Chapter 4
Anton
Concrete sweats down here. The walls bleed damp, the floor smells of piss, and the single bulb overhead flickers just enough to make a man think the dark is about to swallow him whole. Appropriate, considering who’s sitting in the chair.
Viktor Kozlov. Accountant. Middleman. Thief.
Igor gave me forty-eight hours. That was Friday at noon.
Which means the clock’s already bleeding out.
We bagged Viktor before the deadline, hours ago, but walking him in now would be suicide.
Timofey would carve him up before he opened his mouth.
I need what he knows before anyone else does. Which means I need more time.
I pull out my phone, thumb hovering over the encrypted line.
Second lie. That’s all it is. Another crack in the leash. Still tracking him. Need another day. The words punch out flat, clipped. I hit send before I can talk myself out of it.
The reply comes fast. Too fast.
Igor: Sloppy, Anton. You’re losing your edge. Monday. No later.
My jaw grinds. My thumb digs into the phone so hard the plastic creaks. Losing my edge? After everything I’ve cleaned up for him? After the bodies I’ve burned, the messes I’ve buried?
I shove the phone back in my pocket before I crush it.
I drag my gaze up, fix it on Viktor sagging forward like dead weight.
His wrists are zip-tied to the arms of the chair, ankles bound to the legs.
He’s hanging limply, shirt clinging wet with sweat, eyes darting every time the bulb stutters.
A bruise blooms purple across his jaw. And his pants…
yeah. He didn’t make it. Dima did his work.
Quiet, efficient. Just enough pain to break his bladder and leave him stinking like the coward he is.
The sour stench hits the back of my throat the moment I open the steel door.
Pathetic.
But even pathetic men can burn down empires if they open their mouths to the wrong people. That’s the problem.
He jerks up when he hears my boots. “Anton! Please listen; it wasn’t me. I swear to God, I just did what I was told.” His voice cracks, raw from hours of begging. “You know me. You know I’d never cross Igor. Never. I was only moving numbers. That’s all. Just… just instructions.”
I don’t answer. I step closer, slow, deliberate, so he can hear the echo of my soles grinding against the concrete. Let him stew in it.
His breathing hitches.
“I’ll tell you everything. I’ll name names. Timofey. It was him. That Igor didn’t need to know—” His words spill out in a rush, sloppy, desperate. He’s already cut his own throat.
Because now I know two things: One, Viktor won’t make it to Igor alive. Not with that name on his lips. Two, Timofey will do whatever it takes to erase him before that happens.
And men like Timofey don’t fail.
Viktor’s head drops, shoulders shaking. He whispers something like a prayer, though I doubt God listens down here. Not with me in the room.
He keeps mumbling, rocking the chair like it’ll sprout wheels and roll him the fuck out of here.
“I just followed instructions… only instructions. I didn’t steal… I didn’t take…” His lips tremble, spit catching in the corner of his mouth. His eyes won’t stay still; they jerk from the floor to me, back to the door, like he’s measuring how far he’d get before my bullet reaches his spine.
I lean against the wall, arms folded. Silent.
Men break faster when they’re forced to fill the quiet with their own fear.
Viktor swallows hard, throat working. “Anton, please, you know me. You know I’d never—”
“I know you’re a thief,” I cut in, low. My voice bounces off the concrete, makes him flinch. “And a coward. And a liar.”
He shakes his head fast. “No, no, no—”
“Da. You think Igor gives a shit if you ‘just followed instructions’? Think Timofey will protect you once your mouth runs?” I tilt my head, watch his skin pale. “Suka, you’re already dead. You just haven’t figured out where your grave is yet.”
The chair squeals under his weight as he thrashes. “It was Timofey! He set it up! I was only the middleman! Please, you have to believe me, Anton—”
“Believe you?” I push off the wall, close the space in three steps, crouch so my face is level with his. He reeks of sweat, piss, terror. His pupils are blown wide, darting like a cornered rat.
“You shit yourself in the first hour. You’d sell your own mother for half a chance at another breath. And you want me to believe a single fucking word out of your mouth?”
His chin wobbles. Tears shine. He nods anyway, like a desperate child.
I study him, jaw tight. Viktor Kozlov was supposed to be a simple job. Drag him in, beat the truth out, follow the money, report back to Igor. Clean, efficient.
But now the truth’s bleeding out of him faster than his nose. The money trail is clear. Timofey’s prints are all over it. And that, Igor will never accept. He won’t believe his own blood could gut him from the inside.
Which means this isn’t a job anymore. It’s a fucking minefield. If Viktor makes it to Igor alive, it’ll be war inside the Bratva before we even hit the streets. If he dies too fast, we lose leverage. Either way, Timofey won’t let him breathe long enough to make the choice.
And yet—against my better judgment—my mind flicks somewhere else. Not to Viktor. To her. Mary.
The way her body trembled under my hands last night. The way she looked at me—half-fear, half-trust—like she didn’t know if I’d ruin her or save her.
Chyort. What the fuck is wrong with me? Thinking about her when I should be planning how to keep this bastard alive just long enough to be useful.
The door screeches open, metal grinding against metal.
Lev strolls in like it’s a Sunday matinee, flipping a knife between his fingers. The smell hits him, too, and he wrinkles his nose.
“Suka blyat. Did he shit himself already?” He grins, flashing teeth at me. “You’re slipping, Anton. Usually, they hold it till Round Two.”
Viktor flinches, whimpering. Lev ignores him, leans against the wall like he’s got all the time in the world.
“What can I do here, boss?”
Viktor starts to babble again, voice high, desperate. Lev cuts it off with a flick of his knife, the blade thunking into the wall inches from Viktor’s head. The man yelps, piss-darkened pants spreading wetter.
I grunt. “He doesn’t talk unless I say so.”
Lev smirks, pulling his knife free. “Da, boss.”
I step back, wiping my hands down my shirt. “Double the watch. He breathes until I say otherwise. Not before.”
Lev’s eyebrows lift. “You sure? Man looks like he’ll drop dead if the wind changes.”
“Then keep the wind steady,” I snap.
He chuckles, low, mocking. “Such care. Almost sounds like you don’t want him gone.”
I level him with a stare that could stop a charging bull. Then I push the door open, the stink following us out into the concrete hallway. Lev falls into step beside me, knife flipping easily in his fingers.
For a while, it’s just the echo of our boots. Then Lev whistles low. “So. You finally got laid.”
I don’t bite. Silence is better.
He grins sideways, sharp as a blade. “Not denying it? Christ, took you long enough. Boss, I was starting to worry.”
I shoot him a look.
Lev smirks, unbothered. “Don’t glare at me like that. I’m happy for you, really. Just never thought I’d see the day The Reaper finally put his dick somewhere that didn’t end in a body bag.”
“Lev,” I growl.
“What?” Lev spreads his hands, mock surrender. “I like her too. She’s funny. Pretty. But that soft shit doesn’t keep you breathing out here. You know it, boss. No training? She’s a corpse waiting to happen.”
I stop. Turn. My eyes lock on him, hard enough to make him shut up for a second.
“She’s not dying. Not while I’m breathing.”
Lev grins, sharp and merciless. “Then get her off the fucking sidelines. First lesson? Try not to drop the gun. Because right now, she’d probably shoot herself before the enemy does.”
I grunt low in my throat, more to shut him up than anything else. He’s right, but I won’t give him the satisfaction.
By the time I hit the stairwell, my hand’s already on my phone. Feels strange, heavier than it should, dialing her. Talking to women has never been my weakness. I fuck them, I dismiss them, I forget them. Simple. But this one…
Mary.
The woman I fucked half the night. The woman still in my sheets, probably aching, probably glaring at that cat of hers like it’s my fault. I can almost smell her skin even now—soap, sweat, sex. My cock stirs, traitorous, already aching for her again.
Chyort. I drag a hand over my face, try to push it back down.
Business. Keep it business.
The line connects.
“Mary.”
Her name tastes different in my mouth. Softer than it should be. I shouldn’t like saying it, but I do. Too much.
Her voice freezes, tight. I can hear her pulse through the silence.
“Y-yes?”
Small, tentative. Scared again.
Not the way she sounded last night when she was begging for more. Not the way she sounded when she was coming apart on my cock.
This is different. This is weakness.
And it grates the fuck out of me. Because if she sounds like that with me, how the hell will she sound with a barrel pointed at her head?
She makes some nervous joke, trying to cover it. I hear it in her breath, in the way the words stumble out. Like she knows she’s in over her head and doesn’t know how to swim.
My cock still wants her. But my brain… my brain knows I’ve got work to do.
A lot of work.
“Twenty minutes,” I tell her, and hang up before she can ask anything else.
My thumb hovers over the screen for half a second. Then I switch threads, pull up Dima.
Pick her up. Twenty minutes. Bring her to the floor at Charleston.
The reply comes almost before I can pocket the phone.
Already outside.
Of course he is. That’s Dima. Quiet as a ghost, always too close, always watching. She’ll never know he’s been shadowing her since last night. Hell, maybe longer.
Give her something small before you bring her. Protein bar. Banana. Nothing heavy.
Another pause. Then:
You’re making her train on an empty stomach?
I don’t want her puking all over my floor.
I fire back.
Dima’s answer is immediate, flat:
Da.
I shove the phone into my pocket, muttering, “She’ll live.”
Because if Mary’s going to survive what’s coming, she won’t have the luxury of being afraid.