Vadim
The winter had seemed longer this year. Colder. The spring was most welcome.
It had been a pleasant surprise to see the blue flowers blossoming at Makari’s grave. I didn’t dwell too much on the mother who planted them.
I needed a break.
What was the point of being the Pakhan if I didn’t enjoy the benefits of it occasionally?
I wondered where she was.
“Why are we keeping the old man alive?” Konstantin asked, stifling a yawn.
I had lost count of how many times he had suggested killing Sergei.
“When are you moving back to your place?” I asked instead.
He had stationed himself in my house as though I were on suicide watch. I had tried beating him, threatening him, and even got my byki to physically remove him. Like a bad smell he always came back.
“When I know you are okay,” he murmured.
This son of a—
“Get the fuck out of my house.”
He stood up from my couch and stretched, arms wide, his T-shirt lifting with the movement. He noticed me looking and pulled the red cotton up deliberately, patting his ribs with the satisfaction of a man presenting evidence.
“Yeah, take a look. This is what three years younger than you does for the body,” he said, with a chuckle.
I launched myself out of the armchair and he ran.
His laughter filled the wooden hallway before I heard him thundering up the stairs.
I stared at my leather slippers. Fixed my blanket. Sat back down with a sigh.
I needed to get myself to the pit. Hibernation was over.
??
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The hall seemed longer than usual—or perhaps it was because the further in I walked, the more men fell silent.
I could have trained at home, but the motivation was here, at the pit where serious fighters trained.
Where men competed under extreme weights and goaded one another to do better.
Where the noise and the smell and the particular pressure of other bodies pushing their limits made it impossible to be anything less than what you were capable of.
It was where we separated the wheat from the chaff. It was where the most vicious fighters were forged for the cage.
Murmurs slowly resumed.
Konstantin cracked his neck, drawing attention away from me for a few moments.
I had months of work ahead to get back to the condition I was in before winter. This was my own doing. Olya’s cooking had not helped.
“Ah, my friend has been enjoying many fried dumplings,” Ruslan said, wiping the bench down.
“I tried to tell you,” Konstantin said, setting his bag down.
I was too busy studying Ruslan’s back. Beneath the tattoos and the scars, assessing the muscle as it flexed and shifted. He was only a year older than me and knew this business as well as I did.
Yeah. He would be the first person I beat the shit out of once I was fit again.
Not enough to break bones. Enough to leave some interesting internal bruising.
I began warming up and didn’t stop until my body was drenched in sweat. That session lit something in me that had been cold for months—the need to keep growing, to keep claiming, to keep moving forward rather than standing in a silent house staring at ghosts that didn't want to be found.
The daily grind began.
It wasn't until I went for a shower that I thought of her.
The last time I had been inside her.
The first time I had inspected her.
The woman who had bested me and left.
Her brother had earned his spot as a soldier. It was best to keep him close. If push came to shove he would choose his sister over the Bratva.
That was what she did to hapless men.
What a devious woman. I should have seen past the pretence.
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His gaze darted from one side of my office to the other. The young lad looked at everything in the room except me—the bookshelves, the window, the grain of the desk between us—with the restlessness of someone who had been summoned and wasn’t sure why and was trying not to show it.
Spartak still reported back to me. In all these months the boy had never changed his routine. The spyware on his phone had picked up nothing—no unusual contact, no deviation, no communication with his sister that I could trace. Either she hadn’t reached out or he was more careful than he looked.
I was beginning to suspect the latter.
“How is your sister doing?” I asked.
His eyes shot to mine. There was a split second of something—panic, or the shadow of it—before it vanished behind a shrug.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She hasn’t bothered to contact any of us.”
Convincing enough. The shrug landed at the right moment. The eye contact held just long enough.
Iskra had trained him well.
“There has been a sighting of her,” I said, lifting my glass.
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Where is she?” he asked, and then caught himself and licked his lip—the tell arriving a second too late to be casual.
I waved my hand.
“It’s not a verified sighting. I’m flying some men out in the next few days,” I lied smoothly.
“Perhaps I can join them?” The hope in his voice was poorly concealed.
“No. It’s all in hand.”
“My mother would want to know she’s safe.” He leaned forward slightly. “Where was she seen?”
The little shit knew exactly where she was.
I let the silence sit for a moment—long enough to watch him decide whether to fill it.
He didn’t. Good instincts. She had taught him that too.
“Tell your mother not to worry,” I said, setting my glass down. “She will be home soon.”
There it was.
Fear. Undisguised and immediate, the kind that arrives before the mind can arrange the face.
He nodded.
Leonid had proved to be useless, but Ruslan here might be the key.
It shouldn't bother me where she was or who she was fucking.
But it did.