Chapter 25
DROGO
The black SUV idled outside the penthouse lobby like a patient predator.
Tinted windows, no plates I could read without looking suspicious.
The driver never spoke—just nodded once when I stepped out of the elevator, flanked by the same two silent guards who'd been my shadows since the tattoo.
I slid into the back seat. Leather, cold, smelling faintly of cigarettes and gun oil.
No phone. No wallet. No weapon. Just me, my bruises, and the fresh Bratva star burning under my shirt like a brand.
The guards took the seats beside me—one on each side—like bookends making sure the story didn't jump off the page.
We pulled away from the curb and Manhattan traffic swallowed us whole.
I watched the city blur past and started counting.
Not buildings. Not minutes. People. Who mattered. Who didn't. Who could be turned.
· · ·
First stop was an "office" that looked like the back room of a construction supply company in Queens—legitimate on paper, Bratva veins underneath.
Concrete floors, metal desks, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like dying insects.
Four mid-level lieutenants waited, all in cheap suits that didn't hide the prison ink on their knuckles or the bulges under their jackets.
But there was a fifth man I almost missed at first—younger, maybe thirty, sitting off to the side with a laptop open.
No suit. Just jeans and a black hoodie. Tattoos on his forearms but faded, old.
Prison ink that had seen years of freedom since.
The lieutenants greeted me with handshakes that lingered too long—testing grip strength, eye contact, whether I'd flinch. I didn't. Klaus wasn't here, but I felt his eyes anyway. The hacker—if that's what he was—didn't stand. Just watched. Quiet. Assessing.
We sat around a scarred table. Coffee in paper cups.
Spreadsheets and ledgers open like bibles.
They talked money flows—how clean cash moved through legitimate businesses, shell companies layered like matryoshka dolls.
One name came up more than once: my architecture firm.
"Good cover," one lieutenant said, tapping a column of numbers with a thick finger.
"Big projects. International transfers. Easy to hide a few million.
" He looked at me like he expected gratitude.
I stayed quiet. Listened. Nodded when it felt right.
Klaus was testing—would I speak out of turn?
Defend my company? Act like I still owned anything?
I didn't give him the satisfaction. But I was cataloguing.
The lieutenant on my left—Sergei, they called him—kept checking his phone.
Nervous energy. Ambitious or scared, hard to tell which.
The one across from me, Viktor, had the dead eyes of someone who'd done this too long to care anymore.
Useful for following orders. Useless for loyalty when things shifted.
Current problems: some Albanian crew skimming from a shared port shipment.
A detective in Brooklyn asking too many questions about a missing container.
Solutions floated like smoke—bribes, threats, disappearances.
Standard operating procedure. I drank the bad coffee and said nothing, but I watched the hacker's face when they mentioned the detective.
He didn't react. Professional. But his fingers paused on the keyboard for just a second. Moral line, maybe. Or calculation.
Mental note: possible ally.
Lunch was next—1 PM sharp—at a Georgian restaurant in Brighton Beach owned by the family.
Red walls, gold icons, the smell of khinkali and khachapuri thick in the air, making my empty stomach clench.
Vodka appeared before water. "Real men drink," one lieutenant said, pouring shots like it was a toast to my initiation.
I drank. Not enough to blur, just enough to play along.
They told stories—family, loyalty, respect.
The holy trinity of organized crime, spoken like gospel.
Then the other stories: what happened to men who forgot those words.
Tongues cut out. Bodies in the Hudson wearing concrete shoes.
All delivered with smiles and clinking glasses, like we were discussing football scores.
I smiled back. Ate the food. Let them think I was absorbing the lesson.
But I was watching. Sergei drank too much, laughed too loud.
Overcompensating. Viktor barely touched his glass—professional to the core.
And the hacker, sitting at the far end of the table, ate in silence.
He didn't join the storytelling. Didn't laugh at the violence.
Just existed in the space like furniture. Smart. Invisible when he wanted to be.
I filed it away.
The "field work" came after—low-risk, they said. Just a visit. A debtor who'd been short on payments for a protection racket. Small-time bookie in a Brooklyn basement office, already sweating before we even walked in. The lieutenants hung back, watching. Testing again. Always testing.
Up to this point I think I was moving on autopilot, going through the motions, playing the role Klaus carved out for me.
But standing in that basement, looking at this terrified man with his cheap suit and wedding ring he kept twisting nervously, I hit a wall.
Fuck that. Was this the life I had to lead now? Forever?
I closed my eyes for a moment. And Alena's face appeared in the dark—not crying, not broken like she'd been on Klaus's screen. The way she used to look at me. Trusting. Believing I was better than this.
In that moment I understood. This wasn't my life. This was temporary. A disguise I'd wear until I could burn it all down. Okay then. Let's go.
I sat down across from him, leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
"I really don't want to be here, man," I said quietly.
My voice was flat. Tired. Like I was already bored of the violence I hadn't even committed yet.
"And I really, really don't want to do what I'll have to do if you don't give the money. Believe me. So please… behave."
The guy started shaking—full-body tremors, sweat beading on his forehead. "Of course," he stammered. "I would never steal from you. Never! I'm loyal!"
I stood up, smiled—genuine this time, because it worked without a single punch—and patted his cheek, not gently. "Perfect."
I turned to the lieutenants. "Okay. I'll be in the car."
They followed a minute later, exchanging looks I didn't bother to read. But as we walked to the SUV, I felt a presence at my shoulder. The hacker. He'd stayed quiet the whole trip, just observing. Now he matched my pace.
"Heard you handled that clean," he said quietly. Just loud enough for me to hear, not the others. "No blood. Smart."
I glanced at him. He met my eyes for exactly two seconds. Long enough to say something without saying it. Then he pulled ahead, climbed into the front seat with the driver.
But as the door closed, he'd left something on the seat beside me. A business card. Plain white. Just a phone number. No name.
I pocketed it before the lieutenants noticed.
First thread.
· · ·
Evening dragged us back toward Manhattan.
The sun was bleeding out over the skyline when the SUV finally stopped—not at the safe house, but at the penthouse tower.
9 PM on the dot. The elevator opened straight into the suite, and I stepped out ready to collapse, maybe shower off the day, maybe just stare at the wall until sleep took me.
Instead, I froze.
The lights were low, warm. The dining table set like something out of a magazine—crystal, silver, candles flickering. Klaus sat at the head in his wheelchair, oxygen tank discreetly tucked away, looking almost healthy in the dim glow. A single place setting opposite him. Waiting for me.
"Dinner," he said, gesturing to the chair. "Family tradition. Father and son. We talk."
I sat.
The guards disappeared—silent as always, melting into the shadows of the hallway. A woman appeared—older, silent, professional—served the food and vanished like smoke. Khinkali. Satsivi. Pkhali. Wine poured into heavy crystal glasses that probably cost more than my first car.
Klaus raised his glass. "To blood."
I didn't drink.
He drank anyway. Set the glass down carefully, watching me over the rim.
"You did well today," he said. "The debtor paid in full. No violence needed. Smart. Efficient. Like me when I was young."
I stayed silent.
He leaned back, studying me like I was a painting he'd commissioned. "You want to know about her. Your mother."
My jaw tightened.
He saw it. Nodded. "Fair. You deserve the truth. From me."
He took another sip of wine. Coughed once—wet, deep, the sound of a man drowning from the inside—but waved off my instinctive move to help.
"I met her in London. Nineteen eighty-nine.
She was twenty. Beautiful. Innocent. English-Norwegian blood—pale skin, dark hair, eyes like winter sky.
Worked in a bookshop near Portobello. I was…
between jobs. London was good for business then. "
He smiled at the memory, eyes distant, seeing something I'd never know. "I saw her and thought—why not? Maybe I could have something normal. Something soft. A woman who didn't know guns or blood or the life. Maybe I could love her. Protect her. Keep her clean."
He paused. Looked at me. Really looked.
"She loved me back. At first. We were happy. Six months. I kept the work away from her. Lied when I had to. But she was smart. Started asking questions. Noticed the money. The late nights. The men who came to our flat with envelopes and fear in their eyes."
His voice hardened, the warmth draining out like blood from a wound.
"When she found out—really found out—who I was, what I did… she freaked. Said she couldn't live like that. Couldn't raise a child in that world."
He looked at me then. Waited for my reaction.
"I was happy when she told me she was pregnant. Truly happy. First time in my life. I thought—maybe this is it. A son. A family. Something real."
He coughed again. Wiped blood from his lip with a napkin, the white linen coming away red.
"But she couldn't accept it. Started hiding. Running. I'd find her—always. Bring her back. Promise I'd change. Lie, of course. The life doesn't let you change."
His eyes went cold. Empty.
"When she realized she'd never escape—never be free of me—she chose the only way out she thought she had."
He shrugged, like it was weather. Like it was inevitable.
"Took the pills. Eight months pregnant. Wanted to take you with her so you wouldn't be born into my world."
Silence stretched. Heavy. Suffocating.
"I got the call too late," he said quietly. "She was already gone when I arrived. But you—they cut you out. You lived."
He leaned forward.
"I was proud, even then. My son. Strong. Survivor. Like me."
I stared at him. At this dying man who'd watched my mother choose death over him. Who'd let me grow up alone, orphaned, fighting in pits for survival.
"You watched me fight," I said. Voice flat. "In the pits."
He smiled. "Of course. Sometimes from the shadows. You never fell. Never quit. Even when you were bleeding, even when the odds were shit—you won. Every time. That's my blood."
He paused.
"I saw you with her too. The girl. Alena. On the street once, years ago. You hugged her goodbye. She walked away, and you watched her like the world had just left with her."
His eyes met mine.
"I recognized that look. Because I had it once. With your mother."
He raised his glass again. "So, drink. To love. The thing that destroys us best."
I didn't drink.
But I didn't leave either.
Because he was right.
And that was the worst part of all.
Then I said it.
"Let me talk to her."
Klaus raised an eyebrow, amused. "The girl?"
"Alena." My voice was steady, but everything inside me was screaming. "You understand how I feel. You just said it. You loved my mother. You know what this is."
He tilted his head, considering.
"She's spiralling," I continued, putting everything I had into it—every ounce of desperation, every plea I couldn't let show on my face. "We've been together seventeen years. Together every day. She—" My voice cracked. I let it. "Please."
The word came out raw. Broken.
Klaus stared at me. Moments passed—long, heavy, the oxygen tank hissing softly in the silence.
"No," he said finally. Voice cold. Final.
I lost it.
My fist slammed the table—crystal jumping, wine sloshing over the rim. "You just told me you know what this feels like!"
"I do," he said calmly. Too calmly. "That's why I say no."
I stared at him, chest heaving.
"You are still too raw," he continued, voice matter-of-fact. "You will give away why you are here. You will say too much. You will put her in more danger than I ever could. Because your enemies will see your weakness and use it. I say no to protect her."
I laughed—bitter, broken. "Protect her? By letting her think I abandoned her?"
"By keeping her alive." He leaned forward, eyes burning with something that might have been sincerity. "Once, I imagined it too. You and me on a porch somewhere quiet. Alena with a toddler laughing in the garden. I wanted to be a grandfather. I wanted peace."
He paused, eyes distant again.
"But our blood, son, is violence. Peace is not for us. We take what we want. We protect what is ours. We do not beg for it."
He raised his glass one last time.
"To blood."
This time, I drank.
But not because he was right.
I drank because the vodka burned, and the burn reminded me I was still alive. Still thinking. Still planning. The business card in my pocket felt like a loaded gun—small, hidden, deadly.
Klaus watched me drain the glass and smiled. Satisfied. Triumphant.
He thought he'd won.
But I'd catalogued four potential allies today. Learned the money flows. Identified who was loyal and who was just waiting for Klaus to die. The hacker had given me a lifeline. Sergei was ambitious. Viktor was professional. And Klaus—Klaus was dying faster than he wanted anyone to know.
I set the glass down. Met his eyes.
"To blood," I said.
And inside, where he couldn't see, I made a different toast.
To the last time I drink to yours.