Chapter 31
Kazimir
The conference room smells faintly of polished wood and espresso.
It’s the kind of quiet luxury that corporations mistake for power.
Glass walls look out over the Connecticut harbor, steel-gray water, and expensive yachts.
The men across the table talk in low, careful voices about contracts, supply chains, and federal procurement timelines.
I let them talk.
It’s all straightforward. Predictable.
Control is a simple thing when you have enough money and enough fear backing it.
My phone buzzes once on the table. Nika doesn’t text unless something is on fire or bleeding. I glance down, expecting a logistics update or a confirmation that the port crews have been rotated.
Instead, there are six words: We were wrong. She’s been taken.
For a second, the world narrows to the white of the screen.
Taken.
Not late. Not missing.
Taken.
My pulse doesn’t spike the way it should. There is no dramatic rush of fear, no cinematic punch to the gut. Instead, everything inside me goes cold and orderly, like a room after the air has been sucked out.
Across the table, a man in a navy suit is still talking about compliance regulations.
I don’t hear a single word.
My mind is already moving pieces on the board. Who knew her schedule? Who had eyes on the clinic? Which of Hinto’s crews are still unaccounted for? How long would it take to get back to Savannah if I commandeered airspace instead of filing a flight plan?
My phone rings.
Liev.
I answered and put it to my ear without greeting him. I don’t trust my voice.
There’s breathing on the other end, rough and controlled in a way that means he is barely holding himself together.
“If anything happens to Alyona,” he says quietly, each word sharpened to a blade, “I will kill you myself, Kazimir. I don’t care what you’ve built or how many men stand between us. I will bury you with my bare hands.”
It’s a promise. I accept it the same way I accept gravity.
If she dies because of me, I deserve worse; I would dig a grave and climb down into it without fighting.
“Understood,” I say.
It’s the only word I give him before hanging up.
The men across the table finally notice the shift in the room when I stand. My chair slides back with a harsh scrape that makes one of them flinch.
“Mr. Baranov,” someone starts, nervous smile already forming, “we still have a few line items to—”
“Meeting’s over.”
My voice is calm, almost bored, which unsettles them more than shouting ever could.
“We’ll finalize through counsel.”
I don’t wait for their response. I button my jacket, pocket my phone, and walk out.
The hallway outside the conference suite is lined with art that costs more than most houses. I barely register it as I move through the hotel. My stride is long and purposeful, security scrambling to keep up when they see my expression.
Outside, my driver is already running the engine. He sees my face and doesn’t ask questions, just jumps out to open the door.
“To the airfield,” I say, sliding into the backseat. “Now.”
The door shuts with a heavy thud.
As we pull away, I pull out my phone and start dialing numbers in sequence, issuing orders with the same steady tone I use for quarterly budgets.
“Lock down the estate. Mobilize only those we can trust, and have them in the war room by the time I’m back. Find Hinto. Find anyone connected to him. Burn every safe house, every port, every warehouse.”
By the time my jet’s engines spin up, there won’t be a corner of the eastern seaboard that doesn’t belong to me.
When I find the man who took her, there won’t be enough left of him to bury.
Less than three hours after Nika’s message reaches me, I step through the front doors of the plantation house and hand my coat to the nearest guard without breaking my stride.
They’ve followed my orders; everything is locked down. None of the normal staff are here, none of the maids. The kitchen is silent. Men in dark clothing wait at the corners of each turn as I stalk toward the elevator.
I do not bother going upstairs, do not wash the stale airplane air from my skin, do not even glance toward the wing where Aly sleeps most nights. The only place that matters now is the basement.
The command center.
If there is even the smallest chance of bringing her back faster, it starts there.
The stairwell door swings shut behind me with a heavy click. By the time I reach the bottom step, I am no longer the man who attends galas or negotiates contracts in tailored suits; I am exactly what Hinto has forced me to become.
Nika and Liev look up first when I enter, one serious, the other furious.
Then the rest of the men gathered around the central table.
No one wastes time with greetings. They know better than to offer comfort I would reject.
Oleg is already standing with a tablet in his hands, glasses sliding down his nose, the way they do when he has been staring at data too long. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, even though it’s only been hours since we got the news.
“Tell me,” I say.
He nods once, throat working. “We were fed incorrect intelligence. Deliberately.”
My jaw tightens, but I keep my expression neutral, because anger clouds thinking, and I need my head clear.
“Hinto never left Savannah,” Oleg continues. “The reports about Miami were staged. Spoofed sightings, fake pings, paid confirmations. He stayed local the entire time and waited for an opportunity.”
A distraction. A magician’s flourish while the real trick happens somewhere else.
“This morning,” he says, “he hit the clinic. He knew about the appointment.”
Which means someone talked, or someone has been watching us far more closely than I allowed.
“Devin?” I ask.
“Alive,” Nika answers immediately. “Concussed, bruised, but stable. She’s back at the house and furious.” One glance from me and he adds: “We’re sure she had nothing to do with it. Greg spoke to her first.”
Greg, my second-in-command when it comes to getting the truth out of people the hard way. I feel no regret or sympathy for whatever he put Devin through that made him sure she wasn’t involved.
“And Alyona?”
No one answers, and the silence stretches too long. I clench my fists.
Oleg says quietly, quickly: “Witnesses saw her forced into a vehicle. Clean extraction. No hesitation.”
I brace my hands on the table and lower my head, forcing myself to breathe. If I let the panic rise, I will tear the entire city apart and accomplish nothing except satisfying my own rage.
Nika steps closer, already keyed up. “We go after them directly. Sweep every property he owns. Every warehouse. We start breaking bones until someone talks.”
Liev nods, his voice tight with fury. “We hit everything at once. He hides; we drag him out.”
Their instincts are predictable, and for most men they would be correct, but Hinto is not most men.
“No,” I say.
Both of them turn toward me.
“He wants me to panic,” I say, keeping my voice even. “He wants us loud and desperate, because desperate men make mistakes. If we storm the city, he moves her or uses her to bait us again, and we all wind up dead.”
Liev’s nostrils flare. “So we sit here?”
“We think,” I reply. “Then we hurt him where it actually matters.”
I have been watching Hinto for months, mapping his business the way a surgeon studies arteries before cutting. Everyone focuses on shipments, guns, and money, but power always comes back to something smaller and softer.
Family.
I gesture for Oleg to pull up the files the team has been collecting. Names scroll past, trusts, shell companies, private accounts that connect in one place over and over again.
Ryder.
The name appears so often it might as well be branded into the screen.
“I’ve seen this one everywhere,” Liev says, sliding a thick folder toward me. “Tuition payments a few years ago. Drivers. Medical expenses. Everything routes back to this heir.”
Heir.
Only one.
We all make the same assumption without saying it aloud: a son, protected and groomed, the future of his empire.
“If he thinks he can take mine,” Liev growls, “We take his.”
I flip through the dossier, memorizing routines and locations, noting security gaps and predictable habits. Routine is always the weakness. Everyone believes tomorrow will look like today.
“Tonight,” Liev says. “Before he expects us to move.”
I close the folder and meet his eyes.
“Tonight,” I agree. “We take Ryder cleanly and disappear. No collateral, no noise. When Hinto realizes what’s missing, it will already be too late.”
Around us, the men begin organizing routes and teams, voices low and efficient.
My thoughts settle into something sharp and usable.
Hinto wanted me to back down and give it all up for her.
Instead, he has signed his own death certificate.