Sergei
The security room is in the basement.
I built it when I bought the brownstone, before I put anything else in the house. The security system is better than any government agency or bank. I have the best cameras. But I don’t need cameras. I have men with eyes.
My home has never been breached.
Until tonight.
I sit in front of the monitors and watch the footage. I don’t speak. Kirill is beside me, handling the controls, moving the timeline back and forward without talking.
My temper is running very hot right now.
He knows not to push.
“Where is he?” I ask. “Where the fuck is this guy? He’s not a ghost. He was on my kitchen floor. How did he get there?”
Kirill pauses the camera that covers the back of the house and then jogs it back frame by frame.
I catch a glimpse of a shadow.
"There," I say.
Kirill pauses it and clicks to zoom in.
I look at the frame.
I stare at the frozen scene with my jaw clenched so tight I’m surprised my teeth don’t crack. That shadow shouldn’t exist. Not in my house. Not with my security.
“There’s a blind spot,” I say quietly. I know Kirill recognizes the tone. This is the voice I use right before someone dies. Violently. “How the fuck is there a blind spot?”
Kirill doesn’t answer immediately. He’s clicking through other angles, cross-referencing timestamps. His silence isn’t fear. He’s not nervous even with my temper at a rolling boil.
“Window,” he says finally. “Ground level. West side. The coverage overlaps from two cameras but there’s a gap. Maybe eighteen inches. He knew exactly where it was.”
“Someone told him.” I run my hands over my face, rubbing my eyes. “Someone on the inside gave him the layout.”
“Yes.”
“Who was on patrol for that section?”
Kirill pulls up the schedule on his tablet. His finger traces down the list. “Petrov. He was supposed to do a sweep every fifteen minutes. Last documented sweep was—" He stops. “Twenty-three minutes before we got the call.”
“Where is he now?”
“He left. He was off-duty.”
I stand up. The rage is cold now. Controlled. Useful. “Find him. Bring him to the interrogation room. I don’t care what you have to do. I want him alive, and I want him tonight.”
He walks out of the security room with his phone pressed to his ear.
I’m left alone with the cameras and video feed. Kirill purposely avoided playing it.
But I have to watch. I need to see what happened in that kitchen. I pull up the footage and hit play.
She’s smiling. Music playing. I pause and zoom in. She’s happy. Relaxed. Safe.
And then he’s there. My fist clenches as I watch the scene. She does everything right. When he hits her, I nearly call Kirill to bring the fucker back so I can mutilate his body.
My eyes are glued to the screen. I hear footsteps but don’t look away.
“She’s a fighter,” Kirill says from beside me.
“She should not have had to fight.”
“Petrov will be here shortly. Nelson is picking him up.”
“Good. I’ll be back in ten.”
I leave the room and head upstairs. The meal I ordered is sitting on the kitchen island. I open the bag, pull out the container of linguine, bread and steamed veggies and grab a fork.
I carry it up to our room. She’s in bed. The bedside lamp is on, but she’s passed out.
I watch her sleep for several seconds. The bruise on her cheek already making itself known. Sleep is what she needs.
I take the meal back to the kitchen and put it in the fridge.
When I return to the basement, Kirill is still in the security room.
“The body?” I ask.
“Being processed. We’ll have an ID within the hour. Dental records, fingerprints, the works.”
“Yuri sent him.”
“Probably.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I say. “Slowly.”
“I know.”
There’s a loud commotion.
Kirill grins. “Our guest has arrived.”
I walk through the basement to the far corner where I built the interrogation room. It’s soundproof. Reinforced. No windows. No cameras. What happens in there stays in there.
Nelson is just finishing securing Petrov to the chair bolted to the center of the room. He looks up when I enter. I see the fear in his eyes. Good. He should be afraid.
I close the door behind me. The lock engages with a heavy click.
“Mr. Sokolov,” he starts. “I can explain— “
“Don’t.” I move to the table against the wall where I keep my tools. “You’re going to tell me everything. Who paid you? How much. What the plan was. Every detail. And then I’m going to decide how long you get to live.”
Nelson leans against the wall, arms crossed. Kirill stands in front of the door.
I pick up a pair of pliers. Turn them over in my hand. “These are for lies. Every time you lie to me, I take a finger. You have ten fingers. Do the math.”
He’s sweating now. “Mr. Sokolov, please— “
“Who paid you?”
Silence.
I cross the room in three strides. Grab his left hand. The pliers close around his pinky finger.
“Wait! Wait!” He’s crying now. “It was Yuri! Yuri Baranov!”
I release the pressure slightly. “How much?”
“Hundred thousand. Half up front, half when—"
“When what?”
“When the job was done.”
“The job being my wife’s murder.”
He nods, the tears streaming down his face.
“What was the plan?”
“I was supposed to create the blind spot. Make sure the window was unlocked. Stay out of the way during my patrol. He had a guy. Professional. Said it would be quick. Clean. No witnesses.”
“Except you.”
“I was supposed to disappear after. New identity. New life.”
I almost laugh. “You really believed Yuri would let you live? After you betrayed me?”
The realization hits him. I see it in his eyes. He was always going to die. Yuri would have killed him the moment the job was done.
“How long?” I ask.
“What?”
“How long have you been on his payroll?”
“Two weeks. Since he approached me at my daughter’s school.” His voice breaks. “He said he’d hurt her if I didn’t help.”
I set the pliers down. “You should have come to me.”
“I was scared.”
“You should have been more scared of me than him.” I move back to the table. Pick up something else.
I turn back to him. “You betrayed me. You put my wife in danger. You let a killer into my home.”
I take my time. It's not something I do for performance. There's no one to perform for except Kirill, who has seen this before and doesn't need the theater.
Maybe a little for Nelson. I want him to know what happens if he fails in his duties.
“Can I?” Nelson says when Petrov stops screaming.
“Can you?” I ask.
That’s when I realize Nelson stayed because he’s furious. Pissed that someone hurt the woman he’s been tasked with keeping alive for over a year.
“As long as you understand she’s my wife and any man that puts a finger on her will lose that finger. And the hand. Then the arm. In that order.”
Nelson picks up the blade from the tray.
“She’s like my sister,” Nelson says, sliding his finger over the blade. “My family.”
I believe him. “Handle it.”
“No!” Petrov screams again. “I’ll never betray you again.”
“I don’t need a man that can’t use a weapon,” I reply, reaching for the package of wet wipes. I wipe my hands and toss it in the trash. “You don’t have any fingers, Petrov. Useless.”
He’s sobbing when I walk out of the room.
Kirill falls in step beside me. “Now what?”
“Now we prepare for war.”
“We could just handle it.”
“Was it the Ghost?” I ask.
It’s the question that’s been bouncing around in my head since I got the call.
“I don’t know,” Kirill answers. “If we don’t get a hit on the fingerprints and dental records, possibly.”
Relief. Did she kill the notorious hitman with a body count that instills fear in men all around the world?
Pride swells.
“I’ll be indisposed the rest of the night. If there’s something important, come get me.”
“If she took out the Ghost, you know she just elevated her status,” he says.
I hear the pride in his voice as well.
“Let me know.”
I head back upstairs.
Yuri is becoming a problem I need to solve. She doesn’t want me to kill him, but I can’t stand by and wait for him to kill her.
This is something I’ll have to deal with. She’ll be pissed, but she’ll be alive.
The light on the nightstand is off when I return to the room. I go into the bathroom and wash up. I strip naked and cross the room. I slide in behind her naked body.
She immediately wiggles her ass against me. I pull her against me, inhaling the scent of her.
"Petrov," she says. Not a question. She already worked it out.
"Yes."
"He's been handled."
"Yes."
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“We’re going to talk about this tomorrow,” I tell her.
“Yuri is going to kill me.”
“No, he’s not.”
“What if—” she pauses. “What if it’s my father?”
“It’s not. Not this time. Petrov confirmed it was Yuri.”
Her body relaxes. “Okay.”
I press a tender kiss to her bruised cheek.
"It won't happen again, princess," I say.
She's quiet for a beat.
"I know," she says.
She believes me. That trust that has come to mean more to me than anything else in the world.
I pull her closer. Her hand tightens over mine.
“I let my guard down,” she says.
“You were at home. You should have been safe.”
“I’ll never be safe.”
“Yes, you will. You are. Nelson is moving into the Brownstone. He’ll be with you anytime I’m not.”
“For how long, Sergei?”
“Until Yuri is dead, which is going to happen sooner rather than later.”
I wait for her to argue.
She doesn’t.
I hold her and press my mouth to the back of her head. I make the promise quietly, to her and to the woman I made promises to eight years ago.
No one will ever get that close again.
On my life.