a piece of paper from her coat pocket, laid it on the table, and began writing in black ink. Her writing was rough, sharp, full of insult deliberately aimed.

If you want to know who's causing trouble, come to the northern warehouse at 21:00. Alone. Morozovich.

Iveline reread the sentence with a thin smile on her face. Mizakael heard her.

"You know calling him that will really lure him out," Mizakael said. "But there's a price."

Iveline lit a cigarette while her hand reached into her bag. She pulled out the old metal seal of Dom Morozovykh she had stolen from the archive warehouse three years ago. The seal had not been produced for ten years, and only certain people knew it had ever existed. She pressed the folded paper against the back of the seal, applied glue carefully, then placed everything into a brown envelope.

She stood.

"I know the price I'm paying, Miza. And I hope the only thing you need to prepare is antiseptic and fresh cemetery soil."

Mizakael laughed. Iveline did not.

Laughter was a sin until those people atoned for it.

"You know he'll come," Mizakael said at last, after his laughter faded.

"Yes."

"And you know he'll demand a higher price one that costs your own life."

Iveline stopped at the doorway. She didn't turn.

"He won't kill me tonight. Humiliation and curiosity are his weaknesses."

"Are you sure?"

Iveline turned her head slightly, only half her face visible under the flickering yellow lamp.

"No," she answered honestly. "But I've waited fifteen years. I won't back down just because I'm afraid."

She left the clinic, closed the door behind her, and walked through the snow that was falling harder now.

Her destination was clear and certain: the northern warehouse. The place where she would meet her target for the first time.

She had chosen the northern warehouse because it was nothing but a large building with a tin roof surrounded by a rusted iron fence. A place where old containers were stored, where patrols rarely passed, where people could disappear without a trace and no one would ask questions.

Iveline entered through the unlocked side door. She climbed the tallest container on the west side of the room with agile movements. Her small feet found footholds in the rusted gaps of the metal, her hands grasped the edge of the container with precision that showed this was not her first time. She sat on the cold metal, crossed her legs, and waited.

Wind blew in through the cracks in the walls, carrying the smell of gasoline and gunpowder. Her right shoulder still ached, but she let the pain remind her that she was alive, she had survived, and she had work unfinished.

The watch on her wrist showed 20:55.

Five minutes left.

Iveline wasn't restless. She wasn't afraid. She had waited long enough to strike. But her heart beat a little faster than usual because finally, after all this, she would meet the heir.

Footsteps sounded outside. Heavy rhythm, steady, full of purpose.

The iron door creaked open, and for the first time, Iveline saw her target directly.

That man.

Kirill Morozov entered with a Makarov pistol already cocked in his left hand.

Iveline jumped down from a height of three meters, landing with both knees bent to absorb the impact, then stood directly in front of Kirill at a distance of less than one meter. She had to tilt her head until her neck turned to its maximum to look at Kirill's face.

"Slow," Iveline said without preamble, her voice rough with clear mockery. "I thought the heir of Dom Morozovykh would be faster than this. Or are you really that weak, Morozovich? You had to come alone because no one on your side had the guts to die for you?"

Kirill's dark eyes stared at her without expression. But Iveline saw his pupils dilate slightly a sign that he was processing the threat.

Iveline stepped closer, violating Kirill's personal space. She extended her small right hand, touched the barrel of the Makarov in Kirill's left hand, and pushed it slowly downward.

"Your pistol is heavy, Morozovich," she whispered. "Or is your hand trembling?"

Kirill's eyes dropped. Only for a fraction of a second. Stopped at Iveline's chest.

Iveline grinned. "Oh? You've never seen a woman with big breasts?"

Kirill didn't answer. He only stared at Iveline with a look she couldn't predict.

Iveline studied the details of his face. Thick brows forming a firm line, a straight nose casting shadows on his cheeks, full lips slightly parted as Kirill exhaled.

Iveline fell silent. Her eyes lost focus for a fraction of a second.

And that was when she felt the heat on her left arm.

She looked down. Three red lines, five centimeters long, parallel on the skin of her arm, blood beginning to flow slowly. She looked at Kirill, who was still holding a folding knife in his right hand with a flat expression.

Kirill lowered the knife. His eyes stared at the wound on Iveline's arm with an expression that was hard to read.

"You're stupid," Iveline said, her voice low and full of mockery. "The great heir of Dom Morozovykh, unaware he's wounded a woman. What would your father say about that, Morozovich?"

Kirill didn't answer. He only stared at Iveline, the index finger of his right hand tapping his thigh with a constant rhythm.

Iveline felt the pain from the cut beginning to bother her. She had to retreat. She took two steps back, keeping distance, and stared at Kirill straight.

"Meet me two days from now, in this place," she said.

"I have an offer for you. Save your ego for another time because if you were truly offended, you would have shot me immediately."

She didn't wait for an answer. She turned, walked toward the side door, and disappeared into the snow falling outside leaving Kirill inside with a pistol in his left hand and a knife in his right.

Outside, Iveline walked through the snow with a bleeding arm. Dizziness began to strike, along with the pain in her right shoulder.

Kirill hadn't spoken a single word. Iveline noticed that. But why? She felt as if she had met a machine. Not a man. A machine that calculated every movement, every word, every breath and that had managed to wound her without her realizing it.

That was new.

Iveline groaned softly. She tore the sleeve of her shirt slightly to cover her still-bleeding wound. She looked at the cuts. There were three. The first cut was very thin, the second not too deep, and the third deep enough.

She had to reach Mizakael quickly before she bled out.

Because a small wound was death to her.

And she did not want to die a second time.