Nikita Von James Access

She picked up her pen.

Nikita did not attend. She was in a small flat in Edinburgh, drinking tea that Samir would have made better, staring at a blank sheet of music paper. She had stopped playing piano years ago. But she still wrote.

Nikita did not cry. She added a name to her list. nikita von james

She sat across from him. Placed a folder on the desk. Inside: seventeen names, five locations, three dates. And one more thing—a photograph of Sokolov, taken from a distance, shaking hands with a man whose face was blurred but whose insignia was not. Interpol.

“I’ve been building a case for six years,” Nikita said. “Not against you. For you.” She picked up her pen

The silence stretched. Outside, a bird sang—stupid, hopeful, alive.

At eighteen, she left for university in London. Her father was proud—prouder than she’d ever seen him. “My clever girl,” he said, kissing her forehead. His lips were dry. “You’ll go far.” She had stopped playing piano years ago

By sixteen, Nikita had catalogued seventeen names, five locations, and three dates of “shipments” that didn’t appear on any legitimate manifest. She had learned to pick the lock on her father’s study, to photograph documents with a disposable camera, to replace them so perfectly that even his paranoia didn’t twitch. She had also learned that her mother’s “accidental” fall down the stairs two years ago had been no accident. It had been a warning. To Leonid. Stay in line.