Chapter 23
23
Mak
I stand at the window of my study, watching the unmarked sedan disappear down the service road, taking Wil and Zina away from the estate and away from me. The rising sun catches on the car's retreating form before it vanishes around a bend, leaving only an empty driveway and manicured grounds. Their absence creates an immediate void, a silence that seems to echo through the mansion that suddenly feels too large, too empty, and too meaningless.
For a long moment, I remain motionless, memorizing the last glimpse of the vehicle carrying everything I never knew I wanted until it was too late. Then I turn away, crossing the estate with swift, purposeful strides that send staff scurrying from my path. No one dares meet my gaze or offer morning pleasantries. They recognize the cold mask of the pakhan has returned, perhaps more terrifying for its brief absence during the weeks Wil shared my bed.
In my bedroom—our bedroom, for that brief, precious time—I permit myself exactly one hour of private grief. I lock the door, a luxury of weakness I rarely allow, and catalog the traces of Wil's presence that linger mockingly. There's a forgotten hair tie on the nightstand. The subtle scent of her shampoo lingers on my pillows when I lift them to my face, and a dog-eared pregnancy book she'd been reading is still open to a chapter on fetal development at sixteen weeks. Her absence feels like a physical wound, raw and bleeding beneath my carefully controlled exterior.
For fifty-nine minutes, I allow the pain to wash over me in waves. Not just the loss of Wil, though that cuts deepest, but the accumulated losses of a lifetime—my mother's murder, my childhood sacrificed to violence, and the humanity I surrendered piece by piece to become the leader my father demanded. In the privacy of these walls, I acknowledge the price I've paid and recognize the cost was too high.
When the hour ends, I lock it all away. Grief, regret, and longing are all sealed behind the walls I've spent a lifetime building. I emerge from my quarters with cold purpose, my expression so forbidding that a maid actually drops her cleaning supplies when I round a corner unexpectedly.
I have no time for wallowing in self-pity or regret. The attack on Wil in broad daylight has confirmed my worst suspicions, and my cousin's role in it can no longer be ignored. What I initially took for simple ambition has transformed into something far more dangerous. Fedor hasn't just been questioning my leadership. I believe he's been actively undermining me and putting Wil and our unborn children directly in harm's way to weaken me as a distraction for his takeover. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
"Leonid." I step into the security office without knocking. "My study. Now."
He follows without question, his expression carefully neutral until the door closes behind us. "They arrived at the first checkpoint safely. Thirty minutes ahead of schedule."
I nod once, acknowledging but not discussing this information. Personal matters must wait. "The attack yesterday. Show me everything you've compiled."
For the next three hours, we review surveillance footage from multiple angles, tracking the movements of Wil's attackers backward through the city. Leonid has been thorough, identifying license plates, faces, and connections that paint a disturbing picture. The men weren't random thugs, or even standard Kazanov foot soldiers. They were specialized contractors, the kind used for particularly sensitive operations, where deniability is essential.
"This one." I tap the screen, freezing on a face partially visible beneath a baseball cap. "I've seen him before."
"Lev Sokolov." He pulls up a file. "Former Spetsnaz. He now works mostly for a handler within the Petrov network, but the Petrovs have no quarrel with us currently. He still freelances."
"Someone hired them through intermediaries." I study the image, memorizing every detail. "This level of operational security suggests serious resources and planning. Not a typical Kazanov move."
"No. Their methods are usually more direct."
The implication hangs between us like a noose, neither willing to voice the suspicion aloud without absolute proof. If the attack didn't originate with our known enemies, then the threat comes from within. The only person with both motive and resources to orchestrate such a betrayal is my own cousin. "Pull the financial records for the past six months. I want data for all accounts, including the offshore holdings." I meet his gaze directly. "Do it quietly."
He nods, understanding the gravity of what I'm asking. Investigating family is the gravest breach of Bratva protocol, perhaps second only to betraying family. If I'm wrong, the consequences to our organization's stability would be severe if word leaked out. If I'm right, the damage is already done.
* * *
For the next three days, I work tirelessly, sleeping only in short bursts between reviewing the evidence Leonid compiles. Financial records show odd transfers through a purposefully confusing array of shell companies. Communication logs reveal encrypted messages sent from an IP address within the estate during key planning periods. Surveillance footage captures brief meetings with known Kazanov intermediaries that never appeared in Fedor's official reports.
The pattern becomes undeniable. Small inconsistencies align into a damning picture of treachery so profound that even I, who have never fully trusted anyone in our world since my mother's death, feel the sting of betrayal. Fedor, who grew up alongside me, who shared blood and history and secrets, has been systematically undermining my position for months.
The final confirmation comes on the third night. Leonid places a laptop before me, his expression grimmer than I've ever seen. "The Brooklyn apartment attack. We recovered deleted security footage from a convenience store across the street."
The grainy video shows a black SUV identical to those in our fleet parking near Wil's former building. Two men emerge, faces carefully turned from cameras, but one speaks briefly into a phone before entering. The timestamp matches exactly with the night Gisele died.
"Audio enhancement from another camera picked up part of the conversation." Leonid plays the clip, the sound a barely audible but unmistakable exchange between two men.
"Target confirmed...
“Proceed as ordered for execution...”
“No witnesses..." The voice they’re speaking to belongs to Mikhail, Fedor's personal security chief.
Rage unlike anything I've ever experienced courses through me, a white-hot inferno that threatens to consume rational thought. I grip the edge of my desk until the wood creaks beneath my fingers, fighting for control. "They weren't there to kidnap her," I say, the realization crystallizing with terrible clarity. "They were there to eliminate her before the pregnancy became widely known. They always planned to kill Gisele too, in order to eliminate witnesses."
Leonid nods, his usual impassivity cracking slightly. "Based on the communications we've intercepted, Fedor learned about the pregnancy the same day when you reluctantly told him. He ordered the hit immediately, viewing her as a threat to his ambitions."
The thought of Gisele's death being collateral damage in Fedor's bold move against me sends fresh fury coursing through my veins. More than that, the knowledge that he targeted Wil, planning to murder her and our unborn children, awakens something primal and merciless within me.
I could kill him now. One word to Leonid, and Fedor would disappear before morning. The satisfaction would be immediate, and the vengeance appropriate to his betrayal, but the consequences would ripple outward, creating new dangers for Wil and our children. The Bratva doesn't tolerate internal bloodshed without repercussions. Factions would form, allies would question my stability, and enemies would seize the opportunity to strike.
No, Fedor's death alone solves nothing. The entire system that allows men like him to exist, to target innocents for the sake of power, must be dismantled. The empire I've spent my life building must burn if Wil and our children are ever to be truly safe. I can't stop this sort of corruption everywhere, but I can end it here in my city, at least for now. In the process, it will extract me from it permanently if everything goes to plan
"We need to accelerate the contingency plan," I Say, channeling rage into calculating precision rather than blind vengeance. "All phases. Simultaneously."
His eyebrows rise slightly, the only indication of surprise. "The risk factor increases exponentially."
"So does the reward." I move to the secure safe behind a false panel, extracting documents prepared years ago but never implemented. "The Eclipse's grand reopening this weekend is our opening."
* * *
The plan takes shape with meticulous attention to detail. Over the next forty-eight hours, I meet with only my most trusted lieutenants, men who have proven their loyalty through decades of service, not through family ties or political ambition.
Leonid spreads blueprints of the Eclipse nightclub across my desk, tracing maintenance corridors and exit routes marked in red while four of my most trusted men—Yakov, Orlov, Lev, and Sasha—lean in, memorizing each detail. These are men who have proven their loyalty through years of service rather than through family ties or political ambition, and I trust them with not only my life but also the future I hope to build with Wil and our children.
"The tunnel access is here." Leonid taps a spot beneath the private VIP lounge. "It’s original construction from Prohibition that was sealed off during previous remodeling but reopened by our crew disguised as building inspectors during our round of renovations. It seemed like a handy escape in the event one was ever needed."
“Good thinking ahead, my friend,” I say.
Orlov studies the exit points with narrowed eyes. "Where does it lead?"
"Three blocks east through the maintenance shed for the old subway line." Leonid slides photographs across the table.
The plan continues taking shape as I deliberately feed Fedor false information about a high-level meeting with Colombian distributors at the Eclipse, inviting him to join the discussion in my office, where I can watch him absorb the news with predatory satisfaction.
"The Colombians are nervous after the Kazanov incursion into their territory." I slide a folder across my desk. "This meeting finalizes our protection agreement."
A barely perceptible twitch pulls at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes gleam with restrained anticipation as he processes the opportunity I've unwittingly presented to him—or so he believes.
"Smart move, cousin. This solidifies our southern corridor."
"I want you to handle security personally." I note how he straightens slightly at being handed the very control he needs to execute whatever plan he's formulated. "There’s no one else I trust for something this sensitive."
Fedor nods, not even attempting to hide his pleasure at being handed the security arrangements. "I'll oversee everything myself."
That evening, I sit across from him in my office with the chess set between us, but we’re not playing yet.
Fedor gestures to the crystal decanter with exaggerated hospitality. "Drink?"
"Please."
He pours two glasses of amber liquid, handing one to me with a gesture of fraternal camaraderie, but when he turns to replace the stopper, I catch the slight unsteadiness in his hand, the only betrayal of his anticipation that he can’t fully control despite years of practice at deception.
I raise the glass to my lips without letting the liquid touch them while his gaze tracks the movement with an intensity that would be imperceptible to anyone who hadn't spent a lifetime reading the micro-expressions of dangerous men, and when he glances at his phone, I empty the glass into the soil of the large fern beside my chair, reasonably certain what the drink contains.
Fedor raises his own glass in a toast, his voice carrying layers of meaning only he believes he understands. "Tomorrow will change everything."
"Yes." I meet his gaze directly, letting a touch of genuine emotion show through my carefully maintained mask. "It certainly will."
A flicker of uncertainty crosses his features before smooth confidence returns, and he clearly believes his plans remain undetected while he has no idea that my men have already swept the club for his devices and planted our own explosives throughout the structure—precisely positioned for maximum structural impact but carefully rigged to avoid the main floor. I made sure of it. Staff loyal to me will do a floor sweep under the guise of a plumbing issue in the lower level when the time is right.
After he leaves, I make final preparations, transferring significant assets to secure accounts established years ago under identities not even my lawyers know exist. Paperwork for Wil and our children rests in offshore vaults secured by biometric locks that only I can access, and the foundations for our new life are established as invisible rails laid for a journey that now depends on perfect execution.
In the pre-dawn hours, I record a message for Wil on an encrypted device, allowing the camera to capture a version of me few have ever seen—just a man speaking truths long buried under years of violence and control.
"I was eleven when I first saw someone die." My voice sounds foreign to my own ears, stripped of the authority I normally project. "Sixteen when I first killed. Neither leaves you, but for different reasons."
I speak of the boy I was before violence claimed me, dreams long abandoned, and regrets that haunt my quietest moments, telling her how she awakened parts of me I believed dead and how our children represent a future I never dared imagine. "This is the only gift worthy of what you've given me..." I finish the recording, my throat unexpectedly tight. "Freedom from the Vorobev legacy."
* * *
The Eclipse pulses with blue and purple lights that dance across the restored cathedral's Gothic arches, casting eerie shadows through stained glass that once depicted saints but now fractures the light into kaleidoscopic patterns over the dance floor. I arrive precisely at 9:30, flanked by security as usual, though tonight my normal team has been replaced by the four men who know the truth, and we are met at the entrance by Fedor, who clasps my shoulder with performative warmth that doesn't reach his calculating eyes.
"Colombians called. They're running twenty minutes late." He guides me toward the VIP section with a proprietary air that suggests he already considers the club his own. "I've secured the entire upper level."
I scan the club, noting the positions of Fedor's men. There are too many, deployed in patterns that suggest offensive rather than defensive strategy, while near the bar, I spot two unfamiliar faces trying too hard to blend in, their posture and alertness marking them as Kazanov soldiers brought in for additional assurance of my demise.
"Drink while we wait?" He gestures to a bottle of rare cognac already opened on the VIP table, the amber liquid catching the pulsing blue light in a way that would seem inviting if I didn't know better.
"Later. I need to review the final terms." I check my watch with deliberate casualness, observing the brief disappointment that flashes across his face before he masks it. He wants me incapacitated before the Colombians arrive—or rather, before whoever is actually coming arrives—and the cognac is almost certainly drugged as a backup to whatever he slipped into my scotch last night, which makes me wonder briefly if he suspects I avoided drinking it.
The timer on my phone counts down from thirty minutes and everything proceeds according to plan until the unexpected happens in the form of a face I recognize immediately across the crowded dance floor.
Ivan Petrov—son of the Petrov family patriarch and a notoriously unpredictable wild card in Bratva politics—makes his way through the crowd with his security detail clearing a path, and his presence threatens to unravel everything if he recognizes me after the explosion.
"Unexpected guest at three o'clock," I murmur to Orlov, who gives an imperceptible nod before sliding away to alert the others.
Fedor follows my gaze, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Problem?"
"Nothing worth discussing." I wave dismissively, redirecting the conversation. "Tell me about the additional security measures you've implemented."
As he launches into a detailed explanation, I check the time again—twenty-three minutes remain before detonation, and Ivan is moving closer, working his way through the crowd toward the VIP section, likely seeking to pay respects as is customary between families, which increases the odds of him later telling others he saw me. Good. I just need to get him out of here before the explosion. I don’t want him killed when I have no current conflict with the Petrovs.
"Excuse me." I stand abruptly, interrupting Fedor's monologue about the perimeter guards. "I need to use the restroom before the Colombians arrive."
Fedor's eyes narrow slightly with suspicion. "I'll have Mikhail escort you."
"No need. I know where it is and have been pissing alone longer than you’ve been alive." I chuckle like it’s a joke, and he gives an uncertain laugh before I move toward the private bathroom adjacent to the VIP area, forcing casualness into my stride even as I feel his gaze burning into my back.
Inside, I lock the door and immediately tap my earpiece. "Ivan Petrov is here. Adjust timeline."
Leonid's voice crackles with static through the secure channel. "Understood. New detonation in eighteen minutes. Tunnel access remains clear."
I splash water on my face, steadying myself for what comes next before leaving the bathroom to find Fedor waiting, his casual stance belied by the tension in his shoulders and the tightness around his eyes.
"Colombians just called again. Traffic delay, so they’ll be another fifteen minutes." His gaze is too intent, too predatory, and the lie is transparent enough that I know he's changed his plan, which means I need to accelerate mine.
"Then I have time for that drink." I move toward the VIP table, watching relief flash across his features as I reach for the cognac that would ensure I'm defenseless when his real plan unfolds.
Behind him, Ivan Petrov climbs the stairs to our section, his bodyguards clearing a path through the crowd. I raise the glass deliberately before letting it slip from my fingers. It shatters on the floor, spraying expensive cognac across my pants and jacket sleeve while drawing the attention of nearby security. "Clumsy tonight," I mutter, brushing at the spreading stain with mock annoyance. "Nerves, perhaps."
Fedor’s smile tightens with barely controlled frustration. “I’ll get another.”
The moment he turns, I tap a rapid sequence on my phone. The timer jumps from fifteen minutes to two. Not ideal but necessary. Ivan Petrov is about to arrive, and while I want him to see me here, I need him gone immediately after. His testimony later of witnessing me alive and speaking to me at the Eclipse will do more to sell the lie of my death than any staged footage.
“Mikhail,” Fedor calls to his security chief, Mikhail, the brute whose hand never strays far from the gun under his coat. “Another cognac for my cousin.”
I push back from the table, glancing down at the spreading wet mark. “I’ll clean up. Don’t want to smell like spilled brandy when the Colombians arrive.” I rise from my seat with smooth purpose, heading toward the private bathroom once more, where my exit waits, with the tunnel access hidden behind a maintenance panel. Two minutes is tight, but if I move now, I can make it.
Except Mikhail steps directly into my path.
“Let me check it first, pakhan .” He blocks the hallway, broad chest and narrowed gaze daring me to insist otherwise. His hand rests on his holster. There’s no mistaking the message. They suspect something. Or they know everything. Either way, the pretense is gone.
I glance toward Fedor, who watches without intervening, his expression unreadable but his eyes sharp and calculating. I force a smile. “Of course. Security first.”
Mikhail disappears into the bathroom, and just like that, my exit is compromised. I pivot, mind racing. The hatch behind the panel is out. I have one other way to reach the tunnel—through the kitchen and down the back service corridor. It’s less discreet and more exposed, but it’s all I have left.
Unless…
Ivan.
I scan the floor just as Ivan Petrov steps onto the landing, flanked by two bodyguards and broadcasting entitlement like cologne. He greets Fedor with the traditional Bratva kisses, then turns to me with cheerful obliviousness. “Makari Vorobev. Entertaining at a nightclub? Hell must be icing over.”
“Ivan.” I clasp his hand, pull him in close. “There’s a Kazanov hit team here. Get out now.”
His face shifts immediately. Surprise disappears behind cold computation. “Where?”
“Near the bar. Two men. More outside, most likely. They’re using tonight as cover.”
It’s not a lie. Fedor brought in outside muscle for this hit, and the Kazanov name makes for an ideal red herring. It'll trigger retaliation, suspicion, and weeks of distraction.
Ivan nods once and signals his men. They form around him like clockwork and begin extracting him from the building, drawing attention as they move.
Perfect.
Fedor’s men glance toward the disturbance, and some reach for comms. Others shift position, distracted.
I slip behind one of the carved columns lining the corridor. The timer on my phone reads 0:47.
The path through the club is open. Kitchen. Corridor. Hatch.
Time to vanish.
I catch Orlov's attention across the room, giving the predetermined signal with a subtle gesture that would be meaningless to anyone else, and he taps his earpiece, alerting the others that the extraction is happening now, ready or not.
I glance toward the main floor, where I see staff quietly directing first-floor/non-VIP guests toward the exit. In moments, the innocent guests will be out of the club, and only the ones on this floor will remain.
Fedor turns, realizing I'm no longer beside him, and scans the VIP section with increasing urgency until he sees me across the room. For a brief moment, recognition passes between us—he knows that I know, and I know that he knows—as the pretense dissolves like sugar in rain.
"Find my cousin," he snaps to his men with uncharacteristic loss of composure, loudly enough I can hear and interpret it from here by the shape of his lips as he snaps the command. "Now!"
The timer reads 0:32, with each passing second bringing destruction closer.
I move swiftly through service corridors, using the confusion as cover while distant shouts suggest Ivan's confrontation with the Kazanov soldiers is escalating exactly as I hoped. Two of Fedor's men spot me rounding a corner and scramble for their weapons, but Lev and Sasha intercept them from behind, neutralizing them so quickly that there’s no time for anyone to fire back.
"This way," Lev says, leading me down a narrow passage that reeks of spilled beer and cleaning chemicals from years of nightclub operations.
We push through the swinging doors into the kitchen, but instead of chaos and noise, we find eerie stillness. The space, normally loud with orders, clattering pans, and shouted instructions, is completely deserted, as planned. Pans sit cooling on still-warm burners, half-prepped ingredients rest on cutting boards, abandoned mid-task, and a digital timer beeps from an oven no one remains to attend. There’s even a finished crème br?lée waiting on the pass, its caramelized top beginning to sweat in the heat.
Lev sweeps the room. “Clear,” he says, confirming what we already expected.
No staff and no witnesses. Every soul who should have been here is already gone, ushered out according to the quiet evacuation orders passed down earlier this evening. We have the time and the cover we need.
We cross quickly to the “Employees Only” door that leads to the back corridor, but the handle won’t budge. Sasha gives it a shove, then steps back with a grimace. “Locked. External padlock, maybe? That wasn’t in the blueprints.”
“Fedor’s doing,” I mutter, already scanning for alternatives. “We move to Plan B.”
Sasha nods toward the dumbwaiter in the wall, a relic predating all renovations conducted in the past thirty years. “That thing gonna hold us?”
“Not all at once, but it’ll get us where we need to go.” I speak more confidently than I feel, but it seems to reassure them.
Without hesitation, Sasha yanks open the small metal door, revealing the narrow shaft just large enough to accommodate a crouched adult. Dust floats in the air inside, undisturbed for decades, until now.
“Lev, you’re first,” I say.
He climbs in without a word, curling himself into the space before easing down into the dark. Sasha follows, cramming in his much larger frame. “One more leg day, and I’d never have made this fit,” he mutters.
The countdown in my head ticks relentlessly onward. The timer on my phone reads nine seconds. I slide into the dumbwaiter last, knees tucked tightly to my chest. The wood groans beneath my weight, but it holds. I reach up and pull the door closed behind me just as the kitchen doors crash open once again.
Mikhail storms in, his boots hitting the tile with force in the sharp cadence of a man expecting resistance or confrontation. He holds his gun at the ready, his body tense, gaze sweeping the space as he takes in the strange stillness. This is clearly not what he anticipated.
He pauses just inside the threshold and surveys the empty kitchen with a mounting sense of confusion. The place looks abandoned mid-shift. He was expecting to find someone—anyone—he could corner, interrogate, or intimidate for information, but there’s no one.
He moves farther into the room, the muzzle of his weapon cutting methodically through the air. He checks behind the counters, opens the walk-in fridge, and shoves aside a prep table with unnecessary force but still nothing.
The dumbwaiter motor kicks in with a grinding groan. The shaft trembles as it begins its descent, the platform shuddering beneath me with every inch it lowers. I press myself tighter into the shadowed corner of the compartment and hold my breath.
Mikhail stiffens.
He hears it.
His head snaps toward the shaft just as I slip beneath the kitchen level.
I catch the blur of his movement through the wooden slats—a shadow turning sharply, boots pivoting as he crosses the floor.
He’s coming straight for the dumbwaiter, but it’s too late. By the time he reaches the opening, I’m gone, swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel. He might notice the dust disturbed along the track or hear the groan of the pulley fading into the depths, but he never saw me clearly enough. It won’t matter, because some of the explosives are in the kitchen, and he’ll be blown apart in the next few seconds. We rigged this area to blow too, wanting to hide any evidence of the escape tunnel. I fully expect Fedor to slither away, but he’ll have to make do without his hulking sidekick from now on.
The dumbwaiter lurches to a halt in the basement. I kick open the narrow door and tumble out onto the concrete floor. Lev and Sasha are already waiting with weapons drawn, tense and alert for any pursuit.
“Move,” I say, and together, we sprint for the tunnel entrance, just as the world above us begins to explode with a force that seems to compress the air in my lungs, the first blast rocking the foundation and sending us staggering against the rough stone walls. Ceiling tiles crash down around us and pipes burst with hissing urgency, spraying water and steam in blinding clouds that fill the narrow corridor with chaotic energy.
The second and third explosions come in rapid succession, precisely as planned, the carefully placed charges systematically dismantling the building from the inside out with controlled destruction that cascades through the structure while minimizing casualties on the upper floors.
We reach the tunnel entrance as the final, largest explosion rips through the main floor directly above us, the shockwave throwing us forward into the dark passage as the ceiling behind us collapses in a thunderous avalanche of concrete and steel, sealing our escape route and any possibility of pursuers following our trail.
For several minutes, we lie in darkness, breathing dust-filled air as aftershocks rumble through the ground above us, and debris continues to settle with ominous creaks and groans. Eventually, Lev clicks on a flashlight, the beam cutting through thick dust to illuminate our pale, dirt-covered faces.
"Everyone intact?" I ask, taking inventory of my own body and finding nothing broken, though my ears ring painfully from the blast's concussive force.
They nod, rising shakily to their feet, and we move swiftly through the narrow tunnel, navigating by the beam of Lev's flashlight through a passage that smells of damp earth and mildew, untouched for decades until Leonid had the forethought to make these preparations in the event we ever needed a hasty, hidden escape from the club. I remind myself to wire him a large bonus for thinking ahead once we’re out of here.
After twenty minutes of silent progress, we reach a metal ladder leading upward to a rusted hatch, and together, we shove the manhole cover up and out of our way. We emerge three blocks from the Eclipse, inside a maintenance shed for the old subway line, exactly as planned in our meticulous preparations.
Leonid waits with a nondescript van, engine running, his expression betraying none of the tension the situation warrants. "It's done. The building collapsed exactly as designed. First responders are already declaring it a mass casualty event, which would have been far worse if there hadn’t been a plumbing leak that evacuated most of the guests." He gives me a brief, satisfied smile. “The club was destroyed, but casualties were confined to the VIP level…and I heard someone say the basement level was also destroyed.”
I nod. “Mikhail would have been right there when it happened.” I don’t have to worry about him telling Fedor I might have escaped. Relief fills me. "And Fedor?" I accept a bottle of water and a towel to wipe the dust from my face, the grit between my teeth a reminder of how close I came to joining the real casualties.
"Escaped through a service exit. He’s already making calls, assuming control of operations."
Perfect. Let him believe he orchestrated my death, unaware he's merely a puppet dancing on strings I've carefully arranged for his inevitable downfall. He has no idea our explosives replaced his at this point in time. He’ll likely assume the mercs he hired to install them botched the timer, making them go off too soon. By the time he realizes, if he ever does, the next phase will be in place.
We drive in silence to a safehouse on the outskirts of the city, a modest apartment in a building owned by a shell corporation five layers removed from any Vorobev connection. The television is already on when we arrive, every channel showing helicopter footage of the Eclipse, which is now a smoldering crater of twisted metal and shattered glass, where a cathedral-turned-nightclub once stood.
"Breaking news from Manhattan," announces the reporter, her voice tight with controlled excitement that barely masks the ghoulish fascination disasters create. "A massive explosion has destroyed the newly reopened Eclipse nightclub. Sources confirm Russian business magnate Makari Vorobev was meeting with associates when the blast occurred. Authorities presume all inside have perished, though recovery efforts continue. Preliminary reports suggest a possible gas leak, but investigators haven't ruled out foul play."
Footage cuts to a reporter interviewing a shell-shocked witness, a young woman with mascara streaked down her cheeks. "It was like a bomb went off. The whole building just... collapsed."
Another channel shows Fedor arriving at the scene, his performance impeccable, face ashen, movements frantic as he demands information from first responders, his grief appearing genuine to anyone who doesn't know him as I do.
"They're reporting at least fifteen fatalities," says Leonid, passing me a secure tablet showing police communications. "Body parts make exact counting difficult."
The parts and bodies come from unclaimed bodies discreetly diverted from city morgues. Their dental records were altered or replaced with ours in advance, ensuring when authorities conducted forensic identification, the results would be indisputable. DNA samples, carefully planted, will complete the illusion. Their families—where applicable, though most were unclaimed John Does bound for a pauper’s burial—will receive generous, untraceable compensation.
"Phase one complete," I say, accepting a change of clothes from Sasha, the simple jeans and hoodie a vast divergence from the designer suit now covered in dust and debris from my former life. "We begin dismantling operations tomorrow."
That night, in quarters far less luxurious than those I've known most of my life, I remove the ultrasound image of my five children from my coat pocket. The paper is creased now, smudged with dust from the explosion, but their tiny shapes remain clear in the clear image from the cardiologist’s machine that captures the miracle Wil and I created together.
I trace each one with my fingertip, marveling at the tiny hands and feet visible even at this early stage, and for the first time in my life, destruction brings not just satisfaction but hope. Each piece of the Vorobev empire that falls creates space for something new to grow in its place—something untainted by blood and fear.
The man I was is truly dead now, the monster my father created finally laid to rest alongside the organization that demanded his existence, and from these ashes, perhaps a father worthy of Wil and our children might emerge.