Chapter 24
Anton
Islept maybe two hours. The rest of the night, I stared at the ceiling; smooth, white plaster without a single crack.
Expensive. Perfect. I memorized every shift in shadow from the recessed lighting.
Counted them. Recounted them. From just past three until dawn, when sleep finally stopped pretending it might show up.
My eyes burn. Not from fatigue, but from the kind of stillness that comes when your body won’t move but your mind won’t stop.
She’s directly above me.
One floor up.
Close enough that every soft creak in the ceiling is her. Every shift of weight, every muffled exhale. I could reach her in thirty seconds if I let myself.
And that’s the problem.
I think about her lying in that bed Boris stocked, smooth sheets, warm skin. I think about what she might wear to sleep. If she wears anything. If she touches herself when she thinks no one will hear. If she says my name without meaning to.
I shouldn’t. But I do.
And I don’t stop there.
I think about how she’d sound if I were inside her. If I fucked her so deep she forgot her own name. If she begged me not to stop. If she came so hard, the whole building heard.
My grip tightens on the mug.
The coffee scalds my throat, but I finish it anyway. Let the heat burn straight through the images I can’t shake.
There’s something crawling just under my skin. Tight. Violent. Like I need to split something open just to let it out.
I don’t need to drive her to work.
Boris could’ve done it. Lev would’ve volunteered, just to irritate me. Hell, I could’ve sent a courier with instructions not to speak, not to look, not to breathe in her direction.
But I’m the one gripping the keys.
Because I don’t want anyone else near her.
That’s not logic. It’s not strategy. It’s something else. Something heavier. Dumber.
Possessive.
And I don’t like it.
I move through the penthouse like I belong here, which I do. Technically. Legally. But this place doesn’t feel like mine. Her scent is bleeding into the walls. Jasmine from her shampoo. Vanilla from that body lotion Boris stocked. Faint, sweet reminders that she slept in my bed last night.
Not beside me. But still.
I grab the Cartier box off the counter and tuck it into my coat pocket. One of the spare ones. Just in case she loses the bracelet. Or breaks it. Or gets clever and drops it in a sewer.
By the time I hit the elevator, she’s not even in the room anymore, but I can still feel her. Like a residue.
I take the elevator down to the private garage. Ignore the Range Rover, the matte black Charger, the G-Wagen. Too loud. Too noticeable. Too Bratva.
I unlock the S580.
Sleek, understated, and armored beneath the skin. Looks like a car an aging CEO would drive; rich, discreet, boring enough to be invisible in traffic. But it’ll stop a rifle round and outrun a tail.
I slide into the driver’s seat, adjust the mirrors.
She’ll like this one.
Which is another thought I shouldn’t be having.
The watch fits her too well. That blouse this morning: cream silk, delicate buttons, tailored exactly to her body. The skirt hugging her like it was meant to. She looked… expensive. Like she belonged in this world.
Like she belonged to me.
I start the engine.
I’m doing this because I need to protect the asset. That’s all.
The girl saw too much. She touched too much. And now someone’s trying to clean up the loose ends before I can finish my job.
That’s the only reason I’m in the car right now. Driving her. Watching her.
Not because her eyes lingered on me this morning a second too long.
Not because her pulse jumped when I fastened the bracelet.
No.
This is strategy.
And strategy says: if anyone touches her, I shoot first and sort the mess later.
I start the car, planning the route to Brightside National.
She’s not mine.
But she’s under me.
And I don’t share.
She gets in the car without looking at me.
That’s new.
No smart remarks. No eye roll. No stiff silence wrapped in passive aggression.
Just her… silent, focused, fingers fidgeting with the edge of her skirt like she’s preparing for something she doesn’t want to face.
I let the quiet sit for a few blocks.
The S-Class handles smoothly, absorbing the chaos of the Vegas Strip like it’s nothing. She barely moves with the motion, but I can see it in her leg, tension thrumming beneath skin.
“Is this what it’s going to be now?” she finally asks, voice soft. “Me. Being delivered like a package.”
“If that’s what keeps you alive,” I say.
She exhales, short and sharp. Then, “Right. Asset protection. Forgot.”
Her sarcasm’s a little weaker today.
So is her anger.
She’s scared. And she trusts me enough to show it.
That part matters more than I want it to.
I take Charleston east, then cut down two side streets to get a cleaner line of sight on the bank. Avoid the cameras. Circle the back lot once. Just in case.
When I finally pull up, it’s across the street, two buildings down, angled so I can see every entrance without being obvious. Shaded glass, blocked line of sight from most traffic.
Mary glances at the bank doors.
Then at me.
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
“No.”
“Do you always hover like this?”
“Only when the threat is real.”
She watches me for a long second. Then nods.
And that nod—that tiny, resigned movement—tells me more than anything she’s said so far.
She believes me.
That’s new, too.
“You’ll check in through the bracelet. Noon. Three. Five. Text me when you’re leaving. If anything feels off before that, speak. I’ll hear it.”
She doesn’t argue. Just reaches for the door, then pauses.
“Do you really think someone’s going to try something today?”
I meet her eyes. “If they do, they won’t get a second shot.”
She blinks.
Then climbs out.
The door shuts with a quiet click, and she walks toward the building. Not quickly. Not slowly. Just… steady. Like someone who’s still deciding which version of herself she’s going to be.
Not the girl who cried on my floor.
Not the woman who watched me make coffee.
Someone else. Someone trying to survive this.
I watch until the doors close behind her.
Then I settle in.
Back seat folded down. Rifle case under the floorboard. Radio scanner on. GPS log synced to Boris’s system.
I may not be assigned to her.
But until this thing is done—
She’s mine to watch.
I wait five minutes after she disappears through the doors.
Then I move.
Cap pulled low. Dark sunglasses. Neutral jacket. I blend in, not out. Not the kind of man you notice in a city like this. The kind you forget you saw at all.
I scan the street again, slow and methodical.
No parked vans. No idling engines with slouched figures behind tinted glass. No civilian posture that reads military, no body language that telegraphs too much restraint.
I look for watchers.
There are none.
For now.
The corner bodega is too crowded. The juice bar too open. But two doors down, past a failing consignment shop and a shuttered vape lounge, there’s a café. No foot traffic. Handwritten specials on the window in dry marker. One barista behind the counter, checking his phone.
Bad business.
Good for me.
I enter, take the corner booth with a straight view of the bank’s front entrance. The glass here is tinted slightly amber; cheap film, easy to see through from this side. Bonus.
No customers. One camera. Angled wrong.
Perfect.
I order a black coffee. No name. No smile. Cash only.
Then I set up like I’ve done a hundred times in a hundred cities.
Laptop open. Earpiece in.
Bank feed synced. Mary’s bracelet pulsing with a steady heartbeat on the screen. Her mic opens automatically when sound levels hit conversational volume. No action needed.
The software logs background noise. Transcribes in real time. Boris designed the interface. Clean. Efficient.
It’s how I know she greeted a customer before she even sat down.
“Good morning, Mr. Alvarado. I can help you at window four.”
Polite. Calm. Her work voice. Slightly higher than her natural register.
I sip the coffee. It’s garbage. Doesn’t matter.
She’s doing what she’s always done: making herself small. Useful. Palatable.
I scroll one screen over. Kozlov case updates are pouring in.
Text from Lev:
Rodriguez’s body turned up in the wash behind Tropicana. Police think it’s cartel. Idiots.
I fire back:
We made sure there’s nothing that ties back to us?
A beat, then Lev’s reply:
Of course, boss. Clean as it gets.
Another message follows. This time from Boris:
Spy piece is live. We’re all patched in—me, Lev, Dima. We’ll hear everything she does today.
I leave it on read.
Kozlov’s running scared. That’s fine. Scared men make mistakes.
But this isn’t about Kozlov right now.
Not entirely.
I toggle back to Mary’s feed. The bank’s louder now, background chatter, phones ringing, keyboards clacking.
Then I hear her again.
“Yes, I can go over those charges with you, ma’am. It’ll just take a moment.”
Still polite. Still steady.
But something in her tone pulls me upright a little. Not alarm. Not discomfort.
Sadness?
Or just fatigue.
I log her location. Still near the front. Stationary.
I check every ten seconds. I time the rhythm of her breath when she pauses between sentences.
I don’t need to.
But I do.
Because she’s in there, surrounded by variables I can’t control. And for someone like me, that’s unacceptable.
I type a quick command. Snapshot all incoming call logs from Brightside’s front desk. Flag Janice’s name. Match timestamps to audio spikes.
The program pings back almost instantly.
The next voice I hear is sharp. Female. Confident.
“Well, look who decided to get a personality makeover.”
Another voice, lower. Smug. Dismissive.
“Cute watch. Where’d you get it, Walmart? Or did your boyfriend spring for something a little more… knockoff?”
I frown, listening carefully.
The sharp one’s got command in her tone—boss energy. That’s got to be Stephanie Martinez. Boris flagged her as Mary’s direct supervisor. Ambitious. Cutthroat. Calls herself a team leader.
The other one—lower voice, sloppier cadence, passive-aggressive tone—that has to be Janice. The receptionist. Dave’s side piece. She was always the one covering for him. Lies easily. Probably thinks that makes her clever.
“Must be nice, playing dress-up like you’re somebody,” Stephanie whispers, her voice closer now, like she’s leaned over Mary’s desk just to say it straight into her ear.
A beat of silence.
Then I hear Mary.
Small. Controlled.
“Fake it till you make it… right?”
A nervous laugh follows. Thin. Hollow. It dies before it finishes.
She’s trying to brush it off. Trying to keep the peace. But I hear the way she exhales after. Shaky. Like it cost her something just to get those six words out.
Fucking hell.
“Please. That girl walks like her spine’s made of paper.”
My vision narrows. My pulse doesn’t spike; it focuses. Sharp and hot behind my eyes.
I hear the voice change. Stephanie’s again.
“Anyway, since you’ve got a whole new look, can you run and grab me a coffee? No customers right now, unless you count that old guy with the fanny pack, and he only wants quarters.”
“Sure,” Mary says. “One sugar, no cream?”
“Atta girl,” Stephanie chirps. “See? Dress like a big girl, still take orders like a good little clerk.”
A customer walks up mid-sentence—bell chimes, transaction interrupts—and I hear Mary switch tones like a goddamn professional.
“Hi there, how can I help you today?”
Polite. Warm. Like she wasn’t just verbally gutted in front of her direct superior.
And she takes it.
She always fucking takes it.
I set the cup down hard enough to splash lukewarm coffee across the table. My hand curls into a fist, slow and tight.
Not because of what they said.
Because she let them say it.
Because she agreed with it.
Because she’s been conditioned to nod and smile while someone steps on her throat in heels she can’t afford.
Bratva girls don’t survive like that. Vegas girls sure as hell don’t. But she—
She just folds.
Smaller. Quieter.
Like if she minimizes enough, they’ll stop noticing her altogether.
Pizdets.
That’s not weakness. That’s survival. Learned helplessness wrapped in polite customer service.
But it still pisses me off.
A twitch fires down the side of my jaw, tight, involuntary. My molars grind once, hard enough that I feel it behind my eyes.
Calm the fuck down.
You’ve seen worse. Heard worse. Stepped over worse.
But it wasn’t her.
My phone vibrates once. Message from Lev:
Kozlov’s second drop didn’t happen. Our guy tailed a silver Camry to The Strip, but it looped twice and lost him. Means he’s not running solo. Someone’s covering his tracks.
I don’t answer.
Not because it’s unimportant.
Because Mary’s voice is in my ear again.
Low. Whispered.
“Okay… going into Dave’s office now. Gonna try the USB.”
She says it fast. Like if she gets the words out before fear catches up, she can pretend she’s not about to commit corporate espionage in heels.
I hear the soft sound of keys jangling.
A click. A door creaking open.
Footsteps.
Then—
“Mary Sullivan.”
Male. Calm. Confident.
My spine straightens.
“I can call you Mary, right?”
Mary doesn’t answer right away.
I sit forward.
Close the laptop. Finger taps the side of my earpiece.
Who the fuck is that?