Chapter 17 #2
I don’t leave a note for Roman, don’t send a text, don’t even turn on the tracker in the SUV because if this goes sideways I don’t want him charging in and getting himself buried under federal heat or worse, so I just grab the keys and pause for half a second at the front door, looking back at the house, at the porch swing where we made love yesterday afternoon with the birds calling and the wind moving the trees, at the coffee mugs still sitting in the sink, at the bed upstairs that’s probably still warm from our bodies, and then I lock the door behind me and walk out.
The drive to the Meridian is quiet, windows down, wind whipping my hair across my face, and I keep running through the scenarios in my head the whole way, picturing the layout of the penthouse from the one time I’ve been in a suite like it years ago, thinking about where the exits are, how many men he’ll probably have waiting, whether he’ll already have a weapon drawn when I walk in, and I can almost hear my brothers’ voices from those family dinners when they drill me for fun, “Room full of enemies, little sister, where’s the first shot coming from?
Where do you go when the lights drop?” and I get it wrong half the time and they laugh their asses off, but then they make me run it again until I get it right, until the answers come automatic.
I park in the underground garage, back in so I can get out fast if I need to, check the Glock one last time in the rearview mirror, flick the safety off now because I’m not playing anymore, and take the elevator up.
When the doors open to the private foyer, the same two suits from before are waiting, earpieces in, faces blank, and they don’t pat me down, don’t even try to touch me because even they know better than to lay hands on a Dragunov without explicit permission, and one of them opens the double doors and says “He’s waiting. ”
The suite smells like leather and expensive cologne, all cream marble and floor-to-ceiling windows with the city sprawled out below like some map he thinks he controls, and Konstantin is standing at the bar cart pouring two fingers of whiskey into crystal glasses, charcoal suit, no tie, top button undone, looking calm and controlled like nothing has ever rattled him in his life.
“Drink?” he asks, holding one out to me. I stay right by the door, weight balanced on the balls of my feet.
“I’m not here to toast.”
He shrugs and sets the glass down, leans back against the bar. “You came. That’s progress.”
“You came to my country uninvited,” I say. “That’s escalation.” His mouth curves, not quite a smile. “Your country now? Loyalties shift fast.”
I take one step forward. “Cut the shit, Konstantin. You sanctioned Volkov. You sent the men to hurt my father. You really think I’m coming back because I’m scared?”
“I think you’re coming back because you’re smart,” he says, swirling his drink.
He sets the glass down harder than necessary, crystal ringing against marble.
“You were promised to me before you even understood what promises were. Our bloodlines were meant to merge. Empires stabilize. You don’t get to burn decades of planning down just because you found someone who fucks you raw and calls it love. ”
The word hits exactly like he wants it to, heat crawling up my neck, but it’s not embarrassment, it’s pure rage, and I step closer again. “I get to burn whatever I want because I’m a person who decided she doesn’t want to be your arm candy at board meetings and galas.”
He pushes off the bar slowly, crosses the space until he’s close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his body and smell the whiskey on his breath.
“You think this is love?” His voice drops, almost gentle, mocking.
“It’s adrenaline. It’s rebellion. In six months you’ll miss the structure, you’ll miss knowing exactly where you stand, you’ll miss the power.
” He lifts his hand and brushes his knuckles along my cheek. I let him, just for one heartbeat.
Then I slap his hand away hard, the crack echoing in the quiet suite. “Don’t.”
His eyes darken. “You forget who you’re speaking to.” He grabs my wrist and twists, pain shooting up my arm, and his other hand snaps to my throat, fingers clamping down, not choking yet but promising he can.
“You will come home,” he says low and even. “You will smile for the cameras. You will tell them it was all a mistake, that the American was a lapse in judgment, that you’re grateful I came to retrieve you.”
My free hand moves fast, yanking the Glock free, jamming the barrel under his chin. “Let. Go.”
He freezes, eyes flicking to the gun then back to my face. “You wouldn’t.”
I pull the trigger. The shot is deafening, ears ringing instantly, his head snaps back, blood sprays hot across my cheek and the white marble, and he staggers, hand flying to his neck where the bullet grazed him. He roars, pure fury, and lunges. I spin for the door. Too slow.
Two men burst in from the side hallway, one already with a syringe uncapped, the other diving straight for my gun arm.
I fire twice, first shot catching the diver in the shoulder and he drops with a grunt, second shot going wide as the syringe guy slams into me from the side, and we crash into the glass coffee table, it shatters under us, jagged edges biting into my back through the hoodie, pain flaring hot and bright.
I drive my elbow into his nose, feel cartilage crunch, blood sprays, he reels but doesn’t let go, his knee pinning my gun wrist to the floor, and the syringe guy drops on my other side, needle stabbing deep into my neck, cold flooding my veins fast. “No,” I snarl through gritted teeth, bucking hard, knee driving up into his groin, making him wheeze, but the plunger is already down.
My limbs go heavy, fingers numb, the Glock slips from my grip and clatters across the marble.
Konstantin’s voice swims above me, thick with pain.
“Get her on the jet. Now.” Hands grab me under the arms, legs dragging behind me, elevator, garage, car door slamming, engine rumbling.
The world tilts and blurs. I fight the black creeping in at the edges. And fail.
When I come to, I’m strapped into a wide leather seat on a private jet, engines screaming, wrists zip-tied to the armrests, ankles bound, duct tape over my mouth, back burning where the glass has cut me, blood sticky under my hoodie.
Konstantin sits across the aisle, white gauze taped to his neck, red already seeping through, face pale but eyes locked on me, steady and cold. “You shot me,” he says, voice raspy from the wound. “In my own suite.”
I stare back, no fear, just cold calculation running through the fog in my head.
He leans forward and winces. “We’re going home, Anastasiya.
Russia. We will marry and life will go back to normal.
” I shake my head once, slow and deliberate.
His mouth twists. “You will. Because if you don’t, Roman and his entire club burn.
Slowly. And I’ll make sure you’re in the front row. ”
The plane rotates, accelerates, wheels lift off. The city drops away below us, clouds swallowing the wings.
I close my eyes and breathe through my nose around the tape.
They think they’ve won. They forget who raised me.
Papa and my brothers with their endless drills and range days, the way they always say “If they take you, little sister, you wait, you watch, you find the crack, then you break everything.”
So I start working the zip tie against the sharp edge of the armrest, slow and patient, skin scraping, blood welling up, but it doesn’t matter.
Konstantin thinks I’m going back broken.
I’m going back armed, every contact, every safe house, every weapon cache from Moscow to the Urals burned deep into my brain like a map I could draw blindfolded, and if Konstantin wants his precious legacy so bad then fine, I’ll burn it down to ash myself, every last brick and deal and blood promise turned to nothing, and when Roman comes for me, because he will, because that man doesn’t know how to quit, I’ll be waiting there with the match already lit, ready to hand it over or strike it myself.
The seatbelt sign dings off above my head, soft and indifferent, and I keep working the zip tie against the sharp edge of the armrest, slow and patient, one frayed thread at a time while blood wells up under the plastic and my back throbs from the glass cuts, but none of it matters.
This isn’t the end. It’s the fuse. And I’m about to blow the whole goddamn thing sky high.