Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
VIKTOR
She’s sitting on the edge of the bed when I come in, blanket bunched at her knees. I can immediately tell something is wrong.
My chest tightens. “Grigory called. There was an emergency. I thought I’d be back before you woke.” My words come out in a rush. “I should have left a note. I’m sorry. I messed up.” I bend down and pull her into my arms. “I’m sorry, Avelina.”
But I can sense that there’s more to this as she pulls her robe around her more tightly. And I realize it’s because I know about her scars.
I can feel the tremor in her shoulders and the way she folds inward as if protecting herself from a storm.
Her back is warm against my palm when I slide a hand carefully beneath the thin fabric to feel the scars again.
She flinches under my touch, and I still my fingers.
“It happened in the locker room,” she says finally, her voice small. “I fell back against a rusty locker. It…” She stops, her fingers fisting the sheet. The way she looks at me now is cautious—too cautious.
Something in the way she says the words, in the way her jaw trembles, makes the part of me that notices everything sharpen. Accidents don’t make people flinch like this.
“I know they’re ugly to look at. And…I know that my body is ugly.” She says it so quietly I almost miss it.
“Your body? It’s not ugly, Avelina. Did someone—” I begin, then shut my mouth. I get a feeling that the scars are connected to the old fractures the doctor told me about after seeing her X-rays. Avelina will tell me in her own time. When she’s ready.
“And I know I’m too…curvy,” she says, her words coming out in a rush. “I know how I look after having two kids. I should have realized this was a one-night thing. A man like you can have his pick of women, and there are so many beautiful women working here at the compound.”
“Why would you think that I wouldn’t want you for more than one night?” I asked, stunned at what she’s just said.
“It’s okay, I’m used to it. Men always ignore me and pick my slim friends when we’re out—and I don’t blame them. And you’ve seen my body naked now. The curves. The scars. I know I’m repulsive. Geliy told me that when we broke up.”
“Listen to me,” I say, voice low as I cup her face, thumb brushing her jaw.
“I don’t care what anyone else has ever said to you.
Because I think you’re stunning and perfection.
Every part of you is beautiful. Every curve.
Every laughter line. Every mark from childbirth.
And even the scars on your shoulder—they don’t make you broken.
They make you whole. They’re proof you survived.
I want all of you—the quiet, the mess, and the parts you hide.
You’re not less because of whatever happened to you.
You’re more. I’ll keep you safe, and I’ll stand between you and anyone who tries to harm you ever again. ”
She nods slowly.
I won’t make her tell me more about the scars before she’s ready.
But what I do know is that every scar represents a bad memory for her. Every scar represents pain she went through. And every scar represents a fucking revenge that I’ll exact on her behalf.
I let this cold promise settle under my ribs, steadier than any oath I’ve sworn for myself. Whoever did this, whoever put those painful, jagged lines into her skin, I’ll find them and make them fucking sorry.
It’s the following night, and we’re traveling in a convoy of vehicles. The road stretches out in front of me like a strip of darkness carved through the desert, lit only by our headlights and the faint red glow of the taillights ahead.
We left the L.A. docks a couple of hours ago, and we are headed northeast. I know this road as well as I know my own scars.
On either side of us, the dunes stretch for miles, broken only by jagged rock formations and skeletal shrubs.
It’s the kind of terrain that swallows men.
And it’s perfect for us when we need to keep a low profile, like right now.
We’re in four armored SUVs. They are tinted, reinforced, and armed to the teeth. The first carries the shipment—modified weapons, crates of ammunition, tactical gear, and silencers, fresh off a cargo ship registered under a shell corporation Matvey formed and buried in layers of secrecy.
My team is split between the vehicles, their weapons loaded and eyes sharp. Everything is going to plan. We’ve made this run before, and tonight should be no different. But somehow, something feels…off.
I’m in the second vehicle. Yuri rides shotgun, his jaw tight, eyes scanning the horizon through the thermal scope mounted to the dash. Two others sit in the back, silent but ready, rifles between their knees.
“Still nothing. Just a few lizards and the heat coming off the road,” Yuri mutters under his rough accent.
“That’s the problem,” I grit out. “There should be something.” A trucker passing us in the night. A coyote wandering through the dunes. A drunk driver drifting over the line. Instead, we’ve got dead air. There’s not been a single satellite ping since we left the port.
The stillness is too perfect.
And the desert, when it gets like this, it’s not quiet. It’s waiting...
I speak into the comms. “Eyes sharp. This road stinks. Look alive.”
Static crackles back, followed by brief confirmations from the other vehicles. I reach down and rest my hand on my Glock. It’s not paranoia. It’s experience.
Ten minutes later, we round a slow bend flanked by cliffs and narrow ridges. It’s the kind of terrain that makes you feel like you’re in a chokehold.
Then it happens.
Boom! A flash—white-hot and blinding—erupts beneath the lead SUV.
The vehicle lifts on one side before slamming back down, flames licking from beneath its hood. Shrapnel slices through the night air. We swerve hard, tires screeching, metal groaning.
“Ambush!” I yell into the comms. “Go dark! NVGs on! Take cover!”
Instantly, the headlights all cut out. The desert plunges into a deeper darkness. And the only thing I can see is the glow of fire and flashes of gunfire.
I fling my door open and dive to the side, flipping my night vision goggles into place. The world shifts to green static. Shapes dart across the ridge—too many. There are flashes of automatic fire, aimed and precise.
Igor’s already firing, crouched behind the front wheel. I grab my AK-47 and crawl beside him.
“Seven, maybe more,” he says. “They’re trained.”
“Flank left,” I shout to the others. “We need to get them off the ridge!”
One of our rear vehicles peels out and creates a diversion. We take advantage of the shift and move quickly. One man cries out behind me, hit in the leg. I spin back, grab his vest, and drag him behind the SUV.
“Hold this!” I shove his hand onto the bleeding wound. “Don’t let go!”
The fire from above intensifies. A flare arcs into the sky and lights up the ridge with its red glow.
“They’re marking us,” Yuri mutters.
“For what?” Igor huffs.
“Maybe more incoming,” I grit out. We don’t have time to wait and find out.
I rise just enough to get a clear shot and take down two attackers.
One topples over the rocks, the other drops behind a boulder.
Another tries to sprint across open ground and catches a three-round burst from our flank team. The rest hesitate—fucking cowards.
“We’ve got one moving. Backside, heading for the trucks!” someone calls.
“Take him down!”
A round of fire. The man collapses in a heap. And silence falls, brief and charged.
Then two SUVs, hidden until now, roar to life from behind a steep bank just beyond the ridge. The attackers pile in, their tires spinning in the dirt as they escape into the night.
“Status!” I yell.
“Three of ours are down, not fatal,” Yuri answers.
“We’ve got one of the enemy still alive,” Igor reports.
We secure the convoy, patch up the wounded, and move fast. Our destination changes as we shift to our emergency fallback plan.
We split, and the three injured men are rushed to our private medical facility.
I, along with Yuri and Igor, take the prisoner to a safe house located about thirty miles away.
It’s an abandoned ranch we maintain off-grid.
We arrive at the safe house, and inside, the place smells like old wood and dust. We drag the prisoner into one of the buildings and bind him to a chair bolted to the floor. He’s young, probably in his twenties. Buzzcut, combat boots, tactical vest. He’s bleeding from his side but still conscious.
I give him water. Just enough to keep him awake. “Who are you working for?” I growl.
He stares at me and doesn’t even blink.
“Who gave you our route?”
Still nothing.
Igor steps forward and backhands him hard across the face. The man spits blood and shakes his head.
Then it’s time to get to work on really hurting him.
Eventually, he mumbles some names. Most are nonsense, and I know he’s stalling.
I kneel beside him. “You’re bleeding out. Give me something useful, and maybe you’ll get a ride to the clinic. Otherwise…”
He’s struggling to breathe now. “Didn’t see his face. Said we’d be paid double if we made it look like a Cartel job.”
“Name?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t ask.”
And this time, I believe him for some reason. He doesn’t last much longer, and then I check his skin. He might have prison tattoos or some other clues. I find some ink, but they’re nothing useful.
I light a cigarette and step outside while Yuri and Igor handle the cleanup. The wind is picking up, warm and dry, as I stare out at the empty road.
We eventually start back to Vegas, arriving in the early hours. After showering in one of the spare bathrooms, I approach the chair outside my bedroom. The door is slightly ajar, and I see Avelina stir.
“Viktor?” Avelina murmurs as she catches sight of me. “What’s wrong?”
I step inside the doorway. “We were ambushed tonight.”
Her breath hitches, and she shuffles into a sitting position. “Is everyone okay?”