Chapter 1: The Ghost of Lastochka

Chapter 1: The Ghost of Lastochka

The Maybach purred to a silent stop on the overgrown gravel path. Aleksandr Sokolov did not move, his gaze fixed through the tinted window. Outside, under a brooding Ukrainian sky, the skeletal remains of a gate sagged on rusted hinges. A sign, half-swallowed by ivy, still bore faded Cyrillic letters: Піонерський табір «Ластівка».

Pioneer Camp “Lastochka.” The Swallow.

A bird that was supposed to fly home.

“Sir? We’re here,” said the driver, his crisp English accent a stark anomaly in this forgotten corner of the world.

Alex gave a curt nod, his eyes still locked on the ruin. He was a man sculpted by London’s unforgiving corporate world, dressed in a Tom Ford suit that cost more than the average local earned in a decade. His face was all sharp angles and guarded control, yet the weariness in his eyes was a tell, a hairline fracture in an otherwise flawless marble facade.

“Wait here,” he commanded, his voice a low rumble.

He stepped out, the scent of damp earth, pine needles, and decay instantly flooding his senses. It was a perfume he hadn't smelled in twenty-two years, yet it was as familiar as his own name. He walked towards the gate, his polished Italian leather shoes crushing weeds and fallen leaves.

Beyond the gate stood the main hall. Its windows were dark, vacant eyes. But it was the mural on the building’s side that held him captive. Cracked and peeling, ravaged by time and weather, it depicted a group of Young Pioneers. Boys and girls with red scarves tied neatly around their necks, their faces beaming with manufactured joy, marching towards a sun emblazoned with a hammer and sickle. The slogan beneath them, though faded, was still legible: Наше майбутнє — світле! Our future is bright.

Alex let out a short, humourless laugh. The bright future had crumbled along with the plaster it was painted on.

He reached up and touched the cool, rough surface of the wall, his fingertips tracing the outline of a smiling boy’s face. The plaster dust felt like grit against his skin, and the world seemed to tilt, the sound of the wind in the pine trees deepening into a roar, the scent of decay sharpening into the smell of cheap canteen food and woodsmoke.

---

Kharkiv, 1986.

The bus rattled and groaned, kicking up a cloud of summer dust. Sixteen-year-old Sashka—not Alex, not Aleksandr Viktorovich Sokolov, the billionaire terror of boardrooms, but just Sashka—slouched in his seat, a thundercloud of resentment hanging over him. He had been exiled. His father, a factory foreman with hands like leather and a belief in the Party as solid as forged steel, had decreed it. A summer at Pioneer Camp Lastochka would “straighten him out,” burn the Western cynicism out of him with patriotic songs and forced camaraderie.

Sashka thought it was a prison sentence.

He stepped off the bus into a cacophony of organised cheer. Children in crisp uniforms were being herded into lines by older teenagers, the Pioneer leaders, distinguished by their confident posture and the vivid red of their scarves. The camp director, a portly woman with a voice that could shatter glass, was barking welcomes through a megaphone.

Sashka hung back, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his expression a carefully constructed mask of boredom. He felt an alien here. He listened to smuggled tapes of The Smiths and read forbidden, photocopied Orwell. These smiling, compliant children were a different species.

“New arrival! Get in line with Squad 4!” a peppy girl with blonde braids ordered, pointing a finger at him.

Sashka just stared at her until she flushed and looked away. He had no intention of joining Squad 4 or any other squad. He was already planning his escape route, calculating the distance to the nearest train station.

“Is there a problem, comrade?”

The voice was different. Not shrill or demanding, but calm, with a low, melodic timbre that cut through the surrounding noise. Sashka turned his head slowly.

Standing before him was a Pioneer leader, but he was unlike the others. He was perhaps nineteen, tall and lean, with a way of standing that was relaxed but utterly self-assured. His dark hair was slightly tousled by the breeze, and his uniform seemed to fit him better than the others, as if he wore it with purpose, not just obligation. But it was his eyes that stopped Sashka’s internal monologue cold. They were a deep, intelligent brown, and they weren't looking at him with disapproval. They were looking with an unnerving, focused curiosity.

The red scarf around his neck was a slash of brilliant colour against the pale column of his throat.

“I don’t do squads,” Sashka said, his voice laced with the defiance that was his only armour.

The leader’s mouth tilted in a slight, almost imperceptible smile. “That’s a pity. Squads are where the fun is.” He didn’t sound mocking, but sincere, which was somehow more irritating. “My name is Dima. I’m the leader for Squad 4.”

Sashka felt a strange, unfamiliar jolt. He’d expected a lecture, a threat, a drag to the back of the line. He had not expected a conversation. He had certainly not expected to feel his own name lodge in his throat.

“I’m Sashka,” he finally managed to grit out.

“Sashka,” Dima repeated, the name sounding different on his lips. “From Kharkiv?”

“How did you know?” Sashka asked, suspicion sharpening his tone.

“Your file,” Dima said simply. “It said you were… spirited.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over Sashka’s defiant posture, the challenging glint in his eyes. “It didn’t do you justice.”

Before Sashka could formulate a suitably sarcastic reply, Dima’s attention was called away. “Dimitri Volkov! We’re starting the flag-raising!”

Dima gave Sashka one last look, a look that held a universe of unspoken things. It wasn’t a challenge, not exactly. It was an invitation. To what, Sashka had no idea. Then he turned and jogged towards the flagpole, his movements fluid and athletic.

Sashka stood frozen, watching him go. The simmering anger inside him had been doused, replaced by a bewildering, electric hum. He’d come here ready to fight a system, an ideology. He was utterly unprepared to be disarmed by a single person’s gaze. He felt a sudden, sharp awareness of his own body—the too-fast beat of his heart, the heat rising in his cheeks. He unconsciously rubbed the inside of his left wrist, where a small, silvery scar from a childhood fall puckered the skin. It was a nervous habit he thought he’d outgrown.

This camp, this patriotic prison, had just become infinitely more complicated. And infinitely more dangerous.

---

Back in the present, the wind whipped a loose strand of dark hair across Aleksandr Sokolov’s face. He was still standing before the mural, his hand fallen to his side, clenched into a tight fist. The ghost of that 16-year-old boy, so full of impotent rage and a terrifying, dawning desire, felt so close he could almost touch him.

He had built an empire to insulate himself from that boy, from the raw vulnerability he represented. He had buried him under layers of wealth, power, and cynical detachment. But here, in the ruins of Lastochka, the ghost was walking again.

His phone buzzed. He pulled it out, the sleek black device a jarring piece of the 21st century in this graveyard of the 20th. It was his assistant.

He answered without looking at the screen. “Yes.”

“Sir, the sellers are getting anxious. They have another offer on the table. They need a final decision.”

Alex’s gaze drifted from the mural to the main path leading deeper into the camp, towards the woods where secrets were once whispered. For two decades, he had convinced himself he’d forgotten. That Dima had forgotten. A summer fling. A youthful mistake. A footnote in a life defined by acquisitions and victory.

But standing here, he knew it was a lie. It wasn’t a footnote. It was the entire story.

He had come here telling himself it was a shrewd real estate deal, a nostalgic whim. Now, the real motive stood before him, as stark and undeniable as the ruin itself. He needed to own this place, to possess its ghosts, to excavate the truth he had spent a lifetime burying.

“Buy it,” Aleksandr Sokolov said, his voice cold and absolute. “I don’t care what it costs. Just buy it.”