Chapter Three - Vivienne
The sun hasn’t even broken the horizon when I’m already behind the wheel, headlights cutting through the empty streets.
The city is quieter at this hour, stripped of its usual noise and chaos, but the silence feels borrowed, temporary.
It will roar to life soon enough. I keep driving, past the last of the brownstones, past the strip malls with their neon signs flickering out, past the point where the skyline shrinks in my mirrors.
The roads stretch long and winding the further I go. No Bratva shadows here, no eyes in the rearview. Just me, asphalt, and the weight pressing against my chest. My phone buzzes once from the passenger seat, but I don’t look. Whoever it is can wait. This drive is mine.
The cemetery is tucked at the edge of a town most people forget exists.
The iron gate creaks when I push it open, the sound too loud in the stillness.
Frost laces the grass even though the sun has started to climb, pale light brushing across rows of stones.
My breath ghosts in the air as I walk, boots crunching softly over the ground.
I find him the way I always do: fifth row, third stone in. The name carved into granite is worn but still sharp enough to catch the light. My father’s name.
For a long moment I stand there, staring down at it, every muscle locked. The air feels thinner here, harder to pull into my lungs. Finally, I kneel, the cold seeping through the fabric of my coat and into my bones.
My hands shake when I pull the photo from my pocket, edges frayed from years of folding and unfolding. Him and me, on a pier by the water, his arm thrown around my shoulders, his smile crooked, mine wide and unguarded. A lifetime ago.
I set the photo against the stone and place the pressed rose beside it, petals fragile, almost translucent. White, because he always said white roses carried strength in their silence.
My fingers linger on the granite, tracing each letter of his name. They tremble, though I force them steady. Crying would be easier. Letting it break me would be easier. Except tears are a luxury I can’t afford.
“Hi, Dad,” I whisper. My voice sounds strange in the open air, too small, like it doesn’t belong here.
I wait, as though something will answer back. Wind shifts through the trees, carrying nothing.
“I’m close,” I say finally. My throat tightens around the words. “Closer than I’ve ever been. They see me now. They’re watching. Which means I’m where I need to be.”
The breeze picks up, tugging at my hair. I stare down at the name, the carved edges blurring for a moment before sharpening again.
“I tell myself it’s for you,” I continue, my voice low, breaking into fragments. “For what they did. For what they took. I tell myself that’s enough. That justice is worth every lie, every risk.”
I swallow hard. My chest aches with the silence pressing back against me.
“Sometimes…” The words stumble, hesitant, heavy. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s really for you. Or if it’s for me. If I’ve built my whole life around this because I don’t know how to live without the anger anymore.”
The confession slips out before I can stop it, drifting into the cold air where no one can take it back.
“I don’t know who I am without it,” I whisper. My hand tightens against the stone. “Without wanting them to suffer the way you did.”
A crow calls in the distance, harsh against the quiet. The sound shatters the moment, and I bow my head, pressing my forehead against the cold granite.
“I’m in their circle now. They believe me. They think I’m on their side. Every day I walk closer into their world, every day I let them pull me further under. I hate them, Dad. I hate him.”
The memory of Alexei’s gray eyes cuts through me, sharper than I want it to. The way he’d looked at me outside the courthouse, not with greed or suspicion, but with something else. Something I can’t shake. I grit my teeth, forcing the thought away.
“I’ll finish it,” I say, though my voice wavers. “I’ll burn it all down. For you. For what they did. That’s the only promise I can give you.”
The silence that follows feels like judgment. My father’s face flashes in my memory again, smiling in that photo, so alive. He wouldn’t recognize me now.
I push back from the grave slowly, standing on unsteady legs. My knees ache from the cold, but I brush the dirt off and force myself tall again.
I look down at the stone one last time, at the photo and the rose. “Goodbye, Dad.” My voice steadies at the end, even if it feels like a lie.
The walk back to the car is longer than before, each step heavier. When I slide behind the wheel, I don’t start the engine right away. I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles whiten, staring straight ahead. The doubt lingers, thick and suffocating.
Maybe I’m not doing this for him anymore. Maybe it is all for me.
I force the thought down, finally turning the key. The engine rumbles to life, loud against the quiet cemetery. Gravel crunches under the tires as I pull away, leaving the photo and rose behind, small offerings swallowed by the cold.
The road stretches ahead, leading back toward the city, back toward the wolves watching me. My pulse steadies as the miles fall away.
My mask slides back into place, the one I wear in court, the one I wear in front of the men who destroyed him. The one that hides how close I am to breaking.
The tremor in my hands lingers long after the cemetery is gone.
By the time I pull into the underground garage beneath my building, the daylight has shifted into something sharper, brighter.
It stings my eyes when I step out, the echo of my boots ricocheting off concrete.
My pulse hasn’t slowed since I left the cemetery.
Every sound feels sharper too—the whir of a ventilation fan, the faint rumble of a car somewhere above, the metallic slam of the elevator doors.
When I reach my apartment, the unease hasn’t loosened. My keys rattle louder than they should in the lock, my throat tightening as the door swings open. The silence inside is too clean. It waits. I brace for movement, for a shadow where one shouldn’t be.
Nothing. Empty.
Still, I sweep the place like I always do, habit carved deep into muscle memory: bathroom first, then bedroom, then closets, finally the balcony. All clear. My nerves refuse to unclench.
I strip off my coat and move to the shower. The water is scalding, but I need it that way. It sears the cold cemetery air off my skin, washing away the dirt under my nails. I stand beneath the spray longer than necessary, forehead pressed against tile, steam clouding the glass.
When I emerge, the mirror shows me a stranger: damp hair clinging to my shoulders, eyes too dark, lips pressed thin. I dress quickly, pulling on soft sweats and a loose T-shirt, clothing that feels like armor in its own right.
At my desk, I wake the laptop. The blue glow fills the room, screen splitting into folders stacked with names, dates, photos. My father’s ghost stares at me from the header of one file, Alexei Sharov’s gray eyes from another.
I begin sorting—cross-checking associates, cleaning dead ends, flagging possible leverage points. Weeks of intel, collated into neat little packages that one day might bring an empire to its knees.
A knock on the door cracks through the silence.
I freeze.
Every nerve in my body spikes at once. The files vanish from the screen in seconds, laptop snapped shut and shoved beneath a stack of legal briefs. I clear the desk entirely, sweeping the coffee mug into the sink, straightening the stack of papers until they look untouched.
The knock comes again, lighter this time.
I force my expression smooth before I unlatch the door.
Annie stands there.
For a second, my mind blanks. She’s the last person I expected, her auburn hair loose around her shoulders, a paper bag dangling from one hand and a bottle of wine from the other. Her smile is warm, bright, the kind that used to anchor me before I lost myself in shadows.
“Surprise,” she says, grinning. “I figured you’d forget to eat, so I brought reinforcements.”
It takes me a beat to find my voice. “Annie.”
Her smile falters just slightly. “What, no hug?”
I step forward automatically, letting her wrap me in her arms. She smells like lavender and takeout spice, so familiar it almost knocks me off my feet. I press a smile into place before pulling back. “Come in.”
She kicks off her shoes at the door and breezes inside like she always used to.
She doesn’t know—can’t know—what my life looks like now.
To her, I’m still the law school friend who pulled too many all-nighters and drank too much bad coffee.
Not the woman who kneels in graveyards and trades smiles with killers.
I set the table while she unpacks the food. It’s Thai, my favorite, though I can’t imagine eating right now. She pours two glasses of wine, sliding one toward me as if nothing between us has changed.
“So,” she says, digging into her noodles. “How’s work? Still terrifying judges into submission?”
I laugh lightly, though it sounds hollow in my ears. “Something like that.”
She launches into stories about her job, her roommate, the guy she’s been seeing.
I nod, sip wine, offer small smiles. The cadence is easy, the way it always was, but I can’t follow it fully.
My mind keeps slipping behind locked doors, back to the graveyard, my father’s name carved into stone.
Then further still, to the darkened club where Russian murmurs wrapped around me, where Alexei’s eyes studied me like a problem he intended to solve.
I stab at my food without tasting it, hiding the tension in my shoulders with practiced gestures. Annie doesn’t notice, or if she does, she lets it slide.
For a moment, her laughter fills the apartment, rich and familiar, and I almost let myself fall into it. Almost let myself believe I can be that girl again, the one who had friends, who didn’t carry blood debts in her chest.
But then Annie leans across the table, eyes bright. “You seem… far away tonight.”
I freeze, then force a shrug. “Long week. Court was intense.”
She studies me, head tilted, like she’s trying to read between the lines. My mask doesn’t slip. It never does.
We move to the couch with our wine, talking about trivial things. Movies, old professors, the bar we used to haunt after finals. We laugh, and it feels almost real. Almost. Except every time I smile, I feel the lie pressing against my teeth.
As she rambles about a disastrous Tinder date, my phone buzzes against the table. The sound rips through me like a blade. Annie barely glances at it, but my chest tightens.
Unknown number.
One line. An invitation. The address of a hotel downtown. A time. No explanation.
I don’t need one.
I delete the message instantly, slipping the phone into my pocket before Annie can ask. My pulse won’t settle.
I know who it is.
The wine in my glass tastes sour suddenly. Annie is still talking, her voice a gentle blur, but I can’t hear her anymore. My thoughts are already somewhere else, caught between the graveyard’s silence and the weight of gray eyes watching me across polished wood and smoke.
I smile when she looks at me, because it’s what she expects. I laugh when she finishes her story, because it’s what I used to do.
My mind isn’t here. It never is anymore.