Chapter 24 Mikhail
MIKHAIL
The empty bed mocks me.
I stare at the rumpled sheets where Sophia should be sleeping, my heart already racing with dread.
The pillow still holds the indent of her head, and when I press my hand against it, the fabric is cold.
She’s been gone long enough for the sheets to turn cold.
“Sophia?” I call out, already knowing she won’t answer. I check the bathroom, the closet, even the goddamn balcony, but she’s nowhere. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I yank it out with shaking hands.
A text from an unknown number. Your wife is very brave. Or very stupid. Old Moretti house. Come alone.
Ice floods my veins. Lorenzo.
I’m moving before my brain catches up, grabbing my Glock from the nightstand and shoving it into my waistband.
“Marco!” I roar, bursting into the hallway.
He appears from the guest room, weapon already drawn. “Boss?”
“Sophia’s gone. Lorenzo has her at the old Moretti place.” I’m already heading for the stairs. “Get everyone. Now.”
“That’s a trap.”
“I don’t give a fuck what it is.” I spin to face him, and whatever he sees in my expression makes him step back. “My wife is there. That’s all that matters.”
The drive to the Moretti house takes forty-five minutes that feel like fifteen hours.
My hands grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white. Behind me, three SUVs full of my men follow, but I know Lorenzo’s message said to come alone.
He’s counting on me to ignore that instruction, counting on me to bring backup.
Which means he’s prepared for it.
The Moretti house looms against the early dawn, a two-story colonial that’s seen better days.
The windows are dark except for a single light in what I remember is the living room.
I park directly in front of the house, the three other vehicles doing the same, and approach on foot, my gun drawn, every sense on high alert.
The front door stands open. An invitation. A taunt.
I step inside, and the smell hits me immediately. Gasoline. Lots of it. The hardwood floors gleam with it, and I can see where it’s been splashed across the walls, the furniture, everything.
One spark and this whole place goes up like a tinderbox.
“Sophia?” My voice echoes through the empty house.
“In here, nephew.” Lorenzo’s voice drifts from the living room, calm and almost cheerful.
I move toward it, my finger next to the trigger. The living room opens before me, and what I see makes my blood turn to ice.
Sophia sits in a chair in the center of the room, her wrists bound behind her.
But it’s not the restraints that steal my breath. It’s the vest strapped to her chest, covered in wires and what looks like enough C-4 to level the entire block.
Her blue eyes find mine, wide with fear but also something else.
Determination.
She’s not broken.
Not yet.
“Mikhail.” Her voice cracks on my name. “I’m sorry. I thought I could reason with him.” She shoots a look at her brother.
“Touching, isn’t it?” Lorenzo steps out from behind Sophia’s chair, and I see he’s holding a small device. A detonator. “Young love. So naive. So willing to sacrifice everything for each other.”
I aim my gun at his head. “Let her go, Lorenzo. This is between you and me.”
“Oh, but it’s so much more than that now.” He moves to the other side of the room, and that’s when I see Tony.
Sophia’s brother sits in an identical chair, wearing an identical vest. His face is pale, his green eyes haunted. Blood seeps through a bandage on his shoulder where I shot him, and guilt twists in my gut.
“You see, Mikhail, I’ve learned something about you over these past weeks.” Lorenzo circles the room like a predator, the detonator held loosely in his hand. “You’ve developed a conscience. A weakness. You actually care about people now. It’s quite pathetic, really.”
“What do you want?” I keep my gun trained on him, but my eyes keep flicking to Sophia. To the vest. To the wires that could end her life in an instant.
“I want you to suffer the way I’ve suffered.” Lorenzo’s voice hardens. “I want you to know what it’s like to lose everything. To have to choose between two people you love, knowing you can only save one.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I don’t love Tony, but she does. Sophia may never forgive me if I let him die. “No.”
“Yes.” Lorenzo holds up the detonator, and I see there are two buttons. One red, one blue. “Red is for your lovely wife. Blue is for her brother. You have exactly sixty seconds to decide which one lives and which one dies.”
“You’re insane.” But even as I say it, I’m calculating. The distance to Lorenzo. The time to cross the room. The probability of getting the detonator before he presses a button.
All of it comes up zero.
“I’m practical.” Lorenzo smiles, and it’s the coldest thing I’ve ever seen. “You’re killing my organization. And before you took everything from me, I’m going to finish taking it all from you. Starting with the choice that will haunt you for the rest of your miserable life.”
“Mikhail, save Tony.” Sophia’s voice cuts through my panic. “Please. He’s my brother. He’s all the family I have left.”
“Sophia, no.” I move toward her, but Lorenzo raises the detonator.
“Ah ah ah. Stay where you are, nephew. Any closer and I press both buttons.”
Tony speaks for the first time, his voice rough. “Don’t listen to her. Save Sophia.”
My mind races through possibilities. There has to be a way. There has to be something I can do. I’ve spent my entire life solving impossible problems, navigating deadly situations. There has to be an answer.
But I can’t see it.
“Forty-five seconds,” Lorenzo announces, glancing at his watch. “Tick tock, nephew.”
“Mikhail, please.” Sophia’s voice breaks. “Save Tony. Promise me you’ll save him.”
My only answer is the grim line pulling at my mouth.
“Thirty seconds.” Lorenzo’s smile widens. “I must say, this is even more entertaining than I imagined. The great Mikhail Artyomov, brought to his knees by an impossible choice.”
I look at Sophia, at the woman who changed everything, who took my world of violence and darkness and somehow made it bearable.
Then I look at Tony, at the brother she mourned for years.
The family she thought she’d lost.
The person she risked everything to save. The person she’ll never forgive me if she loses.
“Mikhail.” Tony’s voice is steady now, resigned. “It’s okay. I’ve made my peace with this. Save my sister. Save your family. That’s what matters.”
“No.” Sophia struggles against her restraints. “No, Tony, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare give up.”
“Twenty seconds.”
My hand tightens on my gun. I could shoot Lorenzo.
Could try to take him out before he presses either button.
But the detonator is a dead man’s switch. I can see it now, the way his thumb hovers over the buttons.
If he dies, if his grip relaxes, both bombs go off.
“Fifteen seconds.”
There has to be something I’m missing. Some angle, some trick, some solution that doesn’t end with me losing everything.
“Ten seconds.”
Sophia’s eyes lock with mine across the room.
She’s already made her peace with dying.
She’s already decided that Tony’s life is worth more than hers.
But I haven’t.
“Five seconds.”
“Wait!” The word explodes from me. “Wait. I’ll do it. I’ll choose.”
Lorenzo’s finger hovers over the buttons. “Well? Which one?”
I look at Sophia one last time, memorizing every detail of her face.
The way her black hair falls across her shoulders.
The blue of her eyes.
The curve of her lips.
The strength in her expression even now, even facing death.
“I choose—”
“Time’s up.” Lorenzo’s smile turns vicious. “But you know what? I’ve changed my mind. Why should you get to choose at all?”
His thumb moves toward both buttons, and I see my entire world about to end.
The timer on both vests suddenly illuminates, red numbers counting down from sixty.
60
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