Chapter Ten
Osip
The nightmare claws its way up from the depths of my subconscious like a fucking parasite.
Slava’s face. That little mouth forming the word “Papa” through the rain-streaked window of the Land Rover.
But this time, the car doesn’t drive away— it explodes in a ball of fire that turns my son’s innocent eyes into charcoal.
I’m running toward the wreckage, my legs moving through cement, my lungs burning as I scream his name into the void.
Then the scene shifts. Ilona is on a plane, her blue eyes wide with terror as Stanley slides into the seat beside her.
His smile is all teeth and malice as he strokes her honey-blonde hair with one hand while the other grips a knife that gleams like pure evil.
She’s so trusting, so fucking naive, leaning into his touch like he’s her savior instead of her executioner.
I try to scream her name, to warn her, but no sound comes from my throat. The blade moves closer to her neck, and I watch helplessly as crimson spreads across her pale skin.
“ILONA!”
The word tears from me as I jolt awake, my body convulsing like I’ve been electrocuted. Sweat coats my skin in a slick layer of fear and rage, soaking through the Egyptian cotton sheets I paid a fortune for. My heart thunders so hard I wonder if this is what a cardiac arrest feels like.
The darkness of my bedroom feels suffocating, pressing down on me like a weight. The digital clock on my nightstand glows 3:47 a.m. in accusatory red numbers. Another sleepless night in what’s becoming an endless parade of them.
Stanley’s words echo in my skull: I have eyes on your little bird, Osip.
I push myself upright, muscles screaming in protest. My body feels like I’ve been beaten with a fucking baseball bat, every joint stiff with tension I can’t release.
The nightmares are getting worse— more vivid, more detailed, more fucking real.
Every night it’s the same horror show: Slava disappearing, Ilona bleeding, and me powerless to save either of them.
I stumble to the bathroom, leaning over the basin and splashing cold water on my face. Stubble grazes my fingertips from a beard that’s grown scraggly with neglect. I look like a fucking vagrant.
I reach for the medicine cabinet with shaking hands, fingers closing around the bottle of sedatives.
Two pills tumble into my palm— small white circles that promise oblivion but deliver nothing but more nightmares.
I swallow them, chasing the bitter taste with tap water that does nothing to wash away the taste of failure.
But the pills don’t touch the rage. Nothing touches the rage anymore.
My fist connects with the mirror before I consciously decide to move.
The impact sends spider webs of cracks racing across the surface, and the sound of shattering glass fills the bathroom.
Shards embed themselves in my knuckles, drawing blood that drips onto the pristine white marble in perfect crimson drops.
The pain feels good. Real. More real than anything I’ve felt since Stanley’s call turned my world into a fucking wasteland.
Blood runs down my fingers as I stand there, breathing hard, staring at my fractured reflection in what’s left of the mirror.
Multiple versions of myself stare back— all of them broken, all of them failures.
A father who couldn’t save his son. A lover who couldn’t protect his woman.
A man who built an empire on violence only to discover that violence can’t solve the problems that matter most.
The blood from my knuckles drips steadily onto the marble, each drop counting down to my complete mental collapse. I need to find her. I need to find Ilona before Stanley does, and I need to do it now.
Striding back to the bedroom, I grab my phone from the nightstand with my uninjured hand, scrolling through contacts until I find Radimir’s name. My younger brother picks up on the fourth ring, his voice thick with sleep.
“Do you have any idea what fucking time it is?” he grumbles.
“We need to find Ilona,” I snap back.
“Jesus, brat . We’re doing the best we can,” he blusters.
“Do better,” I snarl into the phone, pacing back to the broken mirror. “We need to find her. We can’t let Stanley get to her first.”
Silence. Then I hear the rustle of sheets as Radimir sits up, suddenly alert. “We’ve spoken about this, Osip. Do you really think he knows where she is?”
“I don’t know. But we can’t take any chances.”
“Alright, bratok .” His voice sharpens with focus, and I can already hear him moving around, probably firing up his computers. “I’ll do some more digging. But like I told you, she could be anywhere in the world. She doesn’t want to be found.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” I shout. “I need you to fucking find her before Stanley does, you understand?”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that, Osip?”
“Start with fucking Boston! Where else could she go?”
“Do you think that didn’t occur to me? And how the fuck do you suggest I trace her in Boston?
” Frustration bleeds through his voice. “They sold the house after you killed Shiradze, remember? After that, she and her mother went off the map. They were probably afraid because of what happened to Shiradze. And even if they are in Boston, it’s a city with a population of 4.
5 million. And we have no phone signal to trace since she ditched her last phone in Budapest. She could be anywhere. ”
“ Net! ” I snarl because I refuse to accept defeat. “Search the fucking dark web, start asking around, I don’t fucking care. We live in fucking 2025 goddamnit! You’re the IT guy, not me!”
The line goes quiet except for the sound of rapid typing. Radimir’s already working, thank fuck. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough when the woman you long for is being hunted by a psychopath who used to be my business partner.
I end the call and immediately dial Melor. My older brother’s voice is thick with sleep but sharpens the moment he hears my tone.
“Osip? What’s—”
“I need every contact we have,” I interrupt. “Boston, New York, anywhere on the East Coast. Someone must have seen her. Someone knows something.”
“Slow down, brat . Have you had another one of those dreams?” The concern in his voice almost breaks through my armor, but I can’t afford vulnerability right now. Not when Ilona’s life hangs in the balance.
“Morrison’s coming for her,” I say simply, my voice breaking slightly. Blyad. I hate feeling so fucking weak.
There’s a pause, and then, “Alright, wait there. I’m coming over.” The line goes dead before I can reply.
I walk to the windows that overlook the Danube, my bloodied hand leaving smears on the glass as I press my palm against it. The city spreads out below me like a glittering kingdom— lights reflecting off the water, the Chain Bridge spanning the darkness like a promise of connection.
But all I can see is Ilona’s face in my nightmares, her eyes wide with terror as Stanley’s blade finds her throat.
Somewhere out there, she’s running. Hiding. Alone and afraid because of choices I made, enemies I created, blood I spilled in what feels like another lifetime.
I built this empire with violence and cunning, convinced myself that power was the same thing as protection. But power means nothing when the people you care about are beyond your reach. Money means nothing when it can’t buy back trust or time or second chances.
The sedatives finally start to kick in, making my limbs feel heavy and disconnected. But sleep won’t come— not with Stanley’s laughter echoing in my skull, not with Slava’s face haunting my dreams, not with Ilona somewhere in the void beyond my protection.
The irony doesn’t escape me. I am feared from Moscow to Miami. Men cross themselves when they hear my name whispered in dark corners.
And I am powerless to save the only people who matter.
“ Chert voz’mi ,” I growl, scowling out through the blood-streaked window. How did everything get so fucked up?
Twenty minutes later, I hear Melor’s key in the front door, followed by the sound of his heavy footsteps on the stairs. I’m still standing by the window, still bleeding, still staring out at a city that holds no answers.
“ Yobani urod ,” he mutters as he appears in my bedroom doorway, taking in the scene— the broken mirror, the blood, my half-naked form silhouetted against the windows. “What the fuck is going on with you, Osip?”
He stalks into the room, his face carved with the kind of concern that comes wrapped in anger. We learned early that worry was a luxury we couldn’t afford, so we disguised it as rage instead.
“I know you’ve been through hell,” he continues gruffly, “but you’re a fucking wreck. You can’t keep living like this. We’re worried about you.”
I snort and toss my head. My brothers— these men who’ve killed without blinking, who’ve built empires on the bones of our enemies— are worried about me. It would be funny if it weren’t so goddamn tragic.
I can’t lie to him. Haven’t slept in days, haven’t eaten anything solid since Stanley’s call turned my world into a wasteland. I’m too tired to maintain the facade, too broken to pretend I’m still the unshakeable man they’ve always looked up to.
I drop my head into my hands, feeling the weight of every decision, every death, every moment that led me to this precipice. “We have to find her before Stanley does. Who knows what that fucker is capable of?”
“ Brat , you know Stanley.” Melor’s voice gentles slightly, the way it used to when we were kids and I’d wake up screaming from nightmares about our father. “He talks shit. He could be bluffing?”
“And what if he isn’t?” The words explode out of me with enough force to make him step back. “I’m not fucking taking any chances!”
Melor studies my face in the dim light filtering through the windows, and whatever he sees there makes his expression shift from irritation to something closer to fear. Not fear of me— fear for me.
“Osip,” he says quietly, and there’s something in his tone that makes me look up. “When’s the last time you looked in a mirror?”
I gesture toward the bathroom with my bloodied hand. “Just did. Had to break it to get an honest reflection.”
“This isn’t sustainable.” He moves closer, and I can see the genuine worry etched into the lines around his eyes. “You’re falling apart, and if you fall apart, everything we’ve built falls apart with you.”
The truth of his words hits hard. I am falling apart— have been since the moment I realized I was in love with the daughter of a man I killed in cold blood. Since the moment Stanley’s voice crawled through my phone like poison, promising to destroy everything I care about.
“Nobody is untouchable in this fucking life,” I say, the words coming from some deep, honest place I usually keep locked away. “Not even a man like me. The older I get, the more I realize that. And maybe this is karma. Maybe this is how I’m paying for all my sins.”
Melor doesn’t respond immediately. He just stands there, my brother who’s seen me at my best and worst, who’s watched me build an empire and now watches me tear myself apart over a woman who’d destroy me if she ever learned what I’d done to her father.
The silence between us is heavy with the weight of everything unsaid— all the bodies we’ve buried, all the choices that led us here, all the reasons why love has always been a luxury we couldn’t afford. Until now. Until her.
“We’ll find her,” he says finally, and there’s something in his voice I haven’t heard in years. Not just loyalty or duty, but understanding. He knows what she means to me, even if he doesn’t understand why.
I nod, not trusting my voice, and watch as he moves toward the door. But he pauses at the threshold, his hand on the frame.
“Osip,” he says without turning around. “When we do find her— and we will— you’re going to have to decide what kind of man you want to be when she looks at you.”
The door closes behind him with a soft click, leaving me alone with the broken mirror and the truth that cuts deeper than any shard of glass.
Because we both know that when Ilona learns what I’ve done, the man she sees won’t be the one she made love to in the darkness of a Boston club.
He’ll be the monster who killed her father.