Chapter 45
Mary
The kitchen is too quiet.
That’s the problem. It’s always too quiet now. No Russian curses muttered into coffee. No footsteps heavy enough to make the floor creak. No hand reaching around me for the sugar while I’m trying to make tea.
Just silence.
And me. Staring at my phone like it’s a bomb that might detonate if I look away.
Day three. Seventy-two hours. Four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes.
Not that I’m counting.
My thumb hovers over the screen. I could text Boris. He’s in Moscow with Anton. He’d have his phone. He could just… send something. Anything. Even a single letter. Just proof that Anton’s still breathing.
But I don’t text. Because what if Boris can’t respond? What if my text gets them caught? What if Igor traces it back and—
I throw the phone onto the counter. It skids across the granite, stops just before the edge.
“Fuck this,” I mutter.
“Language.” Dima’s voice comes from the doorway.
I don’t even jump. I’m used to him materializing out of nowhere now. Pretty sure he’s part ghost.
“Fuck. This,” I repeat, slower. Making eye contact.
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “You’re angry.”
“You think?”
“Good.”
I blink. “Good?”
“Anger is better than crying.” He moves into the kitchen and starts making coffee. Like we’re not having this conversation. Like I didn’t just curse at him. “Crying makes you weak. Anger makes you useful.”
“I’m not useful. I’m pregnant and useless and—”
“You shot Timofey.” He says it flatly. Pours water into the machine. “That was useful.”
The memory hits me sideways. The gun. The recoil. The sound. Timofey’s eyes going wide.
I swallow. “That was different.”
“Why?”
“Because Anton was dying and I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.” He turns and leans against the counter. “You chose him. Over running. Over hiding. Over everything else.” His dark eyes pin me. “That’s useful.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
The coffee machine gurgles. Fills the silence.
“Why hasn’t he contacted us?” The words burst out before I can stop them. “It’s been three days. Three. Boris is with him. Boris has phones. Encrypted ones. Untraceable ones. Why can’t he just—?” My voice cracks. “Why can’t he just let me know he’s alive?”
Dima’s quiet for a long moment. Then: “Because The Reaper doesn’t check in.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“The Reaper.” He pours two cups of coffee. Slides one to me. “That’s what they call him. In Moscow. In the Bratva. When he’s working.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Everyone who’s smart enough to be afraid.”
The kitchen door swings open. Lev walks in, phone in hand, grinning. “Are we talking about the boss’s reputation? Oh, this is gonna be good.”
“No,” Dima says.
“Yes,” Lev says at the same time. He hops onto the counter—the same spot Anton always told him not to sit—and grins at me. “You want to know why he’s not calling? Because when Anton goes full Reaper mode, he doesn’t exist. No calls. No texts. No proof he was ever there.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“That’s the point.” Lev’s eyes light up. “There’s this story—back in 2019, before you—about a guy in St. Petersburg who tried to steal from Igor. Small-time dealer, thought he was smart. Anton tracked him for three weeks. Three. Weeks. Guy didn’t even know he was being hunted until—”
“Lev,” Dima warns.
“What? She asked.”
“She’s pregnant. And worried. She doesn’t need—”
“I want to hear it,” I interrupt.
Both of them look at me.
“Tell me,” I say. “Tell me what he does when he’s The Reaper. Because right now, all I know is he left. And I need to know who he is when he’s gone.”
Lev and Dima exchange a look. Some silent conversation I’m not part of.
Finally, Lev shrugs. “Okay. So. St. Petersburg guy. Anton found him in a warehouse. Alone. No witnesses. No cameras. And the thing about Anton… when he’s working, he’s efficient. Clinical. He doesn’t waste time. Doesn’t make it personal.”
“What happened to the guy?”
“He disappeared.” Lev’s grin widens. “Like, completely. No body. No trace. Nothing. Just… gone. And the message was clear: steal from Igor, you don’t get arrested. You don’t get a trial. You just stop existing.”
My stomach twists.
“There’s another one,” Lev continues, warming up now.
“This was in Prague. Some arms dealer tried to undercut one of our shipments. Anton went in as a buyer. Sat across from the guy at dinner. Smiled. Shook his hand. Made small talk about the weather.” He pauses for effect.
“Three hours later, the dealer’s dead in his hotel room.
Heart attack, the coroner said. Except the guy was thirty-two and ran marathons. ”
“How—?”
“Nobody knows.” Lev’s voice drops. “That’s the thing about The Reaper. He’s a ghost. You don’t see him coming. You don’t see him leave. You just wake up dead.”
“You can’t wake up dead, idiot,” Dima mutters.
“You know what I mean.” Lev waves him off. “Oh! And then there was—”
“Enough.” Dima’s voice cuts through. Final.
Lev deflates. “I was just getting to the good part.”
“The ‘good part’ involves a wood chipper. She doesn’t need that image.”
“There was a wood chipper?” I ask faintly.
“Allegedly,” Dima says.
“Definitely,” Lev adds.
They both realize what they’ve said at the same time. Turn to look at me.
I’m gripping my coffee cup so hard my knuckles are white.
“He’s not that person with you,” Dima says quietly. “You know that, right?”
“Do I?” My voice comes out too sharp. “Because I don’t know who he is right now. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing or if he’s even—”
I stop. Can’t say it. Can’t even think it.
“He’s alive,” Lev says. No jokes now. No grin. “If he wasn’t, Boris would’ve contacted us. That’s the protocol. No news is good news.”
“That’s the worst expression ever invented.”
“Yeah,” Lev admits. “It really is.”
Silence settles again. Heavy. Uncomfortable.
I take a sip of coffee. It’s too hot. Burns my tongue. I don’t care.
“I’m angry,” I say finally.
“We noticed,” Dima replies.
“No, I mean—” I set the cup down. Hard. Coffee sloshes over the rim. “I’m angry. At him. For leaving. For making me wait. For being so fucking good at disappearing that even the people who love him don’t know if he’s alive.”
Neither of them argues. Just lets me say it.
“And I’m angry at myself,” I continue. “For being this person. The one who can’t function because a man isn’t here.
The one whose whole world stopped spinning the second he walked out the door.
” I press my hands flat on the counter. “I used to be fine alone. I used to have my own life. And now I’m just…
waiting. That’s all I do. Wait and worry and check my phone like some pathetic—”
“Stop.” Dima’s voice is gentle. For him. “You’re not pathetic.”
“I feel pathetic.”
“Feeling something doesn’t make it true.”
I look up at him. His face is serious. Steady. The way it always is.
“You want to know what makes you not pathetic?” he asks.
“What?”
“You’re still here. Still functioning. Still taking care of yourself and the baby even though you’re terrified.” He crosses his arms. “That’s not pathetic. That’s strong.”
“I don’t feel strong.”
“You never do when you’re being it.”
The words echo what Jasper said yesterday. About strength not announcing itself.
Maybe they’re right.
Maybe I am stronger than I think.
Or maybe I’m just too stubborn to give up.
“I need to do something,” I say. “Something that’s mine. Something that isn’t about him or waiting or surviving.”
Lev perks up. “Like what?”
I think about Jasper’s words yesterday in the park.
“When’s the last time you did something just for you?”
Baking. I used to bake.
I used to spend entire Sundays in my tiny apartment kitchen, flour everywhere, music playing, just… creating. Making something with my hands. Something warm and sweet and good.
When did I stop?
When did survival become more important than living?
“I want to bake,” I say.
Both of them stare at me.
“Like… cookies?” Lev asks.
“Like everything.” I push away from the counter. “Cookies. Bread. Cinnamon rolls. Whatever I want. Because that’s what I used to do before all this. Before Anton, before the bank, before I became someone who only knows how to be scared.”
Dima nods slowly. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“You want to bake. So bake.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He finishes his coffee. Sets the cup in the sink. “You need supplies?”
“Probably. I don’t even know what’s in the pantry.”
“Boris keeps it stocked,” Lev says. “But if you need anything special, I’ll get it.”
“Why are you being so nice about this?”
Lev grins. “Because if you’re baking, you’re feeding us. And I fucking love baked goods.”
Despite everything—despite the fear and the anger and the waiting—I almost laugh.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
I pull out my phone. Not to check for messages. Not to stare at the blank screen.
To make a list.
Flour. Butter. Yeast. Sugar. Vanilla. Chocolate chips. Cinnamon.
The basics. The foundation of everything good I used to make.
My hands are shaking. But not from fear this time.
From something else. Something that feels almost like hope.
“I’m making cinnamon rolls first,” I announce. “The ones Jasper won’t shut up about.”
Lev perks up. “Cinnamon rolls?”
“Homemade. From scratch.”
“I’ve never had homemade cinnamon rolls.”
I stare at him. “Never?”
“Store-bought only. And those aren’t even that good.”
“That’s tragic.”
Dima’s watching me quietly. “You used to bake. Before.”
It’s not a question. He knows somehow.
“Yeah,” I say. “Every weekend. My apartment always smelled like something—cookies, bread, whatever I felt like making.”
“Why did you stop?” Lev asks.
I think about it. Really think about it.
“Because I got busy surviving. And then I met Anton, and everything became about staying alive.” I pull out the flour.
“I wanted to bake for him. For all of you. But there was never time. It was always the next threat, the next mission, the next thing trying to kill us.”
The memory surfaces anyway—not of baking, but of planning to.
Anton in the kitchen one morning. Me making eggs. Him watching me like I was doing something fascinating instead of just cracking eggs into a pan.
“You do this well,” he’d said.
“Cooking? It’s just eggs.”
“No. Creating things. Making something out of nothing.”
I’d laughed. Told him I used to bake. That my cinnamon rolls were legendary. That someday, when things calmed down, I’d make them for him.
“I’ll hold you to that,” he’d said.
And now he’s gone, and I never got the chance.
My throat tightens.
But I don’t cry. Don’t let the sadness pull me under.
Instead, I open the pantry. Start pulling out ingredients.
Because Jasper was right. I need something that’s mine. Something that makes me me instead of just someone waiting for a man to come home.
And if that man happens to love cinnamon rolls?
Well.
He’d better come back to try them.