Chapter Five
Nikolai
A shipping and distribution yard is where it ended four years ago.
Now, it’s where things begin again.
Timur stares at me like I’m a ghost. He keeps his distance, hand twitching toward the gun at his hip. His eyes reflect what little light bleeds into this industrial graveyard—wide, disbelieving, searching my face for proof this is real.
I don’t blame him. Four years is a long time to mourn a lifelong friend. Long enough for the grief to calcify into something permanent. And now I’m standing here, breathing, alive—rendering every moment of his pain meaningless.
He looks different. Smaller, somehow, despite the muscle definition in his forearms where he’s rolled back his sleeves. He’s lost weight. New lines bracket his mouth, crease his forehead. Like the world chewed him up and spit him back out.
“How?” The word comes out strangled.
Gravel crunches under my boots as I take a step forward. He doesn’t retreat, but his body remains frozen—every muscle locked in shock.
“Long story, bratok.”
His jaw clenches at the old term. "It’s been a while since anyone called me that." Something trembles beneath his anger—grief, maybe. Or relief. Hard to tell which. “How? Talk.”
I exhale slowly. “Aslanov gave the order and left. Didn’t stay to watch.
That was his mistake.” The memory flashes through my mind—blood, gunfire, the split-second decision that saved my life.
“One of his men got distracted. I took his weapon, killed them both. Made it look like I’d fought and lost.”
Timur nods, his gaze going distant. Reliving that night, probably. The moment he thought he lost me.
Then he moves. Three sharp strides and suddenly his arms are around me, crushing the air from my lungs with the force of it.
“Ya dolzhen tebya ubit’, ty, chortov ublyudok.” His voice cracks against my shoulder. “We thought you were dead. Everyone did,” He pulls back, gripping my shoulders hard enough to bruise. “Mudak.”
“That was the point.”
He scoffs. “Fuck you.”
“Missed you too, pridurok."
For a moment we just stand there, two soldiers who survived when they shouldn’t have. Then Timur steps back, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Why now? Why are you coming out of hiding?”
My jaw tightens. “Aslanov knows I’m alive.”
“Blyad.” The color drains from his face. “Lauren and Hannah—”
“Are in danger. Yes.” I meet his eyes. “I can’t ask you to get involved. All I need—”
His hand cuts through the air, silencing me. “Save it.” Something shifts in his expression—the ghost of the man he used to be surfacing. “You think I’m sitting this one out? Watching you die a second time?” He arches an eyebrow. “What’s the plan?”
Something loosens in my chest. The faint pull of a smile—unfamiliar after years of staying dead.
I grip his shoulder. “It’s good to have you back, tovarishch.”
***
I unlock the door to my apartment and step into silence.
The place is a shell. Beige walls. Basic furniture. Nothing that would draw attention or suggest anyone actually lives here. A rat would turn its nose up at this place.
I drop my keys in the bowl by the door and head for the kitchen. The kettle sits on the counter next to a jar of instant coffee—the only luxury I’ve allowed myself, though calling it luxury is generous. Tastes like melted plastic, but it’s all I have.
I could have made this place livable. Four years is plenty of time to turn these bare walls into something that resembles a home. But deliveries draw attention. Neighbors notice. And I can’t afford to be noticed.
Besides, can you really call it home when it’s just a surveillance post?
The apartment directly across from Lauren's. Seventeenth floor, perfect sightline into her living room. That’s all this place is—a vantage point to ensure my girls stay safe.
I spoon coffee granules into a chipped mug and wait for the kettle to boil.
Torture.
That’s what this is.
Watching Lauren move through her days, watching Hannah grow from an infant into a little girl—her first steps, her first words, all observed through a window like I’m some kind of ghost haunting their lives.
Sometimes I wonder if dying would have been easier.
I paid a fucking fortune for this apartment.
Convinced the previous owner to sell by offering nearly three times market value.
It drained almost everything I had left after signing my empire over to Aslanov.
All those offshore accounts, all those assets—gone.
And for what? To watch my family live without me?
I told myself I’d grow numb to it. Focus on the mission: keep them safe, stay hidden, wait for the right moment to strike.
But every day the knife twists deeper. Hannah’s laugh through the glass.
Lauren’s smile when she thinks no one’s watching.
Each moment I’m not part of carves out another piece of me.
The kettle clicks off. I pour the water, watching it turn black.
My routine rarely changes. Coffee in hand, I position myself on the couch by the window.
Most people watch television.
I watch them.
Every evening until the lights go out. Sometimes longer, making sure no one’s trying to break in, that no shadows linger where they shouldn’t.
They’re so close. Fifty feet of empty air between us. But it might as well be a chasm.
They live in their own world—Lauren and Hannah, complete without me. And knowing I don’t exist in it anymore, that they’ve built a life where I’m nothing but a ghost...
It’s worse than any bullet Aslanov could ever put in me.
I’ve thought about it a thousand times. Walking across that hall. Knocking on her door. Telling Lauren I survived. Letting Hannah know her father isn’t dead. But Aslanov was always out there, consolidating power, building his empire on the bones of mine. One wrong move and he’d come for them.
Now he knows I’m alive.
Which means they’re already in his sights.
Blyad!
I take a sip of coffee, the bitter liquid doing nothing to ease the familiar ache in my chest.
The hardest part was the beginning. Those first months after Hannah was born, when Lauren would pace the apartment at two in the morning, tears streaming down her face as she tried to soothe a crying infant.
She wore the same sweatpants for days. Stared into space like she’d forgotten how to be present in her own life.
Her smile—when it appeared at all—never reached her eyes.
I could see her fighting to stay strong for Hannah.
Failing.
Breaking.
All I wanted was to cross that hallway. Wrap my arms around her waist. Tell her I was alive, that she wasn’t alone.
But I couldn’t. Aslanov would have killed us all.
She’s different now. Stronger, maybe. Or better at hiding the cracks. Her hair changes—sometimes down, sometimes pulled back. She wears pantsuits to work, moves with purpose instead of that hollow shuffle from those early days.
She’s beautiful. Even more beautiful than I remembered, and the memory already haunted me.
Some nights I sit here with my coffee and let myself imagine what it would feel like to touch her again. To have her look at me the way she used to—like I was her whole world. The wanting is a physical thing, sharp enough to draw blood.
Then reality crashes back. She thinks I’m dead. She’s moved on. Or she will. It’s only a matter of time before some bastard realizes what I already know—that she’s extraordinary—and tries to claim what’s mine.
The thought makes my jaw clench hard enough to crack teeth. I’ve spent more hours than I care to admit imagining what I’d do to any man who touches her. Detailed, violent fantasies that would make Aslanov look merciful.
But I can’t. Not without exposing them to danger.
So I sit here. I watch. I wait.
I take another sip of coffee and glance out the window.
Dark tonight. The curtains are still open—she must have forgotten to close them before leaving. A lamp glows on the coffee table, casting weak light across the empty living room. She sets it on a timer when she’s out late.
Out late.
Where the fuck is she?
My fingers tighten around the mug. If she’s on a date with some muscle-bound pridurok who thinks he has a chance—
I force myself to breathe. She’s probably with Timur and Sophia. She goes there for dinner sometimes. Perfectly innocent.
Except it’s 11 PM. Too late for a casual dinner.
I check my watch. Then the window again.
Nothing.
The coffee tastes like ash now. I set the mug aside, unable to shake the unease crawling up my spine.
Finally—movement.
The front door opens. A shadow stretches across the floor.
I lean forward, tension coiling in my shoulders. If some pizda thinks he’s walking her to her door, putting his hands on her—
But it’s just Lauren. She’s carrying Hannah, the little girl’s head lolled back in sleep against her mother’s shoulder.
Relief loosens something in my chest.
Then I see it.
Another shadow.
It moves wrong—independent of Lauren’s movements, sliding across the floor at an angle that doesn’t match. The shape is all wrong. Too large. Too deliberate.
My blood turns to ice.
Someone else is in that apartment.
And from the way Lauren’s moving—casual, unaware—she doesn’t know.
“Blyad!”
I’m already moving. Keys grabbed from the bowl. Door yanked open.
No time to think about consequences.
No time for anything except getting to them before it’s too late.