9. Viktor
9
VIKTOR
T he punching bag swings violently as I deliver a series of precise blows, each impact reverberating through the empty training room. Three hours before dawn, and the Bratva's Moscow headquarters sleeps—all except the night guards who learned weeks ago to avoid the training facility during my early morning sessions.
I shift my weight, driving my knee into the bag with enough force to snap the supporting chain. The heavy bag crashes to the floor, sand spilling from a tear in its side. Third one this month. Yevgeny will complain again about requisitioning replacements.
I stand motionless in the center of the room, sweat gleaming on my bare torso despite the pre-dawn chill. Six months of infiltration, of becoming Viktor Baranov—rising Bratva lieutenant with a convenient past too difficult to verify. Six months of violence, of earning Mikhail Markov's trust one brutal assignment at a time.
Six months closer to vengeance.
I slam my fist into the wall, welcoming the pain that shoots up my arm. Physical discomfort is preferable to the memories, to the guilt that's been my constant companion for years. I should have been there. Should have protected them. Instead, I was in the woods, watching the brutality.
The Baranovs, once Bratva royalty, wiped out in a single night. Official reports claimed a robbery gone wrong. The truth, buried by corrupt police and Markov money, known only to a few—and to me, thanks to my father's contingency files, hidden where only his son would think to look.
I move to the weights, loading the bar with plates heavy enough to make the metal groan in protest. Physical exertion is the only reliable antidote to memory. My body—honed into a weapon over years of disciplined training—responds automatically to the familiar ritual.
"You're going to kill yourself before you get to Markov at this rate."
Anton's voice comes from the doorway, his lean figure silhouetted against the hallway light. My oldest friend, the only person who knows my true identity, my real purpose here.
"Can't sleep," I reply simply, completing another punishing repetition.
"The usual nightmares?" He steps inside, closing the door behind him.
I grunt in affirmation, focusing on the controlled movement of the weights rather than the images still flickering at the edges of my consciousness.
"There's been a development." Anton's tone shifts, business replacing concern. "Markov's hosting a special meeting tonight. Inner circle only."
I rack the weights, sitting up to give him my full attention. "We're not inner circle."
"You're not," he corrects with a hint of satisfaction. "But apparently, I am—as of this morning. Yevgeny delivered the invitation personally."
Five years of meticulous planning, of creating the perfect cover identity, of infiltrating the organization from the lowest levels, and Anton—who joined the operation only as my handler—advances to the inner sanctum before me. The irony would be amusing if it weren't so frustrating.
"Don't look so sour." Anton tosses me a towel. "This is the break we've been waiting for. And considering how quickly you've advanced, you're next. Markov's impressed with your work."
"My work." The words taste bitter. Each "successful" mission for the Bratva brings me closer to my goal while pushing me further from the man my father raised me to be.
"The Odessa situation," Anton elaborates unnecessarily. "Word's spread about how you handled it."
Three weeks ago: a warehouse on the outskirts of Odessa, a suspected informant, and five of Markov's men looking to me for leadership. The memory flashes between frames of my family's murder—another burden to carry.
The man tied to the chair, face already swollen from preliminary questioning. His pleading eyes finding mine as I enter, perhaps seeing something different there than in the others.
"Viktor, he's not talking," Dmitri says, the hulking enforcer deferring to me despite his twenty years' seniority. "Thought you might have better techniques."
The careful calculation—how much brutality is enough to maintain my cover without destroying what remains of my soul? The cold mask settling over my features as I remove my jacket, folding it with deliberate precision over a nearby crate.
"Leave us," I order, my voice carrying the aristocratic authority inherited from generations of Bratva nobility—the very lineage Markov sought to erase from history.
Dmitri hesitates. "Markov wanted witnesses."
I turn slowly, fixing him with a stare that's sent braver men retreating. "Do I look like I require supervision, Dmitri Alekseyevich?"
His massive frame seems to shrink slightly. "No, of course not. We'll be outside." He gestures to the others, who follow without question.
When the door closes, I approach the informant, placing my phone on a crate with the voice recorder activated. If he knows anything about Markov's operations that might prove useful, I need that information before proceeding.
"I'm going to ask you questions," I tell him quietly. "You're going to scream periodically regardless of whether you answer. Understood?"
Confusion replaces terror in his eyes. "What?"
"Markov sent me to extract information and administer punishment. I'll do one of those things. Which it is depends on your cooperation."
Understanding dawns. "You're not with them. Not really."
"Answer carefully," I warn, aware that the wrong words overheard through the door would be a death sentence for us both. "Who are you reporting to?"
For the next twenty minutes, he provides names, dates, details of a rival Bratva faction's attempts to infiltrate Markov's operation. Nothing useful for my purpose, but valuable currency within the organization. Between responses, he screams on cue—a convincing performance born of genuine pain from his earlier treatment.
When he's told me everything, the grim reality settles between us. We both know how this ends—must end—if my cover is to remain intact.
"They'll check for a pulse," I tell him, genuine regret coloring my voice.
He nods, fear returning but tempered with resignation. "Make it quick then. And—" he swallows hard. "My sister in Kharkiv. She has children."
"I'll see they're taken care of," I promise. One more debt to pay when this is over, if I survive.
I position myself behind him, hands moving to his neck in what appears to be a brutal chokehold. To the observers who will eventually enter, it will look like I strangled him in rage. In reality, I apply precise pressure to the carotid arteries—a technique learned during special forces training that renders unconsciousness in seconds, death in minutes, but offers a narrow window where resuscitation remains possible.
When the others return, they find what they expect—a motionless informant and a cold-eyed Viktor Baranov straightening his cuffs as if disposing of traitors is merely an unpleasant task that wrinkled his shirt.
What they don't see is the card slipped into the man's pocket with contact information for an FSB agent who owes me a favor—someone who will arrive after the Bratva departs to retrieve a body that isn't quite dead, to arrange a new identity and protection for a sister and her children in Kharkiv.
"Impressive," Dmitri says, checking for a pulse and finding none. "Not even blood spatter on your shoes. That's... clean."
"Efficiency isn't messy," I reply, retrieving my jacket. "Report to Markov. I have other business to attend to."
As I leave, I feel their eyes tracking me—fear and newfound respect in equal measure. The perfect balance for advancing through Bratva ranks.
"Viktor." Anton's voice pulls me back to the present. "You disappeared again. This is happening more frequently."
I stand, rolling my shoulders to release the tension that always accompanies these memories. "I'm fine."
"You're not," he counters bluntly. "And that night in Paris isn't helping your focus."
At the mention of Paris, a different memory intrudes—softer, more dangerous in its own way.
Anastasia Markov in that black dress that matched her alluring dark eyes, the glass of vodka in her hand as she looked at me in my penthouse—her intelligence sharp as a blade, the realness of her genuine in a world built on falsehoods.
Later, her skin like silk beneath my hands in the darkness of my penthouse, her lips parting in surprise as I trace my fingers across her shoulder.
The vulnerability in her eyes, so at odds with her surname, with everything the Markov name represents. For a few stolen hours, I allow myself to forget why I'm in Paris, why I’m outside that rainy night, before sprinting to rescue her.
The mission blurring as she arches beneath me, my name on her lips like a benediction I don't deserve.
"You need to forget her." Anton's words cut through the memory with unwelcome advice. "She's Markov's daughter, Viktor. A complication we can't afford."
"I know exactly who she is." My voice hardens as I pull a clean shirt over my head. "It was one night. A tactical error."
Anton studies me with the uncomfortable insight of long friendship. "If that were true, you wouldn't still be dreaming about her."
I don't deny it. Can't deny it. The woman haunts my thoughts with increasing frequency—inconvenient and dangerous for a man whose only purpose is vengeance.
"Tonight's meeting," I say instead, changing the subject. "What time?"
Anton accepts the deflection with visible reluctance. "Midnight. The Old Town house, not the main compound."
The information raises red flags immediately. "That's execution territory." The Old Town house, a pre-revolutionary mansion in central Moscow, served one primary function in Markov's operation—eliminating problems permanently, away from the more public headquarters.
"Precisely why I need you on alert. If something goes wrong?—"
"Nothing will go wrong," I interrupt, clapping him on the shoulder with force that makes him wince. Another performance of Viktor Baranov, Bratva enforcer—confident, slightly cruel, always in control. "Besides, you've survived worse."
"Barely." His hand unconsciously moves to the scar at his temple—a souvenir from our early days establishing my cover, when a weapons deal went sideways. I'd gotten him out, but not before he took a grazing bullet to the head.
"Report everything," I tell him, moving toward the showers. "Every word, every person present. We're close, Anton. I can feel it."
After he leaves, I stand under scalding water, letting it sluice away sweat and the phantom sensations of violence that cling to my skin. Years of planning, of becoming someone—something—my father would barely recognize. The end justifies the means. It must.
But as steam fills the shower stall, it's not Mikhail Markov's face I see, not visions of finally avenging my family. Instead, brown eyes and soft skin materialize in the mist—Anastasia, the one variable I never calculated, the unexpected weakness in an otherwise flawless operation.
I press my forehead against the cool tile, forcing her image away. There is no room for distraction, for misplaced desire. Only the mission matters—dismantling Markov's empire piece by bloody piece until he understands exactly what he destroyed that night years ago.
Yet even as I dress in the uniform of my cover identity—expensive suit, subtle shoulder holster, the heavy Bratva signet ring that marks me as Markov's man—her memory lingers like perfume, undermining my resolve in ways I cannot afford.
The irony isn't lost on me. To destroy Mikhail Markov completely, I worked my way into his organization, into his trusted circle. Yet the most devastating blow might have been unintentional—one night with his daughter, who doesn't suspect for a moment that the man who touched her with such reverence is plotting her father's downfall.
My phone vibrates with an incoming message from Yevgeny, Markov's second-in-command: Meeting with the pakhan. 3 PM. Your presence requested.
Not the midnight gathering Anton mentioned—something else. My pulse quickens with both anticipation and wariness. Every summons brings me closer to the inner circle, to Markov himself. Every meeting is both opportunity and danger.
I check my weapons—the Makarov under my arm, the ceramic blade in my boot, the garrote wire concealed in my watch. Tools of a trade I never wanted to learn but have mastered with frightening proficiency.
As I leave the training facility, junior Bratva soldiers step aside, eyes carefully averted. Their fear is palpable, satisfying in its usefulness. Viktor Baranov has a reputation now—efficient, ruthless, fiercely loyal to the pakhan. The perfect lieutenant.
The perfect lie.
A lie that brings me closer each day to the truth, to justice for my family, to the reckoning Mikhail Markov has evaded for too long.
If only Anastasia's ghost would stop haunting me, stop making me question whether vengeance is worth the collateral damage that will inevitably follow.
If only I could forget the way she looked at me that night in Paris, with trust I haven't earned and cannot honor.