Chapter 29 Pyotr
Pyotr
“Yevgeny received the evidence.” His voice carries the flat certainty of a man delivering a verdict. “His nephew is no longer under Lebedev protection. Whatever we do from here is our business.”
I close my eyes. Three words run through my head on a loop. No more waiting.
“Understood,” I say. “Timeline?”
“Boris is already en route to you with our men. He should arrive within the hour to go over finalities. End this, Pyotr. Bring me proof it’s done, and Daria walks free.”
I set down the phone and plant my palms flat against the kitchen counter.
Yevgeny Lebedev, the man who built the St. Petersburg bratva through decades of patience and political maneuvering, just handed over his nephew.
Bogdan burned through his uncle’s loyalty the same way he burns through everything else.
By being reckless, greedy, and too stupid to realize the people protecting him had limits.
The bedroom door opens behind me. Daria stands in the hallway wearing my shirt. Her hair is tangled from sleep, and her feet are bare. She reads my face before I say a word.
“What happened?”
“Dmitri called. Yevgeny pulled his protection. Boris is coming with a team.”
She wraps her arms around herself. “When?”
“Within the hour.”
She gives me one curt nod before she walks past me into the kitchen and fills the kettle. Her hands are no longer shaking. The version of Daria who crumbled at the sound of a blocked number died somewhere between telling me the truth and watching me promise to destroy the man who terrorized her.
This version stands straighter and makes tea while we plan her ex-husband’s end.
I watch her move through the small kitchen, pull mugs from the cabinet, and measure loose tea into the strainer. She catches me staring and raises an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I smirk. “Get dressed. Boris doesn’t tend to knock.”
***
Boris arrives at ten past seven with six men in two vehicles. He fills the doorway of the apartment like a wall, scanning the room before settling his gaze on me.
“Tony confirmed that the warehouse is still active as of four this morning. Eight to twelve men, same rotation schedule. Nothing’s changed since last night.
” He drops a duffel bag on the kitchen table containing Kevlar vests, extra magazines, and two radios.
“My team is briefed and ready. They’re waiting downstairs, watching the place until we move. ”
“And when will that be?” I ask.
“Dawn tomorrow. The gap between the changeovers gives us a window.”
“I want to go.” Daria’s voice comes from behind us.
We turn. She’s in the bedroom doorway, fully dressed, with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her chin is up, and her shoulders are set.
This conversation is about to be a war all its own.
Boris looks at her. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m not asking for permission,” she scoffs. “I’m telling you I’m coming.”
“This is a tactical operation.” Boris’ voice drops to the register he uses when he’s done being polite. “You have no training, experience, or business anywhere near a building full of armed men.”
“I know Bogdan better than anyone in this room. He’s a coward.
He’ll fight your men because that’s what cornered men do.
But Bogdan doesn’t just want to survive; he wants to win.
And winning, to him, has always meant proving I can’t function without him.
If he sees me standing there, he won’t shoot.
He’ll try to talk, convince me this is all my fault, and that I should come with him.
Every second he spends running his mouth is a second your men can close the gap, and you could snag him without a single bullet. ”
“Might,” Boris repeats. “You want me to risk the operation on might.”
“I want you to consider the possibility that we can end this without a bloodbath.”
Boris turns to me with a look that tells me I need to handle this. I understand the look, but I also understand her.
“Daria,” I intervene, “no.”
She whirls on me, and when her eyes find mine, I see the stubbornness that’s kept her alive for three years under Bogdan’s thumb.
“Don’t you dare. Don’t tell me no, like I’m a child who wandered into the wrong room.
I survived that man for six years. I know how he thinks, how he panics, and what makes him fold. None of your men know that.”
“She has a point.”
Boris shoots me a look that could strip paint.
“She does not have a point,” he argues. “She has a death wish dressed up as strategy. One stray bullet or wrong step, and we’re carrying a Kozlov out in a bag, which is the opposite of my job description. I didn’t drive here with a tactical team to babysit a civilian.”
“I’m not a civilian,” Daria snaps. “I’m the reason you have a target. Everything you know about Bogdan’s network came from me. I handed you his operation because I trusted you to end this. Now I’m asking you to trust me enough to be there when it happens.”
“Trust isn’t the issue,” Boris fires back. “Logistics is the issue. I plan for variables I can control. You are a variable I cannot control.”
“Then give me rules, and I’ll follow them.”
Boris folds his arms across his chest and fixes her with a glare that has broken confessions from men twice her size.
“You want to know what happens to people without combat experience in firefights? They freeze. They panic. They run in the wrong direction and take a bullet meant for someone else. I’ve watched it happen, and I will not be the one who puts Dmitri’s cousin in a box. ”
“Then keep me out of the firefight. Put me in a vehicle at a safe distance. If shooting starts, I’ll stay locked inside.
But let me call him before your men go through the door.
He always answers when he thinks I’m begging.
Give me two minutes on the phone. I’ll tell him I’m there to negotiate, which he can verify by looking out a window.
That’ll keep him distracted while your team breaches. ”
Boris shakes his head. “Pyotr. Tell her.”
I look at Daria. Every mark Bogdan left on her body, nightmare she carried alone, and phone call that drained the blood from her face run through my mind. Then I think about Kira, safe in Moscow with Alexei’s wife, waiting for her mother to come home.
“She’s not going inside,” I declare.
“Thank you,” Boris breathes.
“But she can come.”
Boris drops his arms and gawks at me like I’ve lost my goddamn mind. “Excuse me?”
“She stays in the armored car, a hundred meters back from the perimeter. She calls him before we breach. If he doesn’t answer or the situation goes sideways, she stays locked in the car until we’re done.”
“This is insane,” Boris growls. “Dmitri didn’t authorize—”
“Dmitri told me to end this. He didn’t specify how.” I hold Boris’ stare. The man trained me when I first joined the organization, back when I was still carrying Syria around like a second skeleton. I respect him more than almost anyone alive, but I won’t back down on this.
“Think about it,” I continue. “Bogdan is cornered. His uncle just cut him loose, and he doesn’t know that yet.
He’s going to panic when he finds out. A panicked man with a dozen guns pointed at him does something stupid.
But a panicked man who picks up a call from the woman he spent six years controlling stops running or watching his exits.
He starts talking because Bogdan wants to win.
And winning has always meant proving Daria can’t function without him.
Every second he wastes trying to convince her this is all her fault is a second your men are moving into position. ”
I can see Boris running the scenario, weighing risk against reward the way he’s done for the past thirty years. He works his jaw, looks at Daria, and then back at me. “Dmitri will have my fucking head if he finds out I let his cousin ride with us.”
“I’ll make it clear that I made the call, and I’ll answer for it.”
“You’re damn right you will.” Boris turns to Daria and points one thick finger at her.
“You ride in the armored vehicle. You do not exit that vehicle for any reason. You speak when spoken to over comms and not a second before. If Pyotr tells you to duck, you duck. If he tells you to run, you run. If he tells you to stop breathing, you hold your goddamn breath until he says otherwise. Are we clear?”
Daria nods.
Boris grunts. It’s the closest thing to approval she’s going to get from him. He turns toward the door and starts heading out, but I catch the set of his shoulders that tells me he’s already regretting this.
I don’t blame him. Part of me is regretting it, too.
The door closes hard enough to rattle the frame, and his boots pound down the stairwell until the building swallows the sound.
Daria stands by the kitchen counter with her arms folded. She watches the door like she expects him to come back and resume the argument.
“He’ll cool down,” I assure her. “He might not agree with the call, but he’ll execute it. That’s who he is.”
She nods, but I see the doubt behind her eyes. Boris stormed out of here angry, and angry men make Daria nervous for obvious reasons.
“Come here,” I prompt, extending my hand.
She crosses the kitchen and stops in front of me. I take her hands and hold them between mine.
“Thank you.” She sighs.
“Don’t thank me,” I reply. “This isn’t a favor. Everything I said to Boris, every condition — that’s the deal. I need you to promise to listen to everything I tell you.”
“I promise, I’ll follow every instruction.”
“And if it goes sideways? If something happens to me?”
She takes a shuddering breath and answers, “Then I’ll let your men get me out.”
The answer is right. It’s the answer I need to hear. But hearing her say it, hearing her already prepared to lose me, guts me in a way I wasn’t ready for.
“Good.” I brush a strand of hair behind her ear because I can’t stop myself. “That’s all I needed.”
She catches my hand and presses her lips to my knuckles. When she peers up at me through her impossibly long lashes, her eyes are full of tears. I wish more than anything I could take away her fear and anxiety.
But I can’t take it away. So, I pull her against my chest and hold her there, and I let that be enough for now.