Chapter 4
Maksim
The call came while Viktor and I were just getting started.
Breath clouding in the icy air, I stood in the snow-covered courtyard of the compound, knuckles aching from impact.
Two men lay facedown where they’d fallen—alive, yes, conscious, barely.
They’d talk eventually. They always did when you took your time and removed their cocky certainty one piece at a time—along with other things.
Viktor wiped his hands with a cloth as if he were finished working on a vehicle, not breaking the bones in someone’s face.
“Whether they talk or not is of no consequence. We have their names,” he muttered.
“They were sloppy and left a paper trail. Routes. Payments. One brother sold access. Another sold information. Both thought the Armenians would protect them as they collected their money.”
“They won’t because they don’t give two shits about them,” I scoffed, saying what we both already knew to be true. “I still want to find out exactly who paid them for their treachery.” The paper trail Viktor spoke of only showed that they were paid by “someone.” I wanted to know who.
My phone vibrated. I pulled it out with another man’s blood staining my hands—the same blood that was splattered in the pristine, white snow.
Archer.
My brow pinched as I took the call. He wouldn’t call unless something was wrong. I pressed the phone to my cold ear and the world narrowed to his voice as I answered.
“Maksim. Things have escalated,” he announced without a hello, clipped, controlled. “She received a photograph at her place of work. Yes. The test. From inside her apartment.”
The cold no longer touched me. “When?”
“Just now.”
Inwardly, I cursed her stubbornness. I would’ve preferred she hadn’t gone to work at all.
“They were in her home,” he quietly continued. “They know she’s staying in your apartment. They’ve been watching—I can’t prove it, but my guts are never wrong. They haven’t done anything overtly. I believe they want fear.”
He didn’t need to speak the word “yet.” Nor did he have to say that this was likely an attempt to gain leverage over me.
We both knew it lingered silently at the end of his sentence.
My heart stuttered and I closed my eyes once.
Just once. Then the steel slid back into place, and my heart hammered with purpose.
“Pull her now,” I insisted. “Get her the hell out of there. Don’t make it obvious that you’re leaving in a hurry. Once you’re on the road, no lights on inside the vehicle. No direct route.”
“Already moving,” Archer replied. “She’s scared. But she’s steady.”
“She will be,” I murmured. “Because you are there. Keep her safe for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me speak to her once you’re safely in the SUV.”
“Roger that. I’ll call you back.”
In the background, I could hear muffled footsteps and rustling before the call ended.
I hadn’t wanted to hang up. The not knowing what was happening was fraying my nerve endings.
Then my phone rang, and I released a heavy breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
There was the sound of a car door, quickly followed by another.
The engine turned over and then, “Hello?”
Firm, not afraid. That’s my girl.
“You and our baby will be protected. I promised you this and I will not fail you. Trust Archer. Do exactly as he says. I will be home soon.” I said it as if I’d simply gone to the grocery store to get bread.
“Okay. I will.” Quieter, but still strong.
“I love you,” I murmured, the words coming out almost rusty-sounding. It had been a long time since I’d said those words to a woman. A lifetime.
I heard her softly gasp.
“I love you too,” she whispered back.
“I’ll see you before you know it.”
“See you soon.”
I ended the call and turned back to Viktor and the two men with us. “Bring them inside.”
Immediately, we went to work. I was on a tight timeline now.
* * *
The older brother surprisingly broke first.
He cried like a little child when he realized this was the end of the road for him. When he realized the Armenians’ promises had turned to dust in the wind. When he understood that duplicity lined your pockets and sometimes bought you time—but never safety.
I didn’t raise my voice. There was no need.
“You let someone into her home,” I bit out. “You touched what is mine.”
“We’ve been here. In Russia. We didn’t let anyone in anywhere. Please,” he begged. They always begged at the end, when they realized mercy wasn’t part of the deal. Yet they tried. It never worked.
Viktor placed a hand on my arm. I glanced at him, and he gave me a silent but questioning look. We stepped back out of earshot. “What are you talking about?”
Blinking slowly, I realized I’d slipped. My emotions had gotten the better of me and my mind had blurred. We had proof that these men had betrayed the Bratva, not me personally, or that they had anything to do with Sofia.
“I’m sorry… I… my phone call disturbed me.”
“Maksim, this is not like you. Separate your emotions from your duty as you were taught. Your woman is… safe?”
“At the moment.”
“Then you remove that from your mind. Stay focused. These men betrayed us and the brotherhood. Because of them, we have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars—if not millions. Igor Popov is questioning our reliability. Our brothers have been placed in danger, and one was nearly killed. This is our priority. Understood?”
Betrayal and anger sat bitter in my throat. I nodded. He was right.
The second man lasted longer before he cried out, with snot and blood running into his battered mouth. “Wait! Please!” he sniveled as he coughed up more blood.
“You think I’m going to show you mercy?” I asked him with deadly calm.
“Involving you wasn’t our idea. But someone from your Bratva found out about what we’d been doing. They contacted us.”
Viktor and I exchanged a glance. I’d been on the mark with my emotional accusation and hadn’t even known it. Only because I knew my uncle well did I recognize the shock in his eyes.
“And?” Viktor asked.
“And they wanted us to tell the Armenians about you. About your woman.” He was panting as he bravely stared into my eyes. Yet, I saw the resignation in his gaze. He knew he wasn’t walking out of this compound.
Rage consumed me, but I maintained a cold mask of disinterest.
They knew about Sofia. All the way in Russia, they knew about her.
And they had told the Armenians.
Because of someone in my very circle.
“Who. Was. It?” Viktor calmly demanded.
“I don’t know. I swear,” he vowed. “They used a burner phone and always spoke in a whisper.”
Because he knew this was the end and he had no hope in hell, I believed him.
Still, I was sickened. These men had been with Viktor since they were both teenagers and their family had been killed.
They had been trusted. The fact that they let greed destroy that bond disgusted me.
Yet, in appreciation of his final, complete honesty, I ended it quickly. Cleanly.
When it was done, I stepped outside and let the falling snow take the heat from my skin. The compound lights glowed behind me like watchful eyes. Viktor joined me, lighting a cigarette.
“You’re finished here,” he observed. “You have your answers, you have your men. The old guard that is going with you is loyal. The traitors here are gone.”
“I’m not finished,” I replied as I stared off into the swirling snow. “You heard them. Someone else was involved. Someone in America. One of my own. So, I’m leaving, but I’m far from finished.”
He studied me as the seconds ticked by slowly.
“I pray you find your answers, but I hate that you’re having to look so close to home.
Perhaps when you have this settled, you should come back to Russia.
Forget about that foolishness in America.
My Svetlana is still unmarried. I think she has always hoped you would return. ”
My eyes slid to him in warning. “That is over and has been for a lifetime. She made her choice back then.”
“She didn’t want to leave Russia,” he defended with a shrug. Svetlana wasn’t his daughter by blood. She had been a very young girl when Viktor married her mother.
“Well, she knew I wasn’t staying,” I shot back. “We were young, naive, and I’ve long since moved on. I’m going home.”
He sighed. “For the girl.”
“For my family,” I corrected.
Viktor nodded once, understanding in his gaze. “Then go. I wish you well.”
* * *
On the flight back, my mind wandered, and the past found me.
Archer’s voice echoed in my head—not the calm, no-nonsense voice from his recent phone call, but years ago, on a cracked tarmac under a foreign sky.
I’d been young. Reckless enough to think I wanted to take on the world.
I’d joined under a false name, with bought-and-paid-for documentation, testing myself against rules and ranks I’d never truly respected.
I thought that because of my training with my uncle, I was a badass, and what better way to prove it than to join the military and go to war.
Right? Of course, it didn’t last. But I’d been in long enough to meet Archer.
He’d been a Navy SEAL then. A bit older than me. A lot sharper. The kind of man who noticed everything and seemed to speak only when it really mattered.
His group had finished a mission and had linked up with us to refit. I’d seen them roll in.
I was on perimeter guard the night after their arrival. Archer silently popped up as I stood watch. It was boring and I was young, dumb, and cocky. We’d gotten word that enemy movement was expected. Silence was thick. Nothing had happened and I got complacent.
Not gonna lie, I almost shot him. Gun pointing at his face, he had done nothing more than chuckle. I can’t believe he didn’t beat the shit out of me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I’d asked him, heart hammering at my ribcage as I lowered my weapon.
“If I was the enemy, you’d be dead. You trying to die?” he’d quietly asked.
“No,” I’d belligerently snapped back.