Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
ANYA
Roman’s side of the bed is already cold when I open my eyes, the sheet beside me flattened and empty, and sunlight cuts through the blinds in thin gold stripes that make the whole room look deceptively calm.
For a second I stay still, listening to the house breathe around me.
The low hum of the refrigerator downstairs.
The faint tick of the old clock in the hallway.
No footsteps. No shower running. He’s already gone, probably down at the office handling something small and routine that didn’t justify waking me.
I reach for my phone without thinking. The screen lights up. There’s a secure notification waiting. Not a text. An encrypted drop link. My stomach tightens before I even open it.
Inside are three files. The first is a contract. Wire transfers from a shell company tied to Konstantin’s investment arm. The recipient is a private security firm with federal contracts. The memo line reads “Domestic Disruption Package – Phase II.” I freeze.
I open the second file. Photographs. Roman outside Perdition timestamped from two days ago. Mason. Blade. Dmitri when he visited last month. Every face labeled. The header reads “Organized Crime Nexus – Foreign Influence.” My throat goes dry.
The third file is a recording. Konstantin’s voice.
Clear. Controlled. “Anonymous tip to federal task force. Tie them to trafficking lanes through Jacksonville. Leak the Dragunov connection. Freeze assets. Seize weapons. Arrest leadership. Make it public before Moscow opens.” Another voice asks “And the family?” Konstantin replies without hesitation.
“Accidents happen. Car brakes fail. Construction scaffolding collapses. Patriarch first. The sons if necessary.” Silence.
Then “She will come home once she understands the cost.” The audio ends.
I sit very still. My heartbeat doesn’t race.
It steadies. He’s not threatening. He’s executing a plan to destroy my entire world.
Frame the Iron Reapers as Russian proxies.
Trigger a federal sweep. Asset seizure. RICO.
Mandatory minimums. Life sentences. And Papa?
Brake failure. Dmitri? A fall from a balcony.
Mikhail? Financial ruin first. Then exposure.
Konstantin isn’t trying to retrieve me. He’s trying to erase everything I chose.
I lower the phone slowly. Roman has no idea. He thinks this is contained. Papa thinks Orlovsky is quiet. They don’t see this angle.
I stand. Because I understand something now.
If I tell Roman, he goes to war. If I tell Papa, he counters publicly.
Either way Konstantin triggers the federal arm and chaos becomes permanent.
This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a preemptive strike.
And there is only one way to stop a man who plans like this. You remove him.
My phone rings in my hand, it’s Dima. “Where are you?” he demands.
“At home,” I say. “What happened?”
There’s a pause, and in that silence I hear everything he isn’t saying. “Papa was in an accident.”
The words don’t make sense at first. They hang there, disconnected. “What kind of accident?” I ask, my voice too steady.
“Brake failure,” he says. Then quickly, like he knows exactly where my mind goes, “He’s alive. Surgery. Internal bleeding but stable.”
I close my eyes. Alive. But not safe. “Was it mechanical?” I ask quietly.
Another pause. Longer this time. “No. There was a secondary device placed on the brake line,” Dmitri says, his voice lower now, controlled in that dangerous way he gets when he’s holding himself together by discipline alone. “It was clean. Professional.”
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, feet hitting the hardwood, the cold grounding me.
“Send me everything,” I tell him. The files arrive within seconds.
Photographs of the car in the underground garage.
The brake line cut with surgical precision.
The small explosive assist designed to ensure total failure at speed.
I scroll without blinking. Then the security footage loads.
A grainy angle from the parking structure.
A man in a dark cap and gloves crouched by the rear wheel at 3:12 a.m., movements efficient, unhurried.
He stands. For half a second the camera catches his face as he adjusts the brim of his cap.
I know him. He’s one of Konstantin’s. I’ve seen him at board dinners in Moscow.
Standing three steps behind and to the left. My heartbeat slows instead of spikes.
“Has Papa woken up?” I ask.
“He’s sedated,” Dmitri says. “We diverted him to a private clinic before public responders arrived. There’s no official report.”
Of course there isn’t. “Does he know what it was?” I ask.
“We haven’t told him.”
I stare at the paused frame of the footage. “Don’t,” I say quietly.
Dmitri goes silent. “What are you thinking?” he asks. “I’m thinking,” I reply, “that this wasn’t a warning.”
The phone buzzes in my hand before I can say more. Unknown number. I already know who it is. “Dima, I’ll take care of this. I have to go now. Love you.”
I answer the call without speaking and Konstantin’s voice comes through smooth and almost sympathetic.
“I heard there was an accident.” The way he says it makes something inside me go perfectly still.
“I miscalculated,” he continues calmly. “You’re lucky he survived.
” I don’t respond. “You see,” he says, like he’s explaining something reasonable, “these things are unpredictable. Machines fail. People get careless.”
“You cut the brakes,” I say flatly.
A soft exhale of amusement. “I proved a point.” My hand tightens around the phone. “You don’t want this to continue,” he says. “Come home. Make the announcement. Say it was grief. Trauma. Confusion. We stabilize the markets. We restore order.” “And if I don’t?” I ask.
There’s no immediate answer. Then quietly “Next time, I won’t miscalculate.” The line goes dead.
For a long moment I just sit there on the edge of the bed, the phone still pressed to my ear even though there’s nothing on the other end.
He didn’t threaten. He demonstrated capability.
He reached Moscow. He reached a secured underground garage.
He reached my father. Which means he can reach my brothers.
Which means he can reach Roman. And Roman has no idea. I stand slowly and walk to the closet.
The small safe sits where it always does, tucked behind a row of jackets.
He thinks I don’t know the combination. I do.
I kneel and punch it in. The lock clicks open.
The Glock rests inside exactly where it should be, clean and oiled, spare magazine beside it.
When I lift it into my hand the weight feels familiar.
Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Practical. Papa’s voice echoes in my memory from those range mornings when I was thirteen and too stubborn for my own good. Never carry without intent, Anastasiya.
I check the chamber. Loaded. Good.
This isn’t negotiation anymore. It isn’t chess. He moved a piece and drew blood.
I sit back on the bed, phone in one hand, gun resting heavy against my thigh. If I tell Roman, he goes nuclear. If I tell Papa, he escalates. If I do nothing, Konstantin tries again. And next time he won’t miss.
I swing my legs over the edge of the mattress and my bare feet hit the hardwood, cold enough to snap me fully awake, and I refuse to let myself picture what Roman’s face would look like if he walked in right now and caught me doing this, the way his jaw would lock tight and his voice would drop low while he tried to talk me down, or worse, how he’d probably try to physically stop me, maybe even chain me to the bed until I “came to my senses,” but no, this needs to end today and it needs to end on my terms, not his, not my father’s, not Konstantin’s.
So I pull on yesterday’s jeans and the black long-sleeve tee and then the hoodie that still smells faintly of gun oil and Roman’s shampoo, and I go to the closet and drag out the small safe he thinks I don’t know the combination for, which is honestly just his birthday backwards because men are predictable like that, and inside is the Glock 19, the spare magazine, the ankle holster.
I strap the holster low on my right leg, slide the gun in, tug the jeans cuff down to cover it, check the chamber to make sure there’s one in the pipe, flick the safety on, and all of it feels like muscle memory from those Saturday mornings at the range when I was thirteen, Papa standing behind me with his arms crossed, saying in that calm, cold voice, “Never carry without intent, Anastasiya, and when you have intent, you pull the trigger without hesitation,” and back then I’d roll my eyes but I listened, I always listened.
I don’t hesitate now. I pick up my phone again and dial Konstantin’s number while I’m lacing my boots, and he answers on the first ring like he’s been sitting there waiting for it. “Printsessa,” he says, smooth and expectant, almost warm, like we’re old friends catching up.
“I want to meet,” I tell him, keeping my voice flat and businesslike so he won’t hear the way my pulse is hammering in my throat. “Today. Somewhere public enough that you won’t try anything obvious, but private enough that we can actually talk.”
There’s a soft chuckle on his end, and then he says “I’m already in town. Meridian Hotel. Penthouse suite. Thirty minutes?” My stomach drops hard because of course he’s already here, of course he flew in the second that photo dropped, but I swallow it down and say “No escort. I drive myself.”
“Thirty minutes,” he agrees. “Come alone.” I hang up without another word.