Chapter Eight
Osip
The cold liquid burns down my throat, but it does nothing to quiet the storm in my chest.
I stare at the empty glass, watching the last drops cling to the crystal like they’re afraid to let go. Just like I am with her.
Chert voz’mi.
When did I become such a fucking pizda ? Sitting here in my own office, drowning in vodka and memories of soft skin and defiant eyes. This isn’t who I am. I’m Osip Sidorov. I don’t brood. I don’t pine. I take what I want and destroy what stands in my way.
Destroy.
That’s exactly the problem, mudak.
The familiar weight of my Makarov presses against my ribs as I lean back in the leather chair, a reminder of who I really am beneath all this pathetic sentiment. The gun has never failed me. Never left me. Never—
My phone slices through the silence, its shrill ring bouncing off the mahogany-paneled walls of my office. I glance at the screen, and my jaw sets so hard I hear my teeth grind together.
Stanley fucking Morrison.
What the fuck could that prick want after all this time? Last I heard, he was licking his wounds, crying about his lost millions like a spoiled child. My fingers drum against the desk’s surface, a steady rhythm that matches my accelerating pulse.
I let it ring twice more before answering, because fuck him if he thinks I’m eager to hear his voice. When I do pick up, I make sure every syllable drips with contempt.
“What do you want, pizda ?” I snarl into the phone, not bothering to hide my irritation.
The crystal tumbler sits heavy in my other hand, and I consider throwing it against the wall just to hear something shatter.
My left knee bounces under the desk— a tell I haven’t had since I was seventeen and fresh off the Moscow streets.
“Is that how you greet an old friend?” His voice slithers through the speaker like oil on water, thick with venom and false familiarity. That same smugness that used to make me want to put my fist through his perfectly symmetrical face. “A friend who you owe money?”
My grip tightens on both the phone and the glass. The cut crystal edges bite into my palm, grounding me in physical sensation when my mind threatens to spin. “I told you already, pridurok ,” I growl, letting my accent thicken with contempt. “I don’t owe you anything. Shiradze stole from us both.”
The muscles in my neck cord tight as steel cables. I roll my shoulders, trying to release some of the tension, but it’s like trying to stop a freight train with bare hands.
“Finally, something we can agree on,” Stanley snarls, and I can picture his thin lips curling into that predatory smile I remember too well. The same smile he wore when he watched other men’s businesses burn. “But that still doesn’t get me my money. Which is why I have a new plan.”
I set the tumbler down with a sharp thunk, the sound echoing through my office.
My hand wants to shake— from rage, not fear— so I clench it into a fist and press it against my thigh.
Outside my window, Budapest sprawls in the darkness, millions of lights twinkling like distant stars. My empire. My territory. My rules.
But Stanley’s voice has already poisoned the air in my sanctuary.
“Let it go, Morrison,” I say, forcing my voice into something resembling reasonable while my other hand reaches instinctively for the Makarov. Just touching the grip centers me. “It’s been a year. Shiradze’s dead. He took your two million to the grave with him. He took even more from me.”
More than money. He took my trust. My reputation.
Nearly took my life when his betrayal came to light.
But Stanley doesn’t need to know the details of how Shiradze’s blood looked against the asphalt in that parking lot.
How it steamed in the cold Boston air. How his eyes went glassy as the life left him.
“Listen carefully, Osip,” Stanley’s voice drops to that register I remember— the one that means he’s about to sink his claws in deep.
“I don’t give a fuck about reasonable. Do you think I don’t know you’ve been screwing my ex?
And do you think I don’t know she’s Shiradze’s daughter? The bastard who stole from me?”
The world stops.
Every muscle in my body turns to stone. The air in my lungs feels like concrete, heavy and suffocating. Ilona’s name hangs between us, and I can feel Stanley’s satisfaction radiating through the phone. My vision tunnels, the edges going dark as rage builds like a tsunami behind my ribs.
How the fuck does he know?
My free hand shoots out and grabs the edge of my desk so hard the wood groans. I need an anchor, or I’m going to tear this room apart with my bare hands.
“Keep her name out of your fucking mouth,” I growl.
Every word comes out roughly. For the first time in years, I feel something close to panic clawing at my throat.
Not for myself— never for myself. But the thought of Stanley anywhere near her, breathing the same air, saying her name with that poisonous tongue—
“Oh, so you do have a soft spot for her,” Stanley purrs, and I can practically see him grinning that shark’s smile.
The same expression he wore when he took money from desperate parents who’d do anything for a baby.
“How touching. The big bad wolf has found himself a little lamb. Which is why she’ll be perfect to get me what I want. ”
Cold dread settles in my stomach. This isn’t about money anymore. This is about power. About making me bleed. About watching me break. My fingers start tapping against the desk in rapid succession— one, two, three, four— an old nervous habit I thought I’d killed years ago.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask, though part of me already knows. Part of me has been waiting for this call, this threat, since the moment I realized I’d gut anyone who looked at her wrong.
“Come on, Osip. Don’t be dense.” Stanley’s breathing changes, becomes heavier. Excited. “I have eyes on your little bird.”
Eyes?
The phone creaks in my grip. My knuckles have gone white, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I register the sound of plastic beginning to give way under pressure. The muscles in my jaw work like I’m chewing steel.
“You’re bluffing.” But even as I say it, uncertainty gnaws at my chest. Stanley’s many things— a coward, a snake, a worthless piece of shit— but he’s not stupid. And he’s patient. He’s the kind of man who would spend months setting up the perfect strike.
Is that what this is?
“Maybe I am. Maybe not. Hard to tell from here.” His laugh is like nails on a chalkboard, and I have to physically restrain myself from crushing the phone in my fist. “You always were too trusting, weren’t you? Even back in the old days. Remember how that worked out for you with Galina?”
The name on his lips makes something primal and violent unfurl in my chest.
“You piece of shit,” I whisper, and my voice carries more menace than any shout ever could. “If you so much as think about—”
“But I wonder,” Stanley continues, cutting me off like I haven’t spoken at all, “what your sweet little Ilona will think when she learns that you killed her old man.”
No!
The word doesn’t leave my mouth, but it screams through every fiber of my being. My entire body goes rigid, muscles locked in place like rigor mortis. The room spins slightly, and I have to blink several times to steady myself.
It takes everything inside me not to fling the phone across the room. Instead, I slowly set it down on the desk and put it on speaker, because my hands are shaking now— actually shaking— and I can’t trust myself not to crush it completely.
“If you know that, you also know it was self-defense,” I snarl, memories surging like black water threatening to drown me.
Moonlight on asphalt. The parking lot’s shadows stretching like fingers. Shiradze’s eyes wild with rage and desperation. The smell of cigarettes and fear-sweat. The metallic taste of blood in my mouth.
The knife had come out of nowhere, flashing as it arced toward my throat.
I’d reacted instinctively, muscle memory from years on Moscow streets.
Shiradze had lunged, I’d grasped his wrist and twisted with clinical precision…
and the blade had slid between his ribs with sickening ease.
His shocked eyes had locked with mine as understanding dawned.
“No,” he’d whispered. Then his knees buckled and he crumpled like paper.
I blink back to the present, Stanley’s breathing heavy on the line like he’s getting off on my discomfort.
“You can spin it however you want,” he says, and I can hear him moving around— pacing maybe.
“Self-defense, business, justice— call it whatever helps you sleep at night. But do you think she’ll see the difference?
Do you think she’ll care about the details when she finds out her father’s blood is on your hands? ”
My throat constricts. “It was justice,” I grit out. I’ve told myself this a thousand times, carved it into my bones until it felt like truth. Shiradze was stealing from us, destroying our business. He deserved what he got. But Ilona… bozhe moy , Ilona doesn’t know. Can never know.
“Justice,” Stanley repeats, savoring the word. “That’s rich. You sound just like you did when you used to lecture me about honor and loyalty. When all you are is just another killer in an expensive suit.”
“If you lay a hand on her—” I start, half-rising from my chair, but Stanley’s laughter cuts me off.
“Then what?” he spits, and I can hear the triumph in his voice.
He knows he’s found my weakness, the one thing that can bring me to my knees.
“You’ll kill me? You don’t even know where I am, Osip.
And from what I’ve heard through the grapevine, you don’t know where she is either.
She could be standing right next to me for all you know. Hell, I could be watching her sleep.”
The image sends my thoughts spinning into chaos. Stanley’s hands on her. Her frightened eyes. Her voice calling my name while I’m powerless to help. My free hand claws at my chest, right over where my tattoos mark the number of men I’ve killed. Right now, that number feels inadequate.
My vision goes red around the edges. The office furniture seems to shimmer and warp like a mirage.
“What the fuck do you want, Morrison?” The words scrape out of me like I’m choking on them. Like admitting weakness. “You want the two million? Fine. I’ll wire it tonight.”
But even as I say the words, I know it’s no longer about the money. Maybe it never was. But if cash will make this go away, if it will keep Ilona safe, I’ll pay it ten times over. I’ll sell everything I’ve built if that’s what it takes.
“No,” he says, smug as shit. “Fuck you, Sidorov. You had your chance to be reasonable. I came to you hat in hand, and you spat in my face. You told me to go cry to someone who gave a shit.”
I remember that conversation. Stanley storming into my office and demanding money like I was his personal ATM. I’d told him to fuck off. More than once.
“I wanted the two million,” Stanley continues.
“But you refused to give it to me. You said I could go fuck myself. Remember that? So now, I have a better idea. I’m going to make you suffer, Osip.
I’ll ruin your fucking life. Piece by piece.
And now that I know your weak spot, I know exactly how to do it. ”
My chest feels like it’s caving in. “Stanley, listen—”
“No, you listen.” His voice turns vicious.
“I’m going to take everything from you. Your business.
Your reputation. Your peace of mind. And when I’m done with all that, I’m going to take your girl.
She’ll learn what kind of monster you really are, and then she’ll come running to me. Just like before.”
“Just like before?” The words come out strangled.
“Surely you know that, Osip? She was mine long before she ever spread her legs for you. And when she finds out what you did to her old man, she’ll be mine again. That’s if I let her live that long.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone in my hand, realizing that I’ve gripped it so tightly I’ve cracked the screen.
Spider web fractures spread across the display like broken ice.
The silence in my office is deafening, broken only by the sound of my own ragged breathing and the rapid hammering of my pulse in my ears.
Stanley has Ilona in his sights. Stanley knows I killed her father. Stanley wants to watch me burn.
Suka!
I don’t have time to get emotional now. There are calls to make.
Men to mobilize. A war to prepare for. But my hands won’t stop shaking, and for the first time in twenty years, I feel like that scared kid on the Moscow streets again— desperate and powerless and so fucking afraid of losing the only thing that matters.
But if Stanley thinks he can use her against me, he’s about to learn exactly why they used to call me the Butcher of Sokolniki.
Some lessons are written in blood.
And I’ve always been an excellent teacher.