Chapter 6
Mary
The kitchen is the opposite of the firing range; warm, sunlit, welcoming.
Somewhere beneath the adrenaline, I finally notice my stomach rumbling like it’s been abandoned. Which, to be fair, it kind of has.
My ears are still ringing from the gunfire, and every time I lift my arm, my shoulders remind me I actually used them today.
I missed most shots.
Didn’t care. Pulling the trigger felt like opening a pressure valve I didn’t even know was welded shut.
Not because I suddenly love violence or want to join a girl gang, but because…
for once, I wasn’t stuck in my own head.
I wasn’t apologizing. I wasn’t second-guessing. I just aimed, breathed, and fired.
And earlier, Anton’s voice, low in my ear: “You’re not weak, Mary. Not with me.”
It keeps looping in my head, hitting somewhere soft and sore.
He’s right. Maybe not about all of me, but about something.
All the swallowed comebacks. All the days I let someone talk over me. All the ways I made myself small because it felt safer.
And then today, I didn’t. I didn’t shrink. I stood there trembling, and I still pulled the trigger.
I stop just short of the island.
They’ve already piled around it—no plates left clean, so it’s cartons and chopsticks and a stack of paper napkins that look like a failed origami class. Anton’s at the head, completely ignoring the fact that someone wrote “Yum Palace” on the side of the rice box in marker.
“This is shit.” Lev lifts one of the containers and makes a face. “Who orders food from a place called Yum Palace? That’s not a restaurant; that’s a threat.”
Boris, who looks like he hasn’t slept in two days and might actually be coding someone’s surveillance system from memory while he chews, lifts a single sauce packet like he’s presenting evidence in court.
He’s got the dead-eyed exhaustion of someone who works in a Silicon Valley basement, not for the Russian mafia.
“For the record, our usual Sunday spot is closed. I left three separate notes begging for extra chili oil. They sent one.” He shakes it once. “One.”
“You bought it. You can’t roast it now,” Lev says, poking a glossy cube of General Tso’s like it might poke back.
“I tipped for effort,” Boris says. “Which means I’m allowed to critique execution.”
Dima hasn’t touched anything. He’s posted by the fridge, arms crossed, looking like he’s trying to decide which carton is least likely to kill him.
I hover awkwardly for half a second—because sitting and eating like this with four dangerous men isn’t something I trained for—and then my stomach growls again, louder this time, clearly staging a protest.
“Sit.”
Anton doesn’t raise his voice. Doesn’t even look up from whatever container he’s opening. Just says it, low and final, like the word itself has gravity.
But when I glance over, his gaze is already on me. Direct. Steady. There’s no bark in it—no sharp edge. Just… certainty. Like of course I’ll sit, because I’m meant to.
Before I can even move, both Dima and Lev reach for the same chair.
Dima gets there first. Pulls it out with no expression, like this is standard protocol. Lev lets out an exaggerated sigh and throws his hands up.
“Really? I was going to do it with flair,” he says, deadpan. “You robbed her of flair.”
Dima shrugs. “She’s not here for flair.”
“She might be!” Lev looks at me. “Are you here for flair?”
“I-I don’t know?” I manage, laughing as I sit. “I didn’t realize flair was an option.”
It’s ridiculous. It’s nothing. And yet somehow, it feels… weirdly important. Like they’re not just making space at the table; they’re making space for me. No eye rolls. No condescension. No one’s asking me to tone it down or make myself smaller. They’re just… pulling out a chair.
No man’s ever done that for me before, not without expecting something back. Not like this. Not with ease. Not like I’m allowed to exist in the room and take up actual space.
It throws me off more than it should.
Don’t get attached, my brain whispers. They’re criminals, not soulmates.
And besides, I have bigger problems.
Like the fact that someone out there literally wants me dead.
Like the fact that I’m sitting at an overpriced kitchen island with four mafia-adjacent men who want me to sneak a spy device into the corporate laptop of my senior manager.
Like the fact that said manager might be laundering money through my workplace. And my last boss? Oh, right… murdered in front of me.
Also: Jasper’s flying home tomorrow, and he’s going to take one look at me and start asking questions I’m not emotionally equipped to answer.
And, cherry on top: I haven’t taken a Plan B, I forgot my pill three days in a row, and I had unprotected sex with a man who probably has a hit list in his phone notes.
So yeah. That’s a lot.
Still, I’m sitting. I’m eating. And for the first time in a very long time, I don’t feel like I’m intruding.
I feel like I belong.
Which is honestly… way scarier.
The rice is a little dry, the orange chicken too sweet, but I chew anyway, mostly just to give my hands something to do.
My brain’s still cartwheeling. Every time I look up, one of them is talking like this is just…
normal. Like we’re coworkers. Like it’s lunch break at some very intense startup where you occasionally carry a gun instead of a laptop.
I chase a bite of egg roll with a sip of water.
“About the USB—”
“You’re not doing it,” Anton says, cutting in before I can finish.
I blink. “Oh. Okay. I mean, I was going to say I could try again—”
“No.”
He says it without looking up from his container. Like it’s already decided. Like I’m the last one to get the memo.
Lev scoops up another dumpling and points it at me like a gavel. “Which means you officially suck at being bait. Congratulations.”
“Noted,” I mumble, blotting at my shirt with a crumpled napkin.
Somehow, during all the chewing and trauma-digesting, I managed to fling a spot of sauce across my chest. Right under the collarbone. Of course.
I try to scrub it out, which only makes it worse. Now I’ve got an orange smear and a damp patch. Cool. Super casual. Very professional espionage vibes.
I don’t dare look up. Not at Lev. Not at Boris. Definitely not at the six-foot-three Bratva enforcer sitting across from me.
Too late.
Anton watches me like he’s trying not to. Like if he stares too long, he’ll say something he can’t unsay. He doesn’t, though. He reaches out without a word. Pulls a clean napkin from the stack, and passes it to me.
Lev throws a look across the table. “We save her, she feeds us. That’s how this works, right?”
I snort and lift my water bottle to my lips, only to choke halfway through when Boris suddenly pulls something from his hoodie pocket—a tiny black disc no bigger than a coin.
“For your next shift,” he says, setting it gently on the counter in front of me. “Stick it in the baseboard of Caleb’s office. Anywhere behind a cabinet or shelf will do. Wireless, auto-triggered, encrypted. Cleanest line of access we’ll get.”
I blink at the thing, apprehension unfurling.
Boris drums his fingers on the counter. “It’s safer than the laptop plan. Fewer moving parts. If they catch you, just say you got sidetracked on the way to the bathroom.”
“You think they’ll believe that?”
“You’re a woman in corporate America. No one questions bathroom detours.”
Anton doesn’t say anything. Just watches me. Like he’s memorizing my face in case something goes wrong.
Lev breaks the tension by tearing open a bright orange plastic container with bold red letters that say “Mango Surprise (???)” in Comic Sans.
“What the hell is this?” he says, poking the jiggling mound inside with the corner of his chopstick. “It’s like Jell-O and flan had a baby and then abandoned it.”
Boris leans over, squints. “It’s dessert. Be grateful.”
“I’m insulted.”
“You’re dramatic,” Boris mutters.
Dima ignores all of them. He’s nursing tea now—probably steeped for exactly four minutes—and chewing a plain fortune cookie with the emotional expression of drywall.
Lev’s still making faces at the pudding when he glances my way. “So?”
“So …what?”
“You gonna tell us how you did at the range today, or are we just pretending that wasn’t your villain origin story?”
I freeze mid-bite, chopsticks halfway to my mouth.
Anton’s brow lifts like he’s curious too, but trying not to be obvious about it.
I shrug, a little defensive. “I hit a few things. Mostly air.”
“You flinched less by the end,” Anton says, still watching me. “Your aim was shit, but your breathing was better.”
“Wow,” I say. “Thank you for that stirring motivational speech. I feel so empowered.”
He smirks. Just barely. “You should.”
And God help me, I do.
Dima sips his tea.
The silence settles for a beat. I pick at a corner of a napkin.
Anton leans back slightly, lifts a bottle of water, and drinks. Then—without warning—he unbuttons the top of his shirt.
Just one button. Probably because it’s hot.
But still.
My eyes drop like a traitor.
Hard chest. Tan skin. Defined like someone sketched him out of frustration.
I yank my gaze back up so fast I might’ve sprained something.
He catches me looking.
“You’ll be training every day,” he says.
My mouth opens. Closes. “I’m sorry. What?”
“You need it. Shooting’s not enough. You need strength. Control. Some self-defense.”
“I work in a bank,” I protest weakly. “I don’t need to turn into Jason Bourne.”
“No,” Boris says, finally chiming in as he tosses a napkin into the trash. “But you need to stay alive long enough to keep accessing Caleb’s digital footprint. If we lose access, we lose the trail.”
“She’s already halfway there,” Lev adds, slouched in his chair. “Except for the part where she almost got caught planting the world’s most obvious spy stick.”
I roll my eyes, but Anton keeps going.
“You’ll start tomorrow. Early.”
“Define early.”
“Before your excuses start forming.”
I let out a groan and drop my head onto the counter. “This feels like hazing.”
Lev laughs, but then says, a little softer, “We all started somewhere. I was twelve. Dima was ten, maybe? Boris was in some hacker dungeon, probably.”
“I wasn’t allowed to touch a gun until I could strip it blindfolded,” Boris mutters. “First time I held one, I had to build it myself.”
I blink. “Is that… normal?”
“Normal if your life depends on it,” Anton answers.
I immediately regret asking.
My lips part like I might say something back, then I think better of it and shove a takeout napkin across the counter like I’m suddenly very interested in wiping down a nonexistent spill.
Shut up, Mary. Just… shut up.
It’s quiet for a beat too long. I can feel it in my teeth.
Then Lev shifts in his chair, the kind of restless movement people make when things get too quiet for too long and nobody wants to be the first to say something weird.
But who am I kidding?
Lev’s always the first to say something weird.
“His first kill was at sixteen,” Lev says casually, jerking his chin toward Anton.
My head jerks up. I look at Anton.
His jaw tightens slightly, but he doesn’t deny it.
And I go still.
Because suddenly the air feels thinner. Like my lungs remembered something my brain didn’t.
I slept with this man.
This man, who started taking lives before he could legally vote.
This man, who moves like violence is muscle memory.
Panic stirs low in my stomach, slow and creeping.
What the hell have I done?
“It wasn’t here,” Lev says. “Brighton Beach. Shitty winter. Igor gave him a gun and said if he wanted to keep his dad breathing, he needed to pull the trigger first.”
I swallow. “Your dad was Bratva?”
Anton nods once. “Low rank. Disposable. Got in trouble with a guy higher up. I cleaned it up.”
He says it like he’s talking about taking out the trash.
But it’s not. Not even close.
“First time I ever saw him cry,” Lev says quietly. “Didn’t even cry when his mom passed. But that night?”
Anton doesn’t look at Lev. Doesn’t say anything.
My chest feels tight.
Because it hits me—all of them, even the ones who joke too much or act like nothing gets through? They didn’t choose this life like picking a college major. They were born into it. Shoved into corners and taught to fight their way out.
Their choices weren’t black and white.
Just survival.
I glance at Anton. He’s watching me again.
And this time, I don’t look away.
“I’m… so sorry to hear that.”
For a beat, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
Then something shifts in his eyes. Not softness. Not gratitude.
Something colder. Harder.
Like I touched a bruise I wasn’t supposed to see.
He stands. Quietly. Slowly.
“I have things to do,” he says, voice low and final.
He doesn’t look at me when he adds, “Dima will take you back.”
He leaves without waiting for a response.
I bite the inside of my cheek, suddenly wishing I’d just kept my mouth shut.