The First Job
Monika
The call came at midnight, but I was already awake.
I'd been lying in the dark for hours, staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks in the plaster with my eyes.
The city hummed outside my window—distant sirens, the rumble of the El train, the occasional shout from the street below.
Sounds I'd learned to ignore. Sounds that had become a lullaby, ugly and familiar.
The phone buzzed against my nightstand. I picked it up before the second vibration.
"Yes."
"Be ready in ten." Aleksander's voice was low, clipped. No greeting. No explanation. "Dress warm. Wear boots."
"What's happening?"
"A meeting. I need you there."
The line went dead. I sat up in the dark and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
My feet were cold against the floorboards—the radiator had been making strange noises all week, and the landlord hadn't fixed it.
I pulled on jeans, a thermal shirt, the heavy boots I'd worn on the farm.
They were scuffed and worn, the laces frayed, but they'd seen me through worse than this.
I didn't ask myself what I was doing. I didn't let myself think about the cages, the women, the way Aleksander's grey eyes had looked at me in the warehouse alley. I just moved. One foot in front of the other. The way you walk through a fire when there's no other way out.
Viktor was waiting downstairs. He didn't speak. He just opened the door and I got in, and the car pulled away from the curb before I'd fastened my seatbelt.
The city slid past the windows. We drove east, toward the river, toward the parts of the city where the streets had no names and the buildings had no numbers.
I watched the neighborhoods change—the convenience stores with their iron bars, the empty lots where something had been torn down and nothing had been built, the men standing on corners in coats that were too thin for the weather.
"This is a bad part of town," I said.
"Yes," Viktor said.
"That's all you're going to tell me?"
"That's all I know."
I didn't believe him. But I didn't push. I'd learned that silence was a language in this world, and I was still learning to speak it.
The building was a club—or had been, once. The sign above the door was faded, the letters peeling, but I could make out the ghost of a name: The Velvet Room. The windows were dark, the entrance blocked by a steel door that looked like it could stop a truck.
Viktor pulled into an alley and killed the engine. The headlights died, and the dark rushed in—thick and sudden, like being underwater.
"Wait here," he said.
"No." I reached for the door handle. "I'm supposed to be with him. That's why he called me."
Viktor's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. They were old eyes, tired eyes, the kind that had seen too much to be surprised by anything. "You don't know what's in there."
"Then show me."
He stared at me for a long moment. Then he nodded, just once, and got out of the car.
The alley smelled like garbage and rust and something chemical—paint thinner, maybe, or gasoline. My boots crunched on broken glass as I followed Viktor toward the steel door. He knocked—three times, a pause, two more—and the door opened inward, revealing a hallway lit by red bulbs.
The man who opened the door was broad, bald, wearing a suit that didn't fit. He looked at Viktor, then at me, and his lip curled.
"She stays outside."
"She goes where he goes." Viktor's voice was flat, immovable. "His orders."
The man looked at me again. I held his gaze. I didn't smile. I didn't look away. After a moment, he stepped aside.
The hallway was narrow, the walls painted black.
The red bulbs cast everything in a bloody glow, making the shadows look like wounds.
I could hear music somewhere—low bass, a heartbeat rhythm, the kind of sound you feel in your chest instead of your ears.
Viktor walked ahead of me, his shoulders broad, his steps sure. He'd done this before. Many times.
The hallway opened into a room.
It had been a dance floor, once. The parquet was still there, scuffed and stained, and the disco ball still hung from the ceiling—dusty, forgotten, catching the light from a dozen candles arranged on tables around the perimeter.
In the center of the room, there was a table.
A long one, wooden, the kind you'd find in a church basement or a union hall.
And around the table, men.
I counted seven of them, not including Aleksander. He sat at the head of the table, facing the door, his grey eyes finding mine the moment I walked in. He didn't smile. He didn't nod. But something in his face shifted—a small relaxation, a quiet acknowledgment—and I felt my shoulders drop an inch.
He'd been waiting for me.
"Monika," he said. "Come. Stand behind me."
I walked across the dance floor. The men watched me—their eyes sharp, curious, the way predators watch something that might be prey or might be a threat. I kept my eyes on Aleksander. On his face. On the steady grey of his gaze.
I stopped behind his chair, close enough to touch his shoulder if I reached out. I didn't reach out.
"The meeting," Aleksander said, turning back to the table, "can continue."
I don't remember most of what was said.
Names, numbers, territories—the language of men who traded in things that couldn't be bought in stores.
I heard shipment and route and percentage.
I heard threats wrapped in pleasantries, and pleasantries wrapped in threats.
I watched the men around the table smile at each other like they were friends, while their hands stayed close to their weapons.
Aleksander was calm. He was always calm. He spoke in a low, measured voice, never raising it, never rushing. When another man raised his voice, Aleksander waited. When another man made a threat, Aleksander tilted his head, like he was considering something amusing.
And then, without warning, the door burst open.
I didn't see who came through. I saw the flash of movement, the glint of metal, the way the men at the table reached for their guns in a single, synchronized motion. I heard the first shot—loud, impossibly loud, the sound ricocheting off the walls like a trapped bird.
Then I was moving.
Not running—I didn't run. Running was for people who didn't know what to do.
I dropped to the floor behind Aleksander's chair, my hands already reaching for my bag, my mind already cataloging.
The man on Aleksander's left—I'd seen him earlier, a young man with a shaved head and a nervous twitch—was clutching his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers.
He'd been hit. Not fatally, not yet, but the blood was bright red and pulsing, and that meant arterial.
"Get down!" someone shouted. Another shot. Glass shattered somewhere behind me.
I crawled toward the wounded man. The floor was sticky—drinks, maybe, or blood, or both. My knees slid on something wet, but I kept moving. The man's eyes were wide, panicked, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
"Let me see," I said. I pulled his hand away from his shoulder. The wound was ugly—a groove, not a through-and-through, the bullet having carved a trench through the muscle before exiting. The bleeding was bright and steady, but the artery was intact. He'd live. If he didn't bleed out first.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a tourniquet—the real kind, the kind Aleksander had bought for me after the warehouse. I didn't think about how he'd known I'd need it. I just wrapped it around the man's arm, above the wound, and tightened.
He screamed. I kept tightening until the bleeding slowed.
"Hold this," I said, pressing a gauze pad against the wound. "Pressure. Hard. Don't let up."
I looked up. The room had gone quiet. The shooting had stopped as suddenly as it had started. The men at the table were standing now, guns drawn, facing the door. There were bodies on the floor—two of them, strangers, dressed in black, their faces hidden by ski masks. They weren't moving.
Aleksander was standing too. He wasn't looking at the door. He was looking at me.
"Viktor," he said. "Get them out."
Viktor appeared at my side, his hand under my elbow, pulling me to my feet. The wounded man was groaning, his face pale, but he was conscious. Two other men—guards, maybe, or lieutenants—lifted him and carried him toward the door.
"Move," Viktor said. I moved.
The car was chaos.
The wounded man was in the back seat, his head in my lap, his blood soaking through my jeans. I kept pressure on the wound, my hands steady, my voice low. "You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. Just keep breathing."
Viktor was driving. I didn't know where.
The streets blurred past the windows—dark, empty, the city holding its breath.
In the front seat, Aleksander was on the phone, speaking in low, rapid Russian.
I didn't understand the words, but I understood the tone.
He was cleaning up. Making calls. Putting out fires.
The wounded man's name was Mikhail. I'd learned that from the men who'd carried him. He was twenty-two years old, a new father, and he'd taken a bullet because he'd stepped in front of Aleksander.
"You're going to see your kid again," I told him. "But you need to stay awake. Keep your eyes open. Look at me."
He looked at me. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, but he was trying. I could see him trying.
"That's it," I said. "Keep looking at me."
The car swerved. Viktor was muttering something under his breath, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. Aleksander had hung up the phone and was turned in his seat, watching me work.
"How bad?" he asked.
"He'll live. But he needs a hospital. A real one. Not me."
"There's a doctor. On retainer. We're going there now."
I nodded. I didn't ask questions. I just kept pressure on the wound, kept talking to Mikhail, kept my hands steady.