Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Artyom
Kira is still asleep when I wake up, her breath warm against my chest, her body curled into me like she forgot she ever tried to keep distance between us, and for a long moment I just lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to understand how the hell last night happened, how I ended up holding her like that, how her hand ended up resting over my heart like she was trying to keep it beating in my sleep.
My shoulder throbs in a deep, steady pulse that radiates down my arm, my ribs ache every time I breathe too hard, and my whole body feels like it got dragged under a moving truck and left there just long enough to make sure the damage settled in my bones.
Yet none of that hits me even half as hard as the quiet, undeniable truth that she didn’t let go of me all night, not even when she shifted in her sleep or when I moved and the pain forced a low hiss from my throat.
Every time I thought the contact would break, she tightened her arm around me without waking, like her body knew something her mind hasn’t admitted yet, like letting go wasn’t even an option.
I lie there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling and trying to tell myself I should move, that I should get up and start dealing with the mess waiting for me downstairs, but her warmth is still pressed along my side and her breath is still soft and even against my chest, and it makes the idea of pulling myself away feel harder than anything else I’m supposed to face today.
So I stay there for another minute, maybe two, watching the way her lashes brush the tops of her cheeks, the way her mouth parts slightly with each soft exhale, the faint crease between her brows that never goes away, even when she sleeps, like some part of her is always bracing for something.
But then, very carefully, I slip out from under her arm, letting her hand fall gently onto the blanket. She stirs a little, turning onto her side, her hair falling over her face.
I stand there for a second longer than I should, looking at her like some idiot who doesn’t know how to walk away from a warm bed. Then I force myself to move.
I change my bandage in the bathroom, my jaw tightening every time my fingers brush too close to the wound. I throw on black jeans, a black shirt, a jacket, and I head downstairs.
The hotel is quiet this early, the hallways dim, the air cold enough to sting my lungs. I move past the guards with nothing more than a glance, past the front desk, past the kitchen women carrying trays of bread and fruit.
I pull out my phone and see that Mikhail’s texted me sometime before dawn. He’s on level minus three, the Camorra room.
I stand at the bottom of the stairs staring at the reinforced door that hides the man we dragged off the street.
The door to the basement hallway clicks shut behind me, sealing off the world above. The deeper I walk, the thicker the air gets, layered with the smell of sweat, bleach, and blood. My shoulder throbs under the bandage, but the pain works in my favor, keeping me focused.
One of the Camorra men stands by the reinforced steel door, arms crossed, eyes hollow from a night shift.
“He’s awake,” he says. “Hasn’t said a word.”
“He will,” I answer.
He hesitates. “Luciano said not to kill him yet.”
“I’m not planning to,” I say, brushing past.
He unlocks the door for me and the metal gives a low complaining creak as the hinges strain under the weight of years and neglect, the sound echoing down the narrow corridor in a way that settles under my skin, and I push the door open just far enough to slip inside, letting it swing shut behind me with a heavy, final click.
The man we dragged off the street sits slumped in that chair with his wrists cuffed behind him, his head drooping forward under the weight of blood loss and whatever fear has been eating at him since they brought him down here, a dried smear of red at the corner of his mouth.
He hears the door close and his head lifts in a slow, dragging pull of muscle, like it costs him something just to raise it, his chin trembling once before he manages to lock his gaze on mine.
The dim yellow bulb above us flickers and the light cuts across his face in a harsh stripe, enough to show the way his pupils widen, the way his breath catches in a short, tight jerk he tries to hide.
His shoulders tense first—barely a twitch, but unmistakable—followed by a quick, darting glance at the door, even though he knows it’s shut.
Then comes the part he can’t control: the way his throat works around a swallow that doesn’t go down, the way his knuckles strain against the cuffs as if his body is bracing for impact before his mind can catch up.
Good.
I grab another chair, drag it across the floor slowly, letting the metal scrape echo through the room until he shifts in his seat like the sound alone slices into him. I sit directly in front of him, legs spread, elbows resting loosely on my knees.
“Who sent you?” I ask finally, my voice low, steady, stripped of the softness Kira heard last night.
He looks away.
I grab his jaw with my good hand and force him to look at me.
“Who sent you?”
He clenches his teeth. “Fuck you.”
My hand tightens around his jaw. “That’s not an answer.”
He laughs—dry, shaky, trying to look brave but failing miserably. “If I talk, I die. If I don’t talk, I die. So, what do you think I’m gonna do?”
“You’re going to tell me,” I say, my voice low and even, the kind of tone that leaves no room for misunderstanding, no room for negotiation, nothing but the inevitable truth he’s going to choke out one way or another.
“And why the fuck would I—”
I hit him before he finishes the sentence, my knuckles sinking into the side of his face with a satisfying, jarring impact that sends the chair skidding half an inch across the concrete, not hard enough to knock him out but hard enough for the crack of bone to snap through the room like a warning shot, hard enough to split the skin across his cheekbone so a thin line of blood snakes down toward his jaw as his head whips to the side in a violent, involuntary jerk.
He spits blood onto the floor, like that tiny gesture can pretend he still has control of anything happening in here, and I let him have the illusion for the length of a breath before I stand and grip the back of the metal chair, lifting and tipping it over with one smooth, brutal motion so it crashes onto the concrete with his shoulders taking the hit, his body folding awkwardly around the cuffs while a raw, guttural sound tears from his throat before he can swallow it back.
I crouch beside him, my fist tightening in the collar of his shirt as I haul him up just enough that he’s forced to meet my eyes, no escape in the tilt of his chin or the twitch of his jaw, nothing to hide behind except the fear he’s pretending isn’t already bleeding through his expression.
“You’re not stupid,” I say, leaning in close enough that he can feel my breath on his cheek, close enough that the blood on his skin almost touches mine. “So don’t act like it.”
His chest shudders once, almost invisible, like he knows something in the room has shifted against him.
“I want a name,” I continue, my voice dropping into something quieter, darker, something that makes the tiny muscles in his throat tense.
I catch just a flicker, a tiny break in the mask he’s trying so hard to hold together, a brief widening of his eyes, a twitch at the corner of his mouth, something sharp and involuntary and entirely out of his control that betrays him before he can stop it.
He tries to bury it, to flatten his expression back into stone, but I’ve already seen it, already filed it away, already felt the spark of cold anger settle deeper in my chest.
“Why?” I ask, my voice low enough that it feels like a blade dragged along the inside of his ribs. “Why her?”
He looks at me like he’s measuring his options, and he drags his tongue across his split lip, pulling in the metallic taste of his own blood before finally muttering, “Orders.”
“Whose?”
He hesitates.
And that single second of silence burns through whatever patience I had left.
I stand, grab the cuffs behind his chair, and lift the entire fucking thing in one violent, controlled movement, hauling him up with it like he weighs nothing and slamming the legs back down onto the concrete hard enough that the sound ricochets off the walls, hard enough that the breath is punched out of him in a strained, startled cry.
The echo hasn’t even faded when I lean over him again, my face inches from his.
“Whose,” I repeat, the word no longer a question but a promise of what happens if he makes me ask it a third time.
He shakes his head frantically. “I don’t know his name! I don’t—fuck—please—”
He’s not lying, but I know there’s something else he’s hiding.
I lean in closer, my voice barely above a whisper. “Then what do you know?”
He swallows, chest rising too fast, but his lips stay locked.
My hand fists in the front of his shirt for half a heartbeat before I slide up and clamp it around his throat, my fingers digging into the sweaty skin under his jaw as I haul him upward in one brutal, unbroken motion that sends the chair scraping and shrieking across the concrete behind him, his feet kicking once before I slam him back against the wall so hard the sound cracks through the room like a gunshot.
His head snaps against the concrete with a dull, sickening thud, his breath leaving him in a strangled gasp that melts into a panicked wheeze as my grip tightens, my forearm trembling from the strain in my injured shoulder but my anger so sharp and clean it drowns out every thread of pain.
“You don’t touch her,” I say, my voice low and even, the kind of tone that makes men remember commandments. “You don’t breathe in her direction. You don’t say her fucking name. Not ever.”