Chapter 2 - Vasily #2
"Lisa Treadwell." Her only close friend, according to the investigator's report. A paralegal at a law firm in Midtown, originally from Ohio. They'd been roommates at Columbia and had stayed close after graduation.
"She seemed agitated tonight. Kept checking her phone, looking toward the door." Kirill paused, choosing his next words carefully. "And she noticed the car last night, boss. Stood at her window for a long time, watching the street. Watching us."
A strange satisfaction curled through my chest. I wanted her to sense my presence, even if she didn't understand it. I wanted to exist in her consciousness the way she'd invaded mine.
"Did it frighten her?"
"Hard to say. She eventually closed the curtains and turned off the lights. But she looked more... alert when she left this morning. Checked the street before she walked to the subway."
Good. This city was full of predators, and most of them were far less restrained than I was. A little fear would sharpen her instincts, make her more careful. The thought of someone else watching her—someone with cruder intentions—made my hands clench involuntarily.
My phone buzzed, interrupting the dark spiral of my thoughts. A message from Vartan, my youngest brother and head of security for our operations: Pankratov's men were at the docks tonight. Watching our shipment come in. Didn't interfere, just watched.
I frowned at the screen. Aram Pankratov led the Armenian organization that had been pushing into our territory for months.
We'd had skirmishes—a few bodies on both sides, some disputed gambling dens in Queens, a protection route in Brooklyn that we'd ultimately conceded to avoid a larger war.
The usual territorial friction that came with running a criminal empire in a city crowded with competing interests.
But watching without acting wasn't Pankratov's style. He was a crude man, prone to violence as a first resort rather than a calculated tool. If his men were observing our shipments without interference, it meant he was planning something. Gathering intelligence for a larger move.
Keep eyes on them, I texted back. I want to know every move they make. Every meeting, every phone call, every shipment of their own. And increase security at all our locations. I want extra men at the clubs especially.
The nightclubs were our most visible operations, the places where we were most exposed. If Pankratov was planning to make a statement, he'd likely target one of them.
Vartan's reply came quickly: Already on it. You coming to the meeting tomorrow?
The meeting. I'd nearly forgotten—a sit-down with the heads of our various divisions, a monthly ritual to review operations and address any issues. Usually I ran these meetings with iron focus. But lately my attention had been elsewhere.
I'll be there, I replied, and put the phone away as Kirill turned onto Gabrielle's street.
***
Her building was a modest four-story brownstone, the kind of pre-war construction that real estate agents called "charming" to justify inflated rents.
I knew from the investigator's report that she paid twenty-three hundred a month for a one-bedroom apartment with a view of the building across the street.
Nearly half her salary, but that was the price of living alone in Manhattan.
The light in her window was still on.
I checked my watch—nearly eleven-thirty.
She was awake, probably working, because she was always working.
The investigator had detailed her schedule: twelve-hour days at the office, evenings spent on her laptop at home, weekends devoted to catching up on the work she couldn't finish during the week.
She drove herself relentlessly, pushed by something that looked like fear from a distance.
Fear of failure. Fear of inadequacy. Fear of being seen as less than perfect.
I recognized it because I'd spent my childhood watching my mother drown in similar fears.
She'd been a gentle woman, completely unsuited to life as a Bratva wife.
My father had loved her in his way—provided for her, protected her, never raised a hand to her—but he'd also exposed her to realities she couldn't process.
The violence, the blood, the bodies. The knowledge of what her husband and sons truly were.
It had eaten her alive from the inside. And one gray afternoon when I was seventeen, she'd decided she couldn't carry the weight anymore.
I still remember finding her in the bathtub, the water gone pink and cold. Still remembered the note on the sink, her careful handwriting apologizing for her weakness.
I shook the memory away, focusing on Gabrielle's window. The light flickered—her moving past a lamp, probably—and then steadied again.
"She came home around ten-thirty," Kirill said quietly, tracking my gaze. "Walked from the subway. Alone."
Alone. Always alone, despite the friends and colleagues who populated her days.
There was a loneliness to Gabrielle Blanchard that the investigator's report couldn't capture, but that I recognized instinctively.
The loneliness of someone who performed connection without ever truly feeling it.
Who smiled and laughed and made small talk while some essential part of herself remained locked away.
I knew that loneliness. I lived inside it every day.
Perhaps that was why I couldn't stop watching her. Why I'd memorized her schedule, her coffee order, the route she walked to the subway. Why I sat outside her building night after night like some lovesick teenager, when I should be focused on the empire that demanded my constant attention.
She was a civilian. Soft, sheltered, completely ignorant of the world I inhabited. I had no business thinking about her, no business wanting her with this gnawing intensity that kept me awake at night.
But I couldn't stop.
The light in her window clicked off. I imagined her settling into bed, pulling the covers up, closing her eyes.
Did she dream? Did she have nightmares about that cold, demanding father the investigator had described?
Did she ever dream of being swept away from her small, anxious life into something larger? Something darker?
"Take me home," I told Kirill, though every instinct screamed at me to stay, to keep watch, to make sure she slept safely through the night.
The SUV pulled away from the curb, and I watched her building recede in the side mirror until we turned the corner and it disappeared from view.
This fascination would pass. It had to.
But even as I told myself that lie, I was already planning tomorrow's surveillance. Already calculating which of her usual coffee shops I might visit in the morning. Already wondering what she would do if I simply walked up to her, introduced myself, let her see the man beneath the monster.
Wondering what she would do if she knew what I really was.