Chapter 47 Stefan
STEFAN
“You’re distracted.” Mikayla doesn’t look up from cleaning her Sig Sauer when she speaks, but it’s an accusation as blunt as she gets, as sharp as the gun oil burning my nostrils.
“I’m focused,” I reply.
“On your dick, maybe.”
Taras snorts from the driver’s seat. “She’s got a point, Stef. You’ve been checking your phone every five minutes.”
I haven’t touched my phone in twenty. But arguing would only prove their point, so I don’t.
“Devon Manizer,” I redirect. “Our missing rat from Accounting, finally come back to the light. Tell me what we know.”
Mikayla slides a tablet across the leather seat. “He spent six years with us. Clean record until three months ago. Then small discrepancies. Missing inventory reports, delayed shipments, that kind of bullshit. But nothing that screams betrayal until—”
“Until federal raids hit our exact routes.” I scroll through the surveillance photos. Devon at a coffee shop. Devon at his son’s soccer game. Devon sweating through his shirt at a meeting with someone whose face is conveniently obscured. “Who’s the contact?”
“Working on it. But the timing matches Iakov’s movements. And if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”
The SUV slows. Suburban sprawl replaces city concrete outside the windows.
“There.” Taras points to a colonial with children’s bicycles on the porch. “Number forty-seven.”
A plastic scooter lies abandoned on the walkway. Pink streamers dangle from the handlebars.
“Kids?” I ask.
“Two. Boy and a girl.” Mikayla checks her weapon. “Wife’s a kindergarten teacher.”
That inconvenient little detail shouldn’t matter. I’ve orphaned children before. I’ve widowed wives. It’s the cost of maintaining order in chaos, and sometimes, it’s just what must be done.
And yet…
“Stef?” Taras waits for orders.
“We go in quietly. Neighbors don’t hear a peep, got it?”
They nod and we exit the vehicle. Three shadows moving through suburbia’s fluorescent glow. Mikayla takes the back. Taras covers the garage. I walk straight to the front door and knock.
Footsteps ring out inside. The door opens to Devon’s face. It’s already draining of color when he sees me through the glass insert.
“M-Mr. Safonov!”
“Devon.”
“I— Uh… Would you like to c-come in?”
He steps aside. The house smells like pot roast and crayons. Family photos line the hallway. These are so wholesome compared to the evidence I was just looking at in the car.
Devon in a tux at his wedding.
Devon teaching his son to ride a bike.
Devon living the lie that he could have both worlds for the price of one.
“Living room,” I say simply.
He leads us past a wall of finger paintings. Past shoes lined up neatly by the stairs—tiny sneakers next to work boots.
Devon pushes aside mismatched Legos and a stack of coloring books to clear the couch. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”
“Honesty.”
His hands shake as he sits. “I don’t understand.”
Taras drifts to the window, checking sightlines. Mikayla stands by the back door, a beautiful reaper in Prada.
“Three months ago,” I begin, settling into the armchair across from him, “you started making mistakes.”
“Everyone makes mistakes—”
“Not my people.”
Devon’s breathing quickens. “Mr. Safonov, I’ve been loyal—”
“Have you?” I pull out my phone and scroll to one of the surveillance photos Mikayla gave me. “Coffee shops in Charlestown. Interesting choice for a man who lives in Southie.”
The screen glows on the coffee table between us. Devon stares at his own face, caught mid-conversation with the blurred figure.
“That’s… that’s not what it looks like.”
“Then tell me what the fuck it is.”
Silence. The grandfather clock in the corner counts off some of the last seconds of this miserable bastard’s life.
“They approached me,” he finally whispers. “The feds! Said they had evidence. They told me I’d do twenty years unless—”
“Unless you turned rat.”
“I have kids!” he whimpers. “Emma’s seven. Jake’s five. They need their father.”
“They needed a father who didn’t steal from me.”
“I never stole—”
Taras moves fast. Devon’s head snaps back from the punch, blood spattering the cream carpet. A broken tooth skitters across the hardwood.
“Try again,” Taras suggests pleasantly.
Devon spits blood. “Okay. Fuck, okay! Small amounts. Nothing you’d miss.”
“I miss every fucking penny,” I snarl.
“They were for Emma’s medical bills,” he insists. “She has asthma. Insurance wouldn’t cover the specialist—”
Taras delivers another punch. This one drops the mudak to his knees.
“Devon?” A woman’s voice comes floating down from upstairs. “Everything okay?”
We freeze. Devon’s eyes go wide with panic. “F-Fine, honey!” he calls back, voice strangled. “Just, uh… watching TV.”
Footsteps on the stairs. Mikayla shifts position, hand moving to her weapon.
Haley Manizer appears in the doorway. Her blonde hair is thrown up in a messy bun and cartoon cats ogle us from her pajama pants. Her smile dies when she sees her husband’s houseguests.
“… Devon?”
“Go back upstairs.” Devon struggles to his feet. “Please.”
But she’s already taking in the blood. The tooth. The three strangers in her living room.
Her hands fly to her face. “Oh, God.”
“Mrs. Manizer.” I stand slowly and turn to face her. “Your husband and I are discussing a business matter.”
“You’re him.” Her voice is barely audible. “Safonov.”
Even kindergarten teachers know my name. The reach of fear.
“Haley, take the kids and go to your mother’s.” Devon tries to move toward her, but Taras blocks him. “Please.”
“I’m not leaving you!” she cries out.
“You have to—”
“I said I’m not leaving!”
She runs down and plants herself next to her husband. Five foot nothing of suburban mom facing down the king of the Bratva. There’s something magnificent in her stupidity.
“Your husband stole from me,” I tell her. “Then sold information to federal agents. Do you understand what that means?”
“He made mistakes.” Her chin lifts. “But he’s a good man. A good father.”
“Good men don’t betray their employers.”
“Good men don’t murder people in their living rooms, either.”
Mikayla’s fingers twitch toward her gun. Taras’s do, too. But I hold up a hand.
“You think I’m not a good man?” I ask.
“I think you’re here to kill my husband.” Tears stream down her face, but her voice stays strong. “In our home. Where our children sleep. So no, Mr. Safonov, I don’t think you’re good.”
Devon reaches for his wife’s hand. She grabs it, fingers interlacing. A united front against death.
The gesture shouldn’t affect me. I’ve seen couples cling to each other before the end. But something about the instinctiveness of it—the automatic reach, the instant grip—makes my chest tight.
Olivia’s hand in mine on the yacht. That same instinctive reach.
“Please.” Haley drops to her knees. “Please don’t do this. We’ll disappear. Leave the state. The country, if you want. You’ll never hear from us again.”
I shake my head. “He knows too much.”
“Then take me instead,” she begs. “Kill me. Let him raise our children.”
“No!” Devon drops beside her. “Haley, stop—” He looks up at me. “Don’t listen to her. This is my fault. My punishment.”
They argue over who should die. As if death is a gift they can give each other.
“Enough.” My growl cuts through their pleas. “Both of you, stand up.”
They rise slowly, still clutching each other.
“I’m not going to kill either of you.”
The sigh of relief that whistles out of both of them is almost fucking comical.
“But—” I let the word sit for a moment, mostly because I can’t fucking believe I’m extending him this mercy to begin with. “—Devon comes with us.”
“No!” Haley’s grip on her husband tightens. “You said—”
“I said I wouldn’t kill him. I didn’t say he walks free.” I nod to Taras. “Take him.”
Taras moves forward, but Haley throws herself between them. “You can’t just take him!”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want, Mrs. Manizer.” My voice drops to permafrost. “Your husband betrayed me. Sold information that put my people at risk. The fact that he’s still breathing is a gift you should be grateful for.”
Devon gently pushes his wife aside. “It’s okay, Haley.”
“It’s not okay! The children—”
“—will have their father back.” I meet Devon’s eyes. “After he’s answered some questions. Thoroughly.”
Again, I don’t know what the hell I’m saying. Since when do I make promises to traitors’ families? Since when the fuck do I care?
Devon kisses his wife’s forehead and whispers something I don’t catch. She sobs against his chest while Taras stands impatiently behind them.
We’re about to leave when—
“Daddy?”
A small mumble from the stairs. A boy in dinosaur pajamas appears, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
“Hey, buddy.” Devon’s voice cracks. “Go back to bed.”
“Why’s Mommy crying?”
“Daddy has to go to work,” Haley manages. “He’ll be back soon.”
The boy looks at me balefully. He’s hugging a teddy bear to his chest, one of its ears torn half-off with years of love.
Will my son look like that one day? Will he hold a teddy bear I gave him and watch as one of my enemies drags me away?
I wrench my eyes elsewhere.
“Now, Devon.” My patience evaporates.
He peels himself away from his family. Taras grabs his arm, not gently, and steers him toward the front door. I follow, Mikayla bringing up the rear.
“Mr. Safonov…” Haley’s voice stops me at the threshold. When I turn, she’s clutching her son to her side, tears still streaming. “Thank you.”
I wish she’d said “fuck you” instead. At least that I would have understood.
Outside, Taras shoves Devon into the SUV’s trunk—not the backseat, the trunk—and slams it shut. The sound echoes through suburbia’s dull silence.
“What the fuck was that, man?” Taras rounds on me the second we’re in the vehicle. “Since when do we leave witnesses? Since when do we do mercy?!”
“Since I decided to.”
“That’s not an answer!”
Mikayla starts the engine, pulling away from the curb smooth as silk. In the rearview mirror, I watch the colonial shrink. Haley stands framed in the doorway, son in her arms, watching us steal her husband.
“He has information,” I say finally. “Dead men don’t talk.”
“We could have gotten what we needed in an hour and put a bullet in him.” Taras’s scarred face twists with disgust. “Now, we have a liability. A wife who knows we took him. Kids who’ll remember strange men in their house—”
“Enough.”
“It’s her, isn’t it?” He doesn’t stop. “She’s making you soft.”
Mikayla’s eyes flick to the mirror, watching my reaction but saying nothing.
“Choose your next words very carefully, Taras,” I growl.
“Fuck, man, someone has to say it! Three months ago, you would have painted that living room with Devon’s brains. Now, you’re—what? Showing mercy? Being a fuckin’ nice guy?! That’s not who we are. That’s not who you are.”
He’s right.
He’s more fucking right than he realizes.
He’s not done, either. “The Stefan Safonov I know—”
“—doesn’t exist anymore.”
Taras goes silent. Mikayla’s hands tighten on the wheel.
Because it’s true. The man who walked into Devon Manizer’s house isn’t the same one leaving it. Olivia has infected me, rewritten my code, made me see things differently.
Made me weak.
Or maybe—and this thought terrifies me more—made me something else entirely.
I’m not sure which is worse.