Chapter Twenty-Eight - Lukyan
Simon’s call comes just past midnight. The house is dark except for the lamp on my desk, the world beyond the windows pressed flat and silent.
He doesn’t bother with pleasantries—just spits out Ivan’s location in clipped, urgent tones.
An abandoned shipyard, all the way out past the river, where the city lights die and only rats and broken things remain.
It’s the kind of address that should make my skin crawl.
Instead, it makes something in my chest coil tight and hungry. Months of watching my back, months of counting bodies and sleepless nights, all for this. If it’s a trap, so be it. I want the bastard dead enough to walk straight through fire.
I don’t waste time. My hands move with the steadiness that comes from years of knowing exactly what’s needed. Glock. Backup mag. Silencer, though I doubt it will matter. The old knife from my father’s time.
In the silence, I listen to the clatter of metal, the familiar symphony of preparation. My heart thunders, not with fear, but anticipation.
I don’t hear Clara come in. Only when I snap the mag into the grip do I see her in the doorway, wrapped in a sweater, hair wild from sleep. She doesn’t look small, not anymore. There’s a fire in her eyes that makes me pause, thumb hesitating at the safety.
“Don’t go,” she says. Her voice wavers, not with weakness but with something sharper—rage, or maybe terror. “Something’s wrong.”
I slide the last round into place, checking the weight. “It ends tonight. I won’t let him circle any closer.”
She comes closer, crossing the room until the gun is between us, her hand reaching for my wrist. I could pull away. I don’t.
“It’s too easy,” she says, words tumbling fast. “You told me Ivan covers his tracks. He’s gone dark for weeks, then suddenly Simon has an address? None of his people have been seen, not even on your payroll. There’s no chatter, no warning, nothing. Why would he let himself be found now?”
I clench my jaw. “He’s desperate. He knows he’s lost.”
She shakes her head, mouth pressed in a stubborn line. “No. Ivan doesn’t think like that. He’d rather burn the city to ash than let you win. If he’s at that shipyard, he wants you there. He’s counting on you to come running.”
The words sting, because they echo somewhere inside my own mind—a suspicion I’ve been shoving aside in favor of action.
I want to argue. I want to believe my way is the only way, but she’s right.
Even now, she’s still looking for the angle, still turning every piece over for the detail that doesn’t fit.
I look at her, really look at her, and for a second I see the journalist—sharp, relentless, unwilling to back down even when she’s terrified.
She’s shaking, but her eyes don’t leave mine. “I know you want this to be over. I want it too. Don’t walk into a trap just because you’re tired of being hunted. Think, Lukyan. Why now? Why like this?”
I can see the argument forming behind her eyes, the story she’ll write in her head if I don’t come back. I let my free hand drop to my side, the gun hanging heavy. For a moment, the room is silent but for her breath and mine.
“Simon swears it’s good,” I say, but even I can hear the thinness in my voice.
She steps in, voice barely more than a whisper. “He could be wrong. Or Ivan could have something on him. You told me once—never trust anything that comes too easy.”
That was my rule, and hearing it from her lips feels like a wound opening in my side. She’s not wrong. I try to tell myself that Ivan is desperate, that the war has worn him thin.
Nothing in this world is given without cost, and the address feels too much like a gift.
Clara won’t let go of my wrist. Her hand is small, fingers digging in hard enough to leave a mark. “If you go, take more men. Take the whole damn army. Don’t walk in thinking it’s already won. Please.”
The please hangs there, heavy and raw. She never pleads. Not for herself, not for anyone. For the first time in years, I feel the urge to set the gun down, to listen not just to my gut but to someone else’s voice.
I take a breath, trying to clear the haze from my head. Anger tastes like copper on my tongue, bitter and bright, but beneath it is something colder. Fear. Not for myself, but for her. For what happens if I don’t come back.
Her eyes shine in the dim light, jaw set in that stubborn way I’ve come to know too well. I see the battle inside her—the instinct to run, to stay safe, to pull me back from the edge. I see something else too: the trust she’s given me, the hope that I might choose differently for her sake.
I let the gun rest on the desk. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
“Fine,” I say, voice low. “I’ll take more men. I’ll make sure it’s clean. If it’s Ivan—if it really is him—I finish it tonight.”
Her breath shudders, relief and fear mingling together. She loosens her grip, but her hand stays on my wrist, grounding me.
“Promise me,” she whispers. “Don’t go alone.”
I nod. I can’t give her more than that.
For the first time since Simon’s call, I let myself feel the danger—not just to me, but to everything I’ve built, everything I might lose. Clara’s logic cuts through the blood-haze, steadies my hands in a way nothing else can.
I watch her, heart pounding, and wonder if she even knows what she’s done. She’s not my weakness. She’s the reason I might survive.
I decide to play along. Paranoia, experience, Clara’s stubborn voice in my head—call it what you want. I don’t trust the address, but I trust the game, and I trust that Ivan is hungry enough to believe in the obvious.
My men get their orders before dawn. They scatter like crows, all shadows and whispers, each one told only what they need to know.
One car—a black Mercedes, same plates as mine—slips out the front gate.
Inside, a man who wears my build and my face from a distance, a Bratva brother who owes me more than his life.
He’s nervous, but steady. He knows what’s at stake.
At the same time, I gather the rest of my crew. Half stay with the decoy, the others vanish into the city, every alley and rooftop watched, every approach covered. No word goes out, not even a hint of warning to the estate’s staff. The fewer who know, the less Ivan has to work with.
Clara’s presence stays with me. I taste her concern every time I check the cameras, every time I count the rounds in my magazine. I remember the way her hand gripped my wrist, the tremor in her voice. For the first time in years, I don’t want to lose.
The decoy car reaches the shipyard on schedule. Through a grainy feed, I watch from a secure room deep in the house. Ivan’s men are already there, lurking in broken shadows, guns drawn.
The moment the car door opens, the trap springs. Muzzle flashes rip the darkness, bullets chewing through the driver’s window, ricochets sparking off rusted metal. My “double” drops, the car door left hanging.
My men return fire, enough chaos to keep Ivan’s people pinned, enough to convince anyone watching that I walked right into their net.
I don’t move. I wait. Every muscle in my body is taut, every sense sharpened to the point of pain. This is what I’ve prepared for. Ivan isn’t the kind of man to let others do his dirty work—not when revenge is close enough to taste.
Alarms go off at the estate—piercing, insistent, rolling through the halls like thunder. For a heartbeat, the world narrows to sound and silence. My men move into position, silent as ghosts, locking down the house. Ivan’s men breach the gate, half a dozen masked, heavy, hungry for blood.
They never see me coming.
I leave the cameras behind, moving down through secret doors, tight stairways behind walls, every step mapped from memory.
Ivan expects me at the docks. He expects Clara to be alone and frightened.
Instead, I wait in the dark at the heart of the house.
I smell oil and rain and blood—my father’s cologne, long faded, clings to the air in these old corridors.
The first two men go down fast, a knife to the throat, boots sliding on the tile. No time for noise. I drag them out of sight, blood pooling under their collars. The third stumbles over his own greed, eyes wide as he sees me—too late.
My gun is quiet, the report muffled, but I see the recognition in his eyes before he drops. He thought Ivan would protect him. He thought this night would end differently.
Footsteps echo up the main hall. Ivan’s voice is louder than memory, raw and gloating.
“Lukyan! You run out of places to hide?”
I step into the light, gun at my side, knife in my other hand. Ivan stands in the foyer, his face older, harder, but that same sneer cut across his mouth. He’s holding a pistol, but I see the way his hand shakes.
“You always were impatient,” I tell him, voice flat, cold. “Couldn’t even wait for the corpse to cool.”
He laughs, sharp and bitter. “You thought you could hide behind your fortress? You think you can keep her from me?”
Clara’s name never leaves his lips, but I hear it anyway. She’s upstairs, hidden with two men I trust with my life. She won’t see this. She won’t have to.
Ivan lunges. Gunfire cracks the air, shattering glass, gouging holes in marble and wood. I move, years of muscle memory making me smaller, harder to hit. My knife catches his arm, blood blooming bright as he curses. He’s strong, but I’m faster. The pistol clatters away, lost under a table.
We’re close now, too close for anything but fists and blades and old hatred. Ivan swings wild, knuckles splitting against my jaw. I taste copper, blink blood from my eye, but my grip stays firm. My father’s knife sinks deep, just under his ribs. He howls, tries to wrench away, but I don’t let go.
“You ruined everything,” he spits, voice gone ragged. “You could have joined me.”
I twist the knife, feeling the hot flood of blood coat my hand. “You could have left well enough alone.”
Ivan buckles, strength leaking out with every heartbeat. I drag him down, face pressed to the cold floor, the old tile stained with a thousand secrets. His hand scrabbles for purchase, eyes wide, mouth working for air.
“I did it for us,” he chokes.
“For yourself,” I say, and then I drive the blade home, ending it.
When the fight is over, the silence is complete.
Ivan dies where he stands, blood soaking the entryway, his legacy snuffed out in a moment.
I stare down at him, chest heaving, but my hands are steady.
My heart isn’t racing; it’s quiet, purposeful.
For the first time in months, maybe years, the world feels still.
My men sweep the house, checking for stragglers. I barely hear the reports over the rush of my own pulse.
I wipe the blade on Ivan’s coat, step over his body, and open the front door to let the rain-washed air inside. Every muscle aches, but I won’t let myself collapse. Not until I know Clara is safe.
She’s waiting at the top of the stairs, eyes wide, lips parted in a question I don’t let her ask. I nod once, and it’s enough. It’s finished.
As the last echo of gunfire fades, I exhale. Not relief, not triumph, but something close to it—a quiet pride, maybe, or the dull, uncertain peace that comes with surviving one more night. For once, I’d been one step ahead.
Tonight, that was enough.