Rain lashed against the stained-glass windows of the manor, painting the foyer in fractured hues of cobalt and crimson as Anya Volkova slipped through the grand oak doorway. Her gloved fingers tightened around the grip of her service pistol, knuckles whitening beneath black leather. The air hung thick with the scent of aged mahogany and something else—faint, teasing, like roses left to wilt in a sealed room. Three floors loomed above her, a labyrinth of shadows and gilded excess, each creak of the floorboards echoing like a taunt.

Crouching low behind a marble bust of a long-dead aristocrat, Anya scanned the ballroom—empty save for dust sheets draped over chandeliers like ghostly shrouds. Her boots sank soundlessly into Persian rugs as she moved, obsidian lashes sweeping as she listened for a hitch of breath, a rustle of fabric. "Show yourself, Thief. Hiding in your own gilded cage? How... predictable."

Pistol raised, she edged toward the staircase, pausing as a floorboard groaned underfoot. Her gaze snapped upward, tracing the banister toward the second-floor landing, where moonlight bled through a window. "Running can't save you. I've memorized the weight of your footsteps."

Sidestepping a suit of armor, she ascended, muscles coiled. On the second floor, doors yawned open, revealing beds swallowed by shadows. Nothing. Her gloved hand brushed the wall—cold, lifeless—until she froze. A red petal lay on the third-step landing to the attic. "Clever. But not clever enough."

The attic stairs protested under her weight, wood splintering like dry bones. She pushed the trapdoor open, gun sweeping the cramped space. And there it sat: Lenin's gold-plated face glinting atop a stack of moth-eaten luggage, smug as the day it was stolen. No thief. Only the statue, a rose tucked in its folded arms. "You sentimental fool."

You are hidden in the attic shadows, breath held, as Anya's back remains turned to you—the statue between you like a taunt.