Chapter 32 Kirill
Kirill
I follow Eleanor and Jordan down the silent corridor, every sense stretched taut as a wire.
I’ve never been so far outside my comfort zone. Led by a woman. Saved by a socialite. Sneaking down halls instead of kicking in doors.
Somewhere along the way, we went from marble to carpeting. The heavy paintings and wallpaper have vanished. Now the walls feature simple, bare paint and wainscoting. No windows here.
We’re in the center of the estate. Buried in the heart of the maze.
The thick carpet eats our footsteps as we approach a huge door. Eleanor types out a code that must be at least twelve digits long. The lock gives with a soft, barely audible click.
As the door swings open, the whole tenor of the air shifts.
Eleanor glances down the hall. “Twenty minutes. I hope I get to see you after this too. Don’t be a stranger. We have so much to catch up on.”
She vanishes down the corridor to return to her gala, to her life of pretty lies.
The quiet room past the door holds dark wooden filing cabinets, cloth-covered furniture, and stacks of books and paperwork.
A mausoleum for things people kill to protect.
Muted sound comes from the party below. Faraway laughter, a pulse of voices, and fragments of violin drift up the stairwells and die here on the deep carpet.
There’s a sense of being underwater. Or behind glass.
Trapped in an aquarium of silence.
Jordan stands at the center of the room, unmoving. Her gaze skims over the desk, sweeping over the neatly arrayed books, the paintings gleaming in tarnished silver, and the pens lined up like a firing squad.
Clean and perfectly staged, despite the piles of boxes and totes along the walls.
“Something’s wrong.” Jordan’s near whisper drips with fear.
I sweep the room again. No windows or other entry points. Not even attic access. Just one closed door that we already walked through. A fluctuating tapestry of shadow and light dances on the walls and furniture. A rich man’s unused office turned storage room, frozen in anticipation.
“What do you mean?” I circle her and check the corners anyway, more out of old habits than superstition.
I sense nothing.
She’s at the desk, her fingertips gliding across the lacquer, her face drawn tight. She looks as if she’s caught the faintest vibration through the wood itself.
It would be easy to laugh at the idea of auras or haunted energy.
All the things I used to scoff at.
But she’s proven she’s so much more than a flake. She’s tuned to a frequency I can’t hear.
I keep my voice low, mimicking hers. “What do you feel?”
“It’s like…” She frowns. “Someone’s been here. Just now. The energy’s wrong. All churned up.”
I check my watch. Eighteen minutes remaining. “Where’s the safe?” The mission matters above all else. We can figure out the rest later.
She scans the shelves, searching for the anomaly. “There.” Her finger picks out a stretch of books identical to all the others, but she sounds certain. “Behind those.”
I go where she points, shoving aside rows of unread volumes, and find precisely what I’ve been hunting for.
Behind the dustless books lies the hidden panel for a classic wall safe. The old-school combination lock is a good choice.
It’s not even Eleanor and Richard’s safe, and still they hid the thing. They really are fanatics about security.
I haul the heavy box out. The metal lands with a decisive thud on the desk.
Jordan’s gone still. She braces her hands on the desk, every muscle drawn tight. She’s not looking at me or even at the safe. Her attention is fixed somewhere off in space, like she’s listening to a sound crest over the horizon.
The tension vibrates between us, and electricity sizzles through the air.
“Jordan?”
She pivots slowly, the chill in her eyes absolute. “Something’s really wrong.”
Fuck.
I scan again. No movement. No threats. But the room holds pressure, a sense of the floor tilting sideways beneath our feet. “Combination?”
Her robotic answer floats out, as if she’s reading off a list carved into her bones. “Eleven, twenty-seven, thirty-two.”
I spin the dial. Left. Right. Left. The mechanism is smooth, the clicks speaking in a sharp and satisfying language I know by heart. The handle turns.
Instead of files, folders, and evidence spilling out…
We find a gift box precisely wrapped in white paper with geometric blood-red lines and a matching glossy bow in the center of the otherwise empty compartment. The wallet-sized package sits like a threat, like someone laughing at me from behind a two-way mirror.
“No. That wasn’t there before.” Jordan sounds unmoored. Lost. “There were papers. Pictures. A hard drive.”
The hair on the back of my neck rises.
This is a message. A trap. The “Insurance” never mattered.
I reach for the box and discover that it’s almost weightless.
Theater.
Like the key in the resin surrounded by twenty million in diamonds.
Jordan wheels toward the door. “Kirill!”
Even I notice the shift in air as the door swings open. Without conscious thought, I pull my gun and push Jordan behind me, shielding her with my body as I shove the gift box into her hands.
I expect Eleanor, or Hearst, or a bored security goon.
Instead, three men with tailored suits so black they eat the light enter the room. They move in lockstep, each gesture precise and measured. Not Falcone’s usual muscle.
No cheap suits or bravado.
These are the men you send when you don’t want survivors.
Behind me, Jordan sucks in a sharp breath, her hand gripping the back of my wool jacket.
“Kirill…”
I rip the jacket off and plant myself between Jordan and the threat, balancing on the balls of my feet. I fight better with free arm movement. “Who the fuck are you?”
The lead man’s face is the color of chalk, his eyes so blank, dead, and empty, they almost shine. He could pass for fucking Dracula.
His gaze flickers to the gift box Jordan clutches and lingers. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t blink.
“Give it to me.” The polished accent contains Eastern European notes.
“Give you what?” I adjust my stance again while measuring distance and cover. The desk is at my back, the solid wood between us and the door if it comes to that.
In an almost lazy gesture, Dracula brings out a pistol with a silencer attached. “Gio Falcone sends his regards.”
He fires.
I’m moving already, my arm hooked around Jordan’s waist as I haul her over the giant desk.
Fucking Gio.
Outsourcing his wars, ordering other men to spill the blood.
A bullet punches the wall where my skull used to be, and plaster powder drifts down like snow.
Jordan and I hit the floor hard, and the box topples from her hands.
Her breath rattles against my neck, her body flush to mine in the strip of space between the desk and wall.
My gun’s still in my hand, the weight a comfort.
The gift box sits on the hardwood beside us, perfectly innocent and useless.
I can’t shoot. Not without a silencer.
One round, and I may as well set off flares. Security, staff, and every guest on the floor would come running.
This has to stay quiet. Contained. There’s no other way.
Unhurried footsteps meander around the desk.
We’re cornered.
After the leader mutters an unintelligible command, his crew splits. One breaks left, the other right. Classic flanking.
They’re good. Trained.
Jordan’s pressed so close, I can feel her fast but steady breathing. She stares with huge eyes, but she isn’t screaming or breaking. She holds herself together.
My brain tightens to a pinpoint as I race through scenarios in my head. Three armed men against Jordan and me. We have no way to call for help.
I tip my head back to scan the desk.
Cut-glass pen holder. Leather blotter. Green banker’s lamp. Bronze bull paperweight.
The lead guy’s coming up on the right. Three steps. Two.
I catch Jordan’s eyes and mouth a single word. Stay.
She nods before flattening to the floor.
I rise up just enough, snag the bull, and sling six pounds of bronze over the desk.
My aim is true.
It hits Dracula’s wrist with a dull, wet crack. He yelps, and his pistol clatters to the hardwood and slides.
Before the other two can react, I vault the desk, my body operating on autopilot. The moment I land, I drop in a crouch, sweep out a leg, and snag the ankle of the closest man.
He falls hard. Once his head cracks against the corner of the desk, he doesn’t move again.
Even with him temporarily unconscious, I’m still outnumbered.
Adrenaline rushes my system as I finish shedding any remaining facade of civility.
Let’s have some fun, boys.