Chapter 34
Anton
Forty minutes before I tore into her apartment and ended it.
Perfect timing. Or maybe just bad luck. Depends which side of the barrel you’re standing on.
Ray called while we were still walking out of the penthouse, the place I’ve got Mary stashed, high above The Strip, where nobody touches her unless I say so.
Said he’d pulled motel footage, a grainy shot of Viktor slipping inside just before dawn.
Paid cash, fake plates, classic move. But he wasn’t gone. Not yet.
Which means today isn’t just another day in Vegas. Today, the bastard’s cornered.
Twenty minutes later, we are in the SUV.
Ray’s voice crackles through the burner on speaker, sharp and efficient like he’s reading off a police blotter.
“Guy matching Viktor’s description checked into a motel off Tropicana. Security footage puts him there around 4 AM. He hasn’t come out since. Looks like he’s sitting tight.”
Of course he is. Rat hole like that, he thinks he’s invisible.
Ray keeps talking: front desk clerk paid in cash, plates on the car traced to some fake ID, room rented under a name that doesn’t exist. It’s fast work, even for him. Means Viktor’s slipping. Means we can actually catch this son of a bitch before he vanishes into the desert.
I should be strategizing. I should be sketching the entry points in my head, counting the access points, figuring out how many men it’ll take to box Viktor in so he doesn’t wriggle back into Timofey’s pocket.
Instead, my phone buzzes.
Screen lights up. One message.
Bank Girl: Going to get cat food. Back soon.
I stare at the words like they’re written in a language I don’t understand.
What the fuck?
She’s supposed to be upstairs. Safe. Breathing my air, not out there where Timofey’s rats or Caleb’s thugs could get lucky and end her before I can stop it.
I set the phone face down on my thigh, make myself look back at the windshield.
Dima’s driving, eyes locked forward. Across the median, Lev rolls in on the bike, kills the engine, and props it on the curb, helmet hanging off one wrist like the street belongs to him.
Boris is in the passenger seat ahead of me, hunched over two phones, thumbs moving, scanning plates, cameras, whatever backdoor feed he’s bribed open today.
I should say something. Orders. Focus. Anything.
But all I can see is Mary, walking out the door, sunlight on her hair, head tilted the way she does when she’s second-guessing herself. Alone.
My jaw aches. I unclench it only to feel it tighten again.
Ray keeps talking. “If we move quick, we can hit him before sundown. But if he smells us coming, he’ll bolt. You’ve got one clean shot at this, Anton. One.”
I don’t answer.
Because I’m thinking about the bracelet on her wrist. The watch I made her wear. She texted, which means she knows I can hear her if I want to. Knows I can track her.
Chert, a flicker in my chest. Sharp. Irritating. Like someone put a match too close to a fuse I didn’t authorize.
“Boss?” Dima’s voice. Careful. “You with us?”
“I’m listening.”
I should be locked in. Viktor Kozlov is three hundred yards away, the ghost we’ve been chasing for weeks, the one I need to drag back bleeding if I want Igor off my neck.
My hand presses hard against my knee, like pain will keep me honest.
She’s bait, Anton. Just bait. Not the girl you keep thinking about when you should be hunting Kozlov.
Not mine.
Not my problem.
Except her laugh won’t leave my head. The way she tilted her chin at lunch, soft teeth catching her lip like she was surprised at herself. The sound of it—unguarded, quick, and gone before I could decide what the hell it did to me.
And my gut… my gut says if I leave her alone, I’ll regret it. The same gut that’s kept me alive for nineteen years in this business.
“Give me the tablet,” I tell Boris suddenly.
He hands it over, confusion creasing his forehead. I swipe to the GPS tracking app and enter Mary’s bracelet code. The map loads slowly, showing a blue dot in the middle of Vegas.
Not at a pet store.
Not heading back to the penthouse.
At her old apartment building.
My blood turns to ice.
“She lied.” The words come out flat, empty.
“Who lied?” Boris asks.
I’m already reaching for my earpiece, syncing it to Mary’s bracelet audio feed. The connection takes forever; three seconds that feel like three hours.
Then sound floods in.
“—been thinking. Maybe I was too hasty.”
Male voice. Familiar but wrong. Not threatening yet, but every instinct I’ve honed over the years screams danger.
“Too hasty?” Mary’s voice, tight with strain. “You called me boring. You said you didn’t see this going anywhere. You blocked me.”
Evan. Her ex-boyfriend. The one Boris punched. The one who dumped her via text and disappeared like a coward.
He’s in her apartment.
“I was stressed. Work’s been hell. Sandy from Palm Springs turned out to be a total bitch. And then I realized… I realized I missed you.”
The surveillance SUV suddenly feels too small. The air too thin. I can hear Mary backing away from him, hear the shift in her breathing that means fear.
“Dima, take the lead for this mission,” I say.
Boris’s head snaps toward me. “What?”
“Da, boss.” Dima nods without looking over.
I’m already moving, reaching for the door handle.
“Boss, wait. What the hell is going on?”
Through the earpiece: “Look, I know I screwed up. I know I hurt you. But we can fix this. Six years, Mary. You can’t just throw that away.”
Six years of this piece of shit making her feel small. Making her think she wasn’t worth more.
“You threw it away,” Mary’s voice, stronger now. Angry. “You cheated on me. For months.”
I cross the street at a run. Lev’s straddling his bike, helmet still dangling from one hand. He sees my face and goes still.
“Mary’s in trouble,” I tell him.
He doesn’t argue. Just slides off and holds the bike steady as I swing my leg over.
The engine roars to life, 2,500ccs growling like it knows where I’m going. My hands lock on the grips, the vibration crawling up my arms.
That’s when I hear it, clear in my ear.
A door slamming. A deadbolt turning.
“Making sure you listen,” Evan’s voice. Harder now. Ugly. “We’re not done talking.”
He locked her in.
Mary’s voice, small: “Open the door, Evan.”
“When I’m finished.”
My vision tunnels. Everything but the throttle, the road, and that apartment door drops away.
That’s when I stop thinking like a strategist. And start thinking like a killer.
The Ducati tears through Vegas like I’m fleeing hell instead of racing toward it. Traffic lights blur into streaks of red and green. Cars swerve, horns blare, but none of it reaches me.
The feed in my ear crackles. Mary’s voice, high and ragged. “I never want to see you again! You cheated on me! You lied to me! You made me feel like I was nothing, and I let you, but I’m done! I’m DONE!”
Her voice shreds in my chest.
Then Evan. That nasal, coward’s snarl. “You don’t get to be done. You don’t get to decide when this is over.”
My hands tighten on the grips until the leather bites.
If he touches her, I’ll peel his skin off inch by inch, feed it to him until he chokes. I’ll string him up by his Achilles the way the old brigadiers did in Chechnya and let red ants eat him alive. I’ll pull out his fucking heart with my hands and show it to him before he stops breathing.
“I said GET OUT! I never want to see you again!”
Pride flickers through the fury. She’s finding her spine. But it won’t be enough. Not against a man who’s already decided she belongs to him.
Yob tvoyu mat!
I know seventeen different ways to keep a man conscious while you peel him like fruit. Fourteen ways to make him beg for death that won’t come for hours.
By the time I’m done with Evan Cook, he’ll pray for the mercy of red ants and desert sun.
“You’re done? You don’t get to be done.”
I downshift, engine braking into a turn that scrapes my knee against asphalt. The speedometer climbs past anything resembling legal.
Then the sounds change.
Struggle. Real struggle. Mary fighting, panicking, the kind of sounds that turn rational thought into pure violence.
“Stop making a scene. God, you’re embarrassing.”
I could break every bone in his hands. One by one. Make him watch while I do it.
“You think some meathead who punched me gets to keep you?”
His voice is different now. Cruder. The mask coming off to show what was always underneath.
“You’ll always be mine. Always.”
The apartment complex appears ahead—Sunrise Gardens, faded stucco and broken dreams. I don’t slow down. Don’t look for parking. Just aim the Ducati at the walkway and kill the engine as I hit the stairs running.
Fourteen minutes, fifty-five seconds. Too long. Every second, I hear her.
Through my earpiece: “Stop pretending you don’t want this.”
Three flights. I take them four steps at a time, every muscle in my body coiled for violence. My Glock sits heavy against my ribs, but guns are too quick. Too clean.
Evan Cook deserves something slower.
“You never had anyone else. Who else would even look at you?”
By the time I reach Mary’s door, I can hear her sobbing. Hear the struggle through wood and drywall. Hear him hurting her in ways that make my vision go white at the edges.
I don’t knock.
I don’t pick the lock.
I don’t waste time on subtlety.
My boot hits the door just below the handle. Wood splinters. Metal screams. The frame explodes inward like a bomb went off, sending chunks of doorjamb flying across the room.
And there he is.
Evan Cook. On top of her. Hands under her shirt. Hips pressed against hers while she fights and cries and tries to disappear into the couch cushions.
Everything stops.
The world narrows to this: Mary’s tear-streaked face. The bruises forming on her arms. The way she’s looking at me like I’m salvation and damnation rolled into one.
“Did you not hear her?”
My voice comes out calm. Controlled. The kind of quiet that precedes executions.
Evan’s head snaps toward me, eyes wide with shock and the beginning of fear. His grip on Mary loosens just enough for her to breathe.
I catalog every detail. The way his shirt is wrinkled from grinding against her. The red marks his fingers left on her wrists. The smell of his desperation and her terror mixing in the stale air.
In my head, I’m already deciding which pieces of him to remove first.
“Did you not hear her?” I repeat, taking one step into the room.
The door frame is destroyed behind me. Wood and metal scattered across the floor like the remains of Evan’s last mistake.
He’s about to learn what happens when someone touches what’s mine.
Evan scrambles backward off Mary, his hands flying up like that’ll stop what’s coming. His mouth opens and closes, fish-gasping for words that won’t save him.
“Who the fuck—?”
I cross the room in two steps. My hand closes around his throat before he can finish the question.
His feet leave the ground.
“You locked her in.” My voice comes out winter-cold. “You put your hands on her.”
Evan claws at my wrist, face going red, then purple. I could crush his windpipe right now. Feel it collapse under my thumb. Watch the light go out of his eyes while Mary watches.
But that would be too quick.
I drop him. He hits the floor hard, gasping, scrambling away from me on his hands and knees like the animal he is.
“Please— I wasn’t— We were just talking!”
“Talking.” I step forward. He scrambles back until he hits the wall. “Is that what you call putting your hands under her shirt?”
His eyes dart to Mary, then back to me. Looking for an escape that doesn’t exist.
“She’s my girlfriend—”
Wrong answer.
My boot connects with his ribs. The crack echoes through the apartment like a gunshot. Evan curls into himself, choking on air and pain.
“Ex-girlfriend,” I correct, crouching down to his level.
I grab his wrist—the same one that left marks on Mary’s arms. His fingers are soft, weak. Piano player’s hands on a man who’s never built anything in his life.
The first finger snaps clean. Pinky. Just a quick twist.
Evan’s scream tears through the apartment.
Behind me, Mary gasps, a sharp intake that cuts through his wailing.
“Please!” Evan chokes out. “Please, I’m sorry!”
Middle finger. The joint gives way with a wet pop that echoes off the walls.
“OH GOD!” His voice breaks completely. “Stop, please stop!”
Index finger. This one takes more pressure. The cartilage resists before surrendering.
Evan’s trying to crawl away now, his good hand scrabbling against the floor. “I won’t— I’ll never— Mary, tell him—”
Mary makes a sound behind me. Half sob, half whimper.
“Anton—” Mary’s voice. Thin. Shaking.
But I’m too far in. Too far gone. His thumb requires both hands. I grip it between my fingers and twist until I feel everything inside come apart.
The scream that comes out of him isn’t human anymore. Pure agony stripped of everything but sound.
A reaper would finish the job slowly. Bend each finger back until nothing works. Dislocate the shoulder, tear the ligaments. Snap the jaw so the man can’t beg, only gurgle. Then let him choke on his own teeth while the ants do the rest. That’s what he deserves. That’s what I want.
I shift my weight, ready to break the wrist next, when something brushes my arm.
Soft. Trembling. Mary’s hand.
Her touch slams through me harder than any scream. I look down. Hazel eyes, glossy with tears, glassy with fear—but they’re locked on me. Not on him. Me.
“Please,” she whispers. “Don’t.”
Her voice is the only thing keeping me human. It anchors me when everything in me screams for blood.
Somewhere outside, footsteps. Voices. A neighbor calling, “Everything okay in there?” Doors creak open down the hall.
Chert. Not here. Not now. Not with her shaking and half the block about to watch me skin a man alive.
I release him like garbage, shove him flat on the carpet. His groan is pathetic, a stain of sound. I don’t look twice.
Instead, I crouch, scoop Mary into my arms. She stiffens at first, then folds, clutching my shirt with trembling hands.
“Anton—”
“Quiet.” My voice is harsher than I mean, but it steadies her. “You’re done here.”
I carry her through the splintered doorway, down the stairs, past the gawking faces. No one stops me. No one dares.
Lev’s bike waits at the curb, engine still ticking heat. I swing on with her cradled tight against me. Her breath stutters against my throat, warm and alive.
The neighbors blur. The world narrows to her weight in my arms.
The Ducati growls back to life, vibration shaking through both of us. I kick it into gear, feel her fist clutch at my jacket like she’s holding on to more than just me.
I don’t look back at Sunrise Gardens. Evan Cook can crawl out on his own… or not.
Mary’s all that matters.
And as the bike roars into the Vegas night, the only thought left in my head is this:
I don’t save people. I end them. That’s the rule. So why the hell am I breaking it for her?