Chapter 24
Roman
My phone buzzes. It is a text from Damien. Rumour has it you’re babysitting. Need an extra pair of eyes for the funeral?
I stare at the message. Damien is chaos incarnate, but he is loyal.
No.
That’s it? No?
That’s it.
I replace the phone on my desk and glance at the monitors. Zoya has moved into the en-suite.
My finger traces the edge of the mahogany desk.
Two days until the funeral. Two days until I parade her in front of London’s underworld as mine.
Damien thinks I need help. He is wrong. I don’t need extra eyes; I need Zoya to be the weapon her father intended her to be.
If she cracks that code, she becomes dangerous.
And a dangerous woman is the only kind worth keeping.
I pull the file on St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church towards me.
The logistics are a nightmare. Narrow streets, limited exits, and Nik’s men likely crawling over the rooftops.
I circle the side entrance on the blueprint.
That will be our extraction point if things go south.
And they will. Nik is cornered, and I just shot down his threats.
He will try something public to regain face, especially when he knows I have Zoya and the ledger.
I check the time. An hour until lunch. An hour to ensure the path is clear.
An hour to keep my hands off her. I pick up my pen, but my mind is already back in that room, calculating how long it will take for her to break that code and if she will come to me with it.
I draw a thick line through the main entrance on the blueprint.
Too exposed. If Nik tries a shooter, it will be from the bell tower or the residential block opposite.
I make a note for Yuri to sweep the rooftops at 6 AM.
Every angle needs to be covered, every shadow illuminated.
I won’t lose her to a bullet, nor will I let Nik take her back.
My gaze drifts back to the screen. Zoya is out of the bathroom now, dressed in black jeans and a black silk shirt.
She sits at the table, hair damp and curling at the ends, chewing on the end of a pen.
She looks like a student cramming for an exam, not a woman holding the fate of London’s underworld in a graph pad.
“Sir,” Andrei’s voice cuts through the silence.
Frowning, I look up. “What is it?”
“Yuri called,” Andrei says, stopping a respectful distance from the mahogany. He knows better than to crowd me when I’m plotting a war. “He did a preliminary sweep of the square opposite St. Nicholas. He spotted two of Nik’s men in a parked van.”
I recline in the chair, the leather creaking beneath my weight. “Nik is getting desperate if he’s planting eyes this early.”
“Yuri wants to know if he should clear them out.”
“No.” I tap the pen against the blueprint, marking the location of the van in my mind. “Let them sit. If we clear them, Nik sends new ones we might not spot. Better the devil we know. Tell Yuri to monitor their frequency. I want to know who they call and when.”
Andrei nods, tapping a message into his phone. “Also, a courier arrived with a package addressed to Miss Antonova.”
“What?” I ask, standing up abruptly. “Did you screen it?”
“Of course, sir,” Andrei says, trying not to make it sound like I asked a dumb question. “It’s a lockbox. Lead lined.”
“You are fucking joking?”
“No. Do we open it or contain it?”
Good fucking question. If someone, AKA Nik, sent a bomb to my home to blow up Zoya, I want to fucking know about it. But that would require a specialist, and I don’t happen to employ bomb disposal units on my everyday staff.
“Move it to the furthest corner of the estate. We open it.”
Andrei gulps at the we knowing he has to be standing right beside me if this goes tits up.
“Of course, sir,” he says and disappears to arrange a potentially fatal mistake.
I button my jacket as I stride across the entrance hall to the cupboard near the door.
I grab my coat and stride out into the damp chill of the late morning.
The sky is a flat, bruised grey, threatening a downpour that matches my mood.
I head for the old stone folly on the eastern perimeter, far enough from the main house that a blast would shatter windows but leave the structure—and Zoya—intact.
For one fleeting moment, I wonder if I should say goodbye to her, but then I curse myself for being sentimental and a pussy.
This is standard Bratva business. This is business. Brutal, banal business.
The box sits on a flat slab of limestone, wrapped in innocuous brown paper. It looks harmless, but the density Andrei described screams danger. Lead lining blocks X-rays; it also blocks signals.
“Stand back,” I order the three guards surrounding it. And then I grimace. “Get back into positions, you arseholes. This could be a fucking decoy.”
With a grimness that darkens the atmosphere, they move off, leaving Andrei and me.
“I should do this, sir,” Andrei insists, though sweat beads on his upper lip.
“Since when do I shy away from potential threats?”
“Never.”
“Precisely.” I hold my hand out for a knife. He slaps the blade against my palm and moves fractionally closer.
Noted.
I slice the tape, my hand steady. If this ends me, Baron will level London before the sun sets. It’s a small comfort. I hope Damien takes care of Zoya for me. I peel back the flaps and unlatch the heavy metal container inside. I throw the lid open, muscles coiled to dive.
No explosion. No fire.
Inside, nestled in black foam, sits a single, cheap burner phone.
As the lid hits the stone, a few seconds pass, and then the screen lights up. It rings, the shrill, electronic chirping cutting through the silence of the grounds.
I pick it up and accept the call. “You have five seconds to convince me not to hunt you down for sport.”
“Roman. You know who this is?”
The gravelly voice is unmistakable. I exchange a look with Andrei. “Mikhail. You sound pretty good for a dead man.”