Chapter Eleven - Karmia
The command comes without ceremony, dropped into the room like a blade striking stone.
“You’ll come with me tonight.”
For a second, I think I’ve misheard. I straighten in my chair, my mouth parting. “What?”
Rostya doesn’t repeat himself. He never does.
His gaze fixes on me, unflinching, already moving past the fact of it as if my consent was never required.
“The Volkovs won’t be handled from behind a screen.
If you’re so desperate to imagine escape, you’ll see firsthand what waits outside these walls. ”
My pulse slams against my throat. “No. Absolutely not. You can’t—”
“I can.” His voice is sharp as broken glass, cutting straight through my protest. He leans forward slightly, enough that the weight of his authority presses down like iron. “You wear my ring. You walk where I walk.”
The words cinch around me like a chain, dragging breath from my lungs. I shake my head violently, trying to push against the wall of him. “I’m not—this isn’t… you can’t drag me into a battlefield like some—”
But Ivan is already by the door, silent as stone. Miron waits beside him, his expression unreadable, but his stillness says it all: no protest of mine will change this. They won’t stop him. No one will.
His authority is a wall I can’t scale, and he knows it.
The next thing I know, I’m herded down the grand steps of the estate, the night air cold against my skin, my stomach twisting into knots.
The convoy waits at the base of the stairs: sleek black cars lined like sentinels, engines humming low, tinted windows glinting in the floodlights.
Men move around them with brutal efficiency, sliding magazines into rifles, checking chambers with the calm precision of ritual.
Their silence makes it worse, every motion a reminder of what this world is—cold, calculated, merciless.
A hand at my elbow pushes me forward, and before I can resist, I’m seated inside one of the cars. Leather seats, tinted glass, the faint smell of smoke and steel. Rostya slides in beside me, his presence swallowing the space whole.
The car pulls away, smooth and unhurried, the estate falling behind us as city lights bleed into night. My hands curl into fists against my lap, nails biting deep crescents into my palms.
I watch the men in the front through the reflection in the glass. Ivan’s broad shoulders, unmoving, his focus on the road. Miron’s sharp profile, calm, unreadable, the faint glow of his phone screen lighting his face. Both of them at ease, as though this is just another night, just another mission.
My chest is tight, every breath shallow. Fear claws at me, sharp and unrelenting. I imagine bolting when the car slows, yanking the door open, running into the dark. The thought dies as quickly as it sparks.
Rostya sits beside me, too close, too steady. Every turn of his head, every flick of his gaze pins me back into the seat. I can’t escape him. Not here. Not anywhere.
The ring on my finger feels heavier than steel, binding me tighter than the locks on the car doors.
The convoy rolls to a stop, engines rumbling low before cutting off in unison.
When the doors open, the stink of oil and rust pours in, heavy enough to coat my tongue.
The air feels wrong here—too still, too hollow.
No stray dogs barking, no distant hum of machinery.
Just silence, stretched thin and brittle.
The warehouse looms ahead, its windows dark, its walls scarred with years of weather and neglect. Shadows crawl long across the cracked pavement, stretched unnaturally by the floodlights the cars spill behind us.
Every nerve in me screams danger. My chest tightens, breath sticking halfway in my throat.
But the men don’t pause. Ivan swings out first, his gun already drawn, steps measured and steady.
Miron follows, checking his weapon with a clinical calm that chills me more than anything.
Then Rostya steps out, tall, composed, as if walking into the jaws of hell doesn’t warrant a second thought.
I trail behind them, my pulse hammering loud enough I’m certain they must hear it. My hands shake as I clutch my arms tight against myself, but their movements don’t falter. This isn’t fear to them—it’s routine.
Then the silence shatters.
Gunfire cracks through the night, sharp and violent. Bullets tear into the warehouse windows, glass exploding into glittering shards. Sparks jump off steel beams as rounds ricochet. The air erupts in thunder, in shouts, in the brutal chaos of war.
Figures burst from the shadows, Volkov men with rifles spitting fire, their shapes jagged in the flashes of muzzle light. Automatic bursts shred the stillness, tearing through crates, chewing into metal.
The Bratva advance fractures instantly, soldiers shouting orders, returning fire in quick, controlled bursts. Ivan barks something in Russian and dives for cover. Miron drops to one knee, his weapon raised, calm as though he’s shooting at paper targets rather than men intent on killing us all.
I don’t think. I throw myself behind a stack of broken crates, the splinters tearing into my palms as I catch myself. The wood digs into my skin, the pain sharp and real, grounding me even as my ears ring. Smoke and gunpowder choke the air, acrid and suffocating.
My breath comes in gasps, shallow and quick. The ground vibrates under the staccato of gunfire, my body pressed small against the splintered boards. My hands sting, sticky with blood from shallow cuts, but I can’t move.
Then I hear the thud of boots, and they’re close.
I freeze. A shadow falls across the broken wood, blocking the faint light. I look up just as a figure looms over me, rifle raised, his face half hidden in the smoke. The barrel of his gun lowers, aimed directly at me.
The world narrows to that single black circle, the trigger waiting to be pulled.
The gun barrel tilts down further, a shadow blotting out the world. My breath seizes, lungs locking in the moment before the trigger pulls—
Then a force slams into me.
Rostya crashes into my side, dragging me down so hard the air blasts out of my chest. My back hits the concrete, cold and jarring, but his weight pins me, covers me.
The shot never comes. Instead, the thunder of his pistol detonates against my ear, deafening, the muzzle flash so close it sears the dark.
The Volkov man jerks backward, blood exploding across the crates. He collapses, weapon clattering from his hands. Crimson spatters hot across my dress, soaking the lace, blooming over the silk like grotesque flowers.
My ears ring. My heart hammers. Above me, Rostya moves with savage precision. He doesn’t hesitate. His body shifts, firing again, ensuring the man won’t rise. Brutal. Unrelenting. The violence I’ve always feared unleashed not against me, but to shield me.
His hand clamps around my wrist, hard enough to bruise, anchoring me to him as if daring the world itself to pry me loose. His eyes blaze, cold fury sharpened into focus, as though my life is a line he refuses to let anyone cross.
Gunfire rages around us, each burst echoing off steel beams and concrete walls.
Ivan’s voice cuts through the chaos, low and commanding, his shots controlled, methodical.
Miron’s precision is surgical—every squeeze of the trigger deliberate, every target that rises immediately silenced.
Together they hold the line, their efficiency frightening, terrifyingly calm amid the storm.
Rostya yanks me upright, his grip unyielding. My knees nearly buckle, but his arm locks around me, half dragging, half carrying me across the slick concrete. His jaw is set like stone, clenched with a fury that radiates hotter than the gunfire.
“Move,” he growls, though it feels less like a command to me than a promise to the enemy: I will get her out.
I stumble again, my legs weak, my lungs clawing for air thick with smoke, and the copper tang of blood.
Bodies litter the floor, Bratva and Volkov alike, their blood spreading dark across the cracks.
The stench clings to my throat, choking me, but still Rostya pushes forward, carving a path like a force of nature.
At last, the tide shifts. The Volkov men falter under the counterattack, their line breaking, shouts fracturing into retreat. Boots pound away, weapons discarded in panic. Silence falls in jagged bursts, broken only by the groans of the dying.
We emerge from the shadows into the cold night air beyond the warehouse. The sudden stillness hits harder than the gunfire. My legs tremble, refusing to hold me. My breath rips from my chest in ragged gasps, each one sharp.
My body shakes, my dress stained with blood that isn’t mine. My heart pounds against the iron grip still wrapped around my wrist.
I’m alive, but the way Rostya holds me says there’s more to come.
Silence crushes the warehouse in the wake of chaos.
Only my own ragged breathing fills my ears, chest heaving, hands shaking so hard I press them flat against my bloody dress to hide it.
My ears throb with the ghost of gunfire, each heartbeat another echo.
My body feels light, unmoored, the world distant and unreal.
Rostya releases me at last, turning with that predatory grace, blue eyes searing across the darkness. His expression is unreadable, a hard, controlled, mouth set in a line that could crack stone.
For a flicker of a second, I see something else buried in his gaze. A raw urgency, a desperate protectiveness, sharp and bright as a cut. He’s just risked himself to keep me alive, and for that split second, he doesn’t look like the monster I’ve imagined. He looks human. Frightened. Mine.
Then he shutters it away. The mask returns, face carved from ice. He looks through me, not at me, his posture commanding again.
Movement draws my eyes to the wreckage. Miron emerges from the gloom, blood spattered across his shirt, dragging a man by the collar. The man is battered, face streaked with sweat and crimson, but his eyes blaze with hate.
Ilya Volkov.
Even on his knees, hands bound behind his back, he radiates fury and defiance. Miron shoves him forward, and the Bratva men close in, guns leveled, forcing Ilya to bow. He snarls something in Russian, voice thick with venom, never once looking away from Rostya.
Rostya stands over him, impossibly tall, a dark figure backlit by the light spilling from the open warehouse door. His authority rolls through the room like thunder. Unquestioned and absolute.
Ivan moves in to guard, silent and grim. The other Bratva soldiers spread out, keeping eyes on the shadows, but their focus is drawn by the spectacle: the Volkov leader brought to heel, the threat subdued, if only for now.
I feel a chill settle over my skin. This was never just a mission to strike at rivals. It was a trap, a test, and bait, all at once.
Rostya wanted more than to send a message. He wanted a prize.
Now, with Ilya in their hands, the air thrums with new danger, the stakes rising beyond anything I’d imagined. Whatever happens next, the war between these men—between these worlds—is about to explode into something far bloodier, and I am no longer just a spectator.
I am standing in the center of it, bloodstained, shaking, and suddenly far more valuable—and vulnerable—than I’d ever meant to be.