Chapter Forty-nine
Dmitri Konstantinov
I sat behind a dusty desk with a glass of cheap vodka in my hand. Thirty minutes of waiting in this miserable safe house had nearly convinced me that Zachary had forgotten his own hiding place. But his voice grew closer from the hallway.
I flicked my lighter on and held the flame steady when he touched the doorknob. He didn’t open it immediately. He was still talking.
“Nobody finds out I’m here. I mean nobody. You understand how this works. Someone is already out there looking, and these are politics. One wrong move and we screw up everything.” He opened the door and stepped into the dark room. “I will call you. Just—”
He stopped mid-sentence when the lights came on, and he found me seated behind his desk.
The flame snapped shut beneath my thumb as I took a slow sip of vodka.
The confidence drained from his face. It was fascinating watching it happen. The man who walked in, giving orders, disappeared. The one standing there looked as if he were trying to calculate how many mistakes had brought him to this exact moment.
His hand trembled slightly around the phone. To his credit, he dismissed the person on the other end. “Let me call you back.”
I reached for the bottle and poured myself another drink.
“Drink?” I asked, filling a second glass and sliding it across the desk toward the empty chair opposite me.
He remained exactly where he was, and I had no intention of rushing him. Zachary came here because he believed this place was secure. He believed distance and locked doors could protect him from me.
Instead, I arrived first. Now he was standing inside his own safe house like an uninvited guest.
His thumb shifted across the phone screen, subtle enough to pass unnoticed by most people.
“Careful with that.” I nodded toward his chest. “That red light isn’t decoration.”
His eyes dropped to his chest where the laser light rested.
Now he understood the situation. He might have believed I was reckless enough to walk into this room unprepared.
Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t feeling charitable today.
His legs made the decision and carried him across the room.
He lowered himself into the chair opposite me with remarkable obedience.
“How…how did you get in here?” he asked.
My gaze remained on him. The bald spot had expanded since the last time I saw him, and the dark circles beneath his eyes suggested sleep had become a rare luxury.
Fear does that to people.
I could kill him in this room, and nobody outside would hear a thing. I had at least five different ways to do it. But killing him cleanly wasn’t the point. It would be too quick, too merciful for a man who planted a bomb in my car.
First, he needed to understand.
I leaned forward and arranged five files across the desk, turning the documents toward him.
“I kept wondering where a politician finds this kind of reach.” I settled back into the chair and swirled the vodka in my glass.
“Because a politician is just a man pretending to be important using other people’s money.
Turns out you own quite a lot under different names.
Carlos Hernandez holds the largest stake in an oil company registered across three territories.
” I flipped open the next file. “Ernesto Yurgis. Sugar production. Different industries, same structure. Different names on paper, your money underneath. I could keep going all night.”
“You have no proof,” he said, and I chuckled.
“Proof?” My gaze locked onto his. “Do I look like a man who needs proof?” He shifted in his chair, his eyes moving from the files to me and back.
“Looks like they haven’t called you yet.
Should we call them together? Carlos, Ernesto, or Manuel, perhaps.
” I took another sip. “Or maybe they’re against you now. ”
He shook his head. “They wouldn’t dare.” The sweat had started now. Small beads of sweat had gathered around his temples. “You were supposed to be dead.”
The anger finally surfaced through the fear. It was the anger a man shows after realizing the plan he carefully built was collapsing before him.
“Interesting. Tell me more.” I said, and he stayed quiet.
“Looks like your plan didn’t work out the way you expected.
The last time I checked, I still had access to Cuba.
In fact, while we’re having this conversation, one of my business desks is operating less than twenty minutes from where you’re sitting. ”
His face tightened. “This isn’t possible.”
I sighed and placed the glass back on the desk.
“I will not kill you. That would be too fast.” I slid another file toward him.
“There’s something else you’ll do first. Before I’m finished with you, you’ll understand exactly what it means to make an enemy of a Konstantinov.
” I leaned closer. “There are people above you. You should have known who I was before you planted a fucking bomb in my car.”
I tossed a pen across the desk. It spun once and stopped beside the paperwork.
“Drink,” I said. “As you sign.”
People misunderstood what power is. They thought power meant influence, access, or having the right names saved in their phones and invitations to the right tables.
They thought it was private meetings, expensive suits, and handshakes behind closed doors.
That wasn’t power. That was access, and someone else granted access.
Something you applied for. Something that could be revoked the moment the wrong person decided you no longer belonged.
Real power was different. It was you who were the reason the door existed in the first place.
As Zachary started signing, he did not know that the destruction had already begun. News was already moving from three separate leaks with no connection to me. By tomorrow morning, rumors would become headlines, and in a week, headlines would become investigations.
Zachary spent years building a public image in charity events, orphan programs, and community projects.
He designed public appearances to present him as a man who cared deeply about other people’s suffering.
Now he would watch that image collapse piece by piece until there was nothing left but the man underneath.
When he signed the last page, I stood and gathered the files.
Zachary rose so quickly that his chair nearly tipped backward. “Take everything.” His voice cracked. “The businesses, the properties. Take whatever you want. Just keep it away from my political career. That’s all I’m asking.”
I looked at him for a moment. “Look at that.” A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. “You are negotiating now?”
I picked up the remote from the desk and turned toward the television mounted on the wall.
“You know, the gold operation had real potential.” I switched the television on. “If you weren’t so greedy, it could have actually made you powerful. But you can’t be greedy and stupid at the same time. You have to pick one.” I moved around the desk. “Enjoy the news.”
The anchor’s voice echoed through the room. I turned to the screen. Right on cue, Carlos Hernandez’s arrest was making headlines. Which meant Zachary’s name would be spoken on national television by morning.
I moved to the door and stopped with my hand on the handle. “One more thing.” I turned back and found him staring at the screen. “Watch who you call. I have eyes everywhere, even in the numbers you dial.”
I left the office while lighting a cigar. Zachary had built his secret life carefully, layer upon layer, believing it was untouchable. Now he would stand inside the collapse and watch every piece come apart. By the time this was over, there would be nothing left.
When I stepped outside, Akim had already arrived. I slid into the back seat of the car and shut the door.
I needed to be home in less than two hours.
Inna might have ended our marriage, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going home to her.
After her father visited her three days ago, something about her changed.
She seemed lighter, as if a weight she had been carrying for years had finally eased.
We weren’t talking, but we were sharing a bed.
I monitored her recovery, made sure she was eating, sleeping, and taking her medication.
Most of the time, simply seeing her every day was enough.
She was right about one thing. Our marriage had started as a fake one. What she wasn’t allowed to do was call what we had between us fake.
Fake.
The word irritated me every time it crossed my mind.
We crossed so many boundaries to be fake. She occupied my thoughts to the point that I didn’t know what else was interesting to think of anymore. I looked forward to seeing her at the end of the day. Somewhere along the way, she became part of my routine. She became necessary.
First, she needed time to recover. After that, I intended to make the marriage real in every way that mattered.
The problem was figuring out how. Proposing was an option, but I spent more time planning assassinations than I did planning proposals.
How was a man supposed to propose and at the same time claim?
Standing would work. I could watch the confusion appear in her eyes before she realized what was happening.
There was the traditional version too, the one involving a man on one knee, although Inna would almost certainly say something devastating while I was down there and somehow make me deserve it.
The beach was another option. We had already fucked on that beach, which could work in my favor and improve the chances of her saying yes.
Speaking of sex, maybe proposing while inside her would work. If I timed it and hit the right spot enough times, she would probably be too distracted to argue. She might even put the ring on herself.
A faint smile pulled at my mouth.
It has been a while since we fucked.
I missed her warmth. I missed the moans she made when she stopped thinking about everything else and simply let herself feel.
Did she miss that too? Was she lying awake beside me, exercising the same restraint?
Or was I the only idiot suffering through this while she slept peacefully on the other side of the bed?