10 Days to Surrender (Ozerov Bratva #2)

40. Sasha

40

SASHA

I can’t sleep.

My mind churns with maps and markers—New York, splayed out in my head like a buffet. I know every fucking block of my city. I know where the money comes from and where it goes. I know who gets to take a nibble of it as it passes through their hands and who doesn’t. I know which plate it all ends up on.

For fifteen years, the answer to that has been “mine.” My plate is where the feast ends up. Ever since I snatched Jasmine from Dragan’s maw and set her free, it’s all been mine, mine, mine .

Shit has changed now.

Dragan flipped the buffet table when he slaughtered Leander in front of us and pumped his bullets into my body. It’s been a fucking mess ever since, and I’ve been too weak to storm back in and clean it up. That hasn’t stopped me from dreaming of it—almost every night for eight months now, between dreams of Ariel, I’ve dreamed of him. Of rubbing that bastard’s face in the disaster he created until he suffocates in it, drowns in it. But I’ve been too powerless to make it happen. A dead man walking. A broken puppet.

Now, though, my body is almost ready. But Dragan isn’t going to just give me back my seat at the table. I’m going to have to take it. It’s going to cost me blood and a pound of flesh, maybe more.

I know all that.

So explain to me why I’m wondering, for the first time in my life… am I willing to pay that price?

I know what Yakov would answer. He’d call me a fucking coward, a pussy, a disgrace to the Ozerov name. Hell, he might be right.

But on the other hand, Yakov is food for the worms in half a dozen different unmarked graves right now. So who gives a damn what he’d say? I care more about a different opinion these days.

And she’s sleeping right next to me.

Dragan’s smirking face fades from memory as I open my eyes and look down at Ariel’s shadow in the darkness. She’s all curves these days. The curve of her hip, her belly, her cheek, her lip. If it was up to me, I’d keep her in bed for the rest of our lives so I could memorize every single one of them.

She might let me. She’s got my hand clutched in hers, even though she’s mid-slumber, and it doesn’t look like she has any intention of letting go. If I woke her up right now and told her I’d give up everything, every last square inch of my kingdom, what would she call me?

Like she can hear the question throbbing in my head, she moans, stirs, and tucks herself into me. That’s an answer. It’s enough for her that I’m here right now. When I wrote notes in that Lamaze class, it was enough for her. When I carry her up the stairs, that’s enough for her. If we’re fucking or cuddling, stargazing or smashing grapes in a sun-soaked vineyard, so long as I’m by her side, that’s enough.

But what if it’s not enough? What if I want more—not for me, never for me, but for her? For our children?

What if I want to give them the whole fucking world on a silver platter? What if I have to die to keep them safe?

What does “enough” mean then?

There are no answers in the darkness. There are only cracks in the ceiling, summer breeze kissing the roof, and owls outside flitting from tree to tree.

Then, out of nowhere, there’s something else.

A creak.

Something shifting in the darkness.

Most people wouldn’t notice it. Just another groan in an old house’s nightly symphony of settling wood and aging stone. But I’ve spent eight long weeks learning the language of this place. I know damn fucking well that this sound doesn’t belong.

So I extricate myself from her embrace and slide out from under the covers as slowly as I can. I’m wearing only boxer briefs, so the moonlight streaming through the window lights up my whole body, every last scar and tattoo.

I retrieve a gun from the dresser. Then I stand still and wait, ear cocked.

Silence.

Silence.

… Ctchk.

This one was closer.

I ghost toward the bedroom door, my bare feet silent as I pad over the floorboards. The villa’s layout unfolds in my mind. Seven entry points on the ground floor. Three sets of stairs. Two viable escape routes from the second story if things go sideways.

But they won’t. Because whatever threat has breached our sanctuary will stop breathing as soon as I put a bullet in its skull.

I look back one final time at Ariel.

Sleep well, ptichka . Let me handle the darkness.

I float down the stairs, avoiding the ones that squeak. Two steps shy of the ground floor, I pause. There it is again—the squeak of a rubber sole on the kitchen tile.

When I stoop low enough to stick my head out without drawing attention, I catch a glimpse of a shadow prowling toward the living room. He’s backlit by the garden lights, the fucking fool. Only an amateur would let his silhouette precede him.

But amateur bullets kill just as fast as a professional’s do. I have no intention of letting that happen.

A second shadow springs up to join the first. So the motherfucker brought a friend. That’s fine—I brought a whole clip of ammunition. Plenty to spare for both of them. I crouch on the bottom stair with my breath suppressed as I wait for the intruders to step into the line of fire.

As I wait, eight weeks of playing house flash through my mind. Eight weeks of gardening and cooking and rubbing Ariel’s swollen feet. Eight weeks of pretending I’m not what I am.

But I know what I am. I’m the man who will paint these walls red to keep her safe.

The intruder’s boot appears. In the shadows above him, I adjust my grip on the Glock. The weight feels good. My hand knows what shape to take, how hard to squeeze the trigger. It’s not anger flooding my system now—it’s the calm, cold certainty of knowing what I was born to do.

The only thing that’s changed is the reason why.

I think of Ariel sleeping upstairs, belly round with my children. Think of how vulnerable she’d be if these fuckers got past me.

This is the old, familiar ice, yes.

But this ice is colder than it’s ever been.

I sight down the barrel. The first one straightens up, reaching back to help his partner. His throat is exposed. Perfect.

I move.

Two silent steps down. One more. The old stairs don’t dare whine under my feet. I am shadow. I am death.

I am what Yakov made me.

The second man’s head appears in the window. His eyes widen as he spots me.

Too late.

My first shot takes him in the throat. The sound is muffled by the suppressor—just a wet thwip that ends in a bloody gurgle. He flops back into the garden, leaving his partner alone.

The survivor spins, blade already drawn. Fast. But not nearly fast enough.

I grab his knife hand and slam it into the counter’s edge. Bone crunches and the blade clatters to the floor. His mouth opens to scream. I shove my gun between his teeth.

His eyes are liquid with the purest kind of animal fear. There’s not a man present in this mind anymore—there is only a frightened beast realizing just how many mistakes paved the path that brought him to me tonight.

“I agree,” I snarl at him. “You fucked up.”

Then I pull the trigger.

Thwip.

The man goes slithering to the floor. I stand over his cooling corpse, watching crimson pool beneath what remains of his shattered skull. The blood spreads in a perfect circle across the Italian tile, like a dark halo.

But when I bend down and rip the ski mask off, it’s not the grizzled Serbian face I expected to see. This boy—because that’s what he is, a fucking boy, scarcely old enough for his beard to fill in—is still wide-eyed in death. He can’t be more than twenty-five at most. Local, by the looks of him.

I frown.

There has to be something here—a phone, a note, some scrap of evidence linking this back to Dragan. The Serbs must have hired local muscle to do their dirty work.

But as I turn out his pockets, my certainty begins to waver. No burner phone. No orders written in Serbian. Just a cheap leather wallet containing thirty euros and a crumpled photo of some local girl. Even the gun in his hand is laughably cheap.

There’s only one conclusion to be drawn: This wasn’t some calculated strike against me. This was just a stupid kid who picked the wrong house to rob, who had no idea what kind of monster was waiting in the darkness.

I sit back on my heels, suddenly tired. All this death. All this blood. The familiar ice in my veins feels heavy now. Unnecessary. Like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly.

But what choice did I have? Even a petty thief could have hurt Ariel. Even a local thug’s bullet could have found her heart.

I straighten back upright and remind myself not to mourn for him. Who gives a fuck if he’s young? If he’s stupider than he was cruel? He ventured where he shouldn’t have and he paid the price.

I cannot and will not apologize for that.

As I stand there and look down at his face, I wait for the pain to come. My legs should wobble. My gut should sting. All the things Dragan did to me in that frigid back alley should be agonizing, the way they’ve been for eight long months now.

But the pain never arrives. More importantly, my hands didn’t shake. Not once. Not when I pulled the trigger, not when I crushed his knife hand, not even now as I holster my weapon.

There’s only one conclusion to be drawn from that, too: I am ready.

These past eight weeks of playing house in Tuscany, they were necessary. So was my time in Kosti’s safehouse in Vermont before that. The physical therapy, the rest, the careful rebuilding of damaged muscle and tissue—it all served its purpose. But that chapter is over now.

It’s time to go home. Time to take back what’s mine.

Because this is not the first wave of men who will come for what’s mine. Thug or not, there will be more after that, and more after those, until these hills are crawling with parasites who think they can steal from my plate.

No.

Fucking.

More.

No. I’m going back to my home, and when I set foot on that shore, I will be what I’ve always been: Sasha fucking Ozerov, the man who brought the Serbian empire to its knees fifteen years ago. The man who will do it again—but permanently this time.

I wipe blood from my hands with mechanical efficiency. Upstairs, Ariel sleeps peacefully, unaware of how close danger crept to our door tonight. She’ll never know—I’ll have the bodies disposed of before sunrise.

But this is the wake-up call I needed. We can’t stay here forever, playing at normal life while Dragan consolidates his power. The time for healing is over.

The time for war has begun.

I pull out my phone and text Feliks: Pack your bags. We leave for New York in 24 hours.

Then I get a rag and start to mop up the blood.