Chapter 49
AMALIE
“Walk.”
I glance over my shoulder one last time before Max shoves me into the open side door.
Please stay asleep, I pray silently. Please.
We pass over the threshold. The air inside is somehow colder than outside, smelling like old oil and copper. My boots crunch over broken glass, dirt, and whatever else has accumulated on the floor over the years.
There’s no warmth here, no humanity, just the echo of footsteps and the hum of whatever’s powering this place with electricity. We move through a maze of empty, metal shelves, soon reaching the main floor of the warehouse.
After looking around, I notice men. Too many men.
They’re armed with rifles slung over their shoulders and pistols on their hips, all of them posted along the walls and near the center where a makeshift meeting area has been put together. A folding table and a couple of metal chairs sit nearby.
Most of the men are in dark coats, black shirts and jeans with knit caps pulled low. A few are puffing away at cigarettes.
Are they my firing squad?
Standing in the middle of them, clad in an immaculate suit and a heavy overcoat that sits like armor, is Nikolai Garin.
He stands with his hands behind his back in a calm, professional posture like he’s stepping into a board meeting.
His expression is relaxed, like everything is working out just as he’d hoped.
I want to rip him apart.
His eyes land on me in a slow sweep. He looks at me like I’m a problem he’s finally ready to solve, a smug little smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Well,” he says, almost pleasantly. “Welcome, Amalie.”
My skin crawls at the sound of my name on his lips. “What the hell do you want from me?”
Garin laughs. Max shoves me forward. Hard.
“You’re a dead man,” I hiss to Max. He stares forward, doesn’t react.
Garin grins and shakes his head like I’m some precocious kid who just said something cute. “So sassy,” he says, that annoying grin on his lips making my blood boil. “I understand why Roman likes you, little one. You’re spirited.”
“Spirited? Is that what you call women who don’t start kissing your ass the second you threaten them?”
A couple of Garin’s men smirk. One of them mutters something in Russian to another.
Garin’s smile fades, just a bit. “You can act like a little brat if it helps you feel better. But rest assured, I hold all the power in this little scenario.”
Max clears his throat like he’s trying to remind Garin that he exists. “We should—”
“Quiet,” Garin snaps, cutting him off. “You know what I pay you for, and it’s not advice.”
Max lowers his eyes and looks away, efficiently silenced.
Garin nods to a pair of his men. They step forward, making their way toward me with hard expressions on their faces.
They’re on me in seconds, grabbing my arms with vice-like strength.
Part of me wants to scream, to curse, but a bigger part of me doesn’t want to give these pricks the satisfaction.
I scowl at Garin as the men practically drag me to the chair and shove me onto it.
Once I’m seated, I notice the chair is bolted to the damn floor. The hard metal bites, sending pain flashing up and down my body. The men tie my hands behind my back with zip ties.
My eyes remain on Garin so he understands I won’t be intimidated. He watches the whole thing like he’s enjoying his favorite comedy.
I glance over my shoulder at Max. There’s a flicker of something in his face—guilt, maybe. Or possibly regret. Too late for that.
Garin stares at me with a curious expression. “You know, I expected you to cry. Maybe even beg a little.”
“Then you don’t know me very well.”
He grins. “That’s right, my dear. It turns out you have more of a spine than I’d anticipated. But that doesn’t matter. The plan is well under way, and now there’s nothing left to do but complete it.”
My throat tightens as I remember Sasha sleeping alone in the car. I say another silent prayer that he’s not awake.
As if reading my mind, Garin says, “Don’t worry about the boy. He’s safe for now, with a pair of my men close by.”
His hands still behind his back, Garin slowly moves around the table, taking a seat on the edge of it across from me.
“And Roman?” I ask.
He smiles. “He’s not nearly close enough to stop what’s about to happen.
I’m going to guess he and his little friend Andrei, maybe even your brother, too, are poring over camera footage and satellite images hoping to track you down.
They will, in time. But they won’t find you while you still breathe. ”
Tears burn my eyes, but I’m not scared for my own life. I’m scared for Sasha and the baby. I’d trade myself for both of them in a heartbeat.
“Why are you doing this?”
Garin snorts in amusement. “It’s very, very simple, actually. I want to break Roman, and then I want to destroy him.” A beat of silence passes, like he’s considering how to say what’s on his mind. “Roman is a hard man to kill. A hard man to break. I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
He leans in, a smile of pride forming on his lips. “First, I took his wife.”
My blood turns to ice. “Elena.”
“That’s right,” he says smoothly. “Elena.”
“You killed her.”
“Well, not me, specifically,” he says, raising his palms. “But it was done under my command.”
The way he just cops to it makes me sick to my stomach.
“It wasn’t what I had planned originally,” he says with the same sort of tone a boss might have when talking about letting an employee go. “She was collateral. My real target was the boy.”
I want to burst out of my chair, to strangle him with my own two hands. “You sick—”
“Easy, easy, child,” he says. He’s so calm, so unbothered, it makes him appear even more monstrous. “My plan was to destroy Roman’s family, to weaken him, to take away his reasons to live. I wanted to crush him until he gave me what I wanted.”
I shake my head, rage coursing through me. “You didn’t get him.”
His mouth ticks slightly. “No, I didn’t.
Roman survived, putting the pieces back together as much as he could.
He rebuilt. And he decided he’d rather spend his time in boardrooms than on the streets.
He pretended he could become respectable, legit.
He acted like he was better than all of this.
” Garin sweeps his hand toward me, his men, the warehouse.
“And now?” I ask. “What’s your plan now?”
“Now I’m going to take even more from him than I imagined possible. I’m going to take the boy. I’m going to take the IPO.” Then he leans in. “And I’m going to take you and that baby growing inside your belly.”
The rage that comes over me is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The world tilts. My heart races. Strength rushes through me. I scream, pulling at my ties. For a second, I think I might be able to break loose. But I don’t.
“No!” The sound rips from my throat.
One of the men behind me clamps his hand over my mouth. I bite. Hard. He curses in Russian, yanking his hand back.
Garin’s smile fades. “Enough. You wanted to know the plan before you died. Now you do.”
I twist hard in the chair, trying to look for the entrance, toward any sign that Roman has found us. But there’s nothing.
He straightens, nods once. Two men step toward me. “Take her downstairs,” he says. “The usual room. Clean up thoroughly when you’re done.”
My pulse spikes into pure panic. “Wait!”
One of the men reaches into his pocket and pulls out a strip of cloth.
No. Not a chance. I fight wildly, straining against the ties because the gag is the final insult.
The man shoves it into my mouth, tying it behind my head. It takes like dust and sweat.
I thrash and gag, but it doesn’t do me a damn bit of good. The other man cuts the ties, their grip on me just as sure. They haul me out of the chair and toward a doorway I hadn’t noticed before. It leads into total darkness.
I know my screams will go unheard. I stay silent, not giving them the satisfaction.
As the men carry me down the stairs, I think the room in Roman’s basement with the stainless steel perfect for washing away blood.
Garin watches me being dragged away with a smug, pleased look that I want to smack off of his face.
“Roman will come,” he says, right before I’m pulled into the darkness. “He’ll come just in time to see what he could’ve saved, had he been just a little faster. And it will haunt him for the rest of his days.”