Chapter 2
Maksim
The streets of Moscow feel like walking through a graveyard of my former life.
I keep to the shadows—not difficult when you're a ghost. This is the part of the city that’s far away from the tourists and the politicians and the pretty facades. This is where the Bratva conducts its actual operations. I need to know exactly what I'm walking back into.
Semyon walks beside me, quieter than usual. Thinking. Worrying. Probably trying to figure out how to keep me alive when I'm determined to walk into a room full of people who believe I'm dead.
I’ve been unofficially alive for two weeks. I’ve eaten. Rested. And I am planning to make my move soon.
"Viktor's warehouse is two blocks up," he says, breaking the silence. "He's been doing runs for Roman now. Might have useful information."
Viktor is one of my father's oldest associates. A man I trusted with my life a thousand times.
A man who didn't even question my death.
We approach through the back alley. I can see the operation in full swing—men loading trucks, money changing hands, the efficient machinery of illegal enterprise. It looks the same as it did six years ago.
Like nothing changed.
"Let me do the talking," Semyon suggests. "Viktor is loyal to whoever pays him. Right now, that's Roman."
"Noted." I pull my hood lower. The scars on my face attract attention I don't need yet.
We slip through the side entrance, past guards who recognize Semyon and wave him through without question. The warehouse smells like diesel fuel and cigarettes. Familiar. Home.
Except it's not home anymore.
Viktor is in his office, a glass-walled box overlooking the warehouse floor. He's aged badly—grayer, more weight, the look of a man who drinks his stress. When we walk in, he glances up from his paperwork with mild annoyance.
"Semyon. Didn't know you were stopping by—" He freezes mid-sentence, his eyes landing on me.
Nobody moves.
"Maksim?" His voice comes out strangled. "That's... you're dead. You're supposed to be dead."
"Clearly not." I close the door behind us. "Surprise."
He lurches to his feet, and I see it—the flash of guilt before he masks it with shock. He knows something. My instincts, honed by six years of reading captors for signs of impending violence, scream warnings.
"Holy shit." Viktor moves around the desk like he wants to embrace me, then thinks better of it when he sees my face. "What happened to you? Where have you been?"
"Georgia. In a very special prison that specializes in making people disappear." I lean against the wall, casual, while every muscle in my body coils for violence. "Someone sold me out. Gave my location, my security details, everything needed for a clean grab."
Viktor's face goes pale. "That's... that's terrible. We all thought—Roman said there was a body. That the Markovs—"
"The Markovs." I taste the name like poison. "Tell me about that. About how everyone decided Kira's family was responsible."
"Well, the evidence was pretty damning." Viktor pours himself vodka with shaking hands. "Financial records showing her father was in debt. Communications between him and foreign interests.”
"And everyone just accepted this? No investigation? No questions?"
"There was an investigation." Viktor downs his vodka. "Roman led it himself. Spent months tracking down leads. The evidence all pointed to the Markovs trying to eliminate you. Clear the way for them to grab power."
Semyon shoots me a warning look, but I ignore it.
"And Kira?" I ask. "What did she say when accused of murdering me?"
"She didn't say anything. Barely spoke for months after you disappeared." Viktor refills his glass. "Then she pushed her father out and took over.”
"She took over after I disappeared," I say slowly. "Convenient."
“I don’t know that it was convenient,” Viktor says.
I ignore the comment. I don’t care if it was difficult. "What's she like now?" I need to know. Need to understand the woman I'm about to destroy.
Viktor considers this. "She doesn't play games—just makes strategic moves and waits for them to pay off. Everyone respects her, even the old guard who hate the idea of a woman running operations."
"And Roman?"
I need to know what people on the street are saying.
“He's... different from your father. More calculated. More willing to make hard choices." Viktor pauses.
"He's marrying Kira in three weeks. Uniting the families."
The words hit like a physical blow. I knew it was coming—Semyon told me that was the plan—but hearing it confirmed makes the rage spike hot enough to burn.
"How convenient," I say, my voice deadly quiet. "She eliminates me, builds her own power base, and then marries into the organization she destroyed. Gets everything she wanted."
"Maksim—" Semyon starts.
"Thank you for the information, Viktor." I push off the wall. "I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other soon."
Viktor's eyes widen. "You're not going to—what are you planning?"
“Taking back what’s mine.”
We're two blocks away before Semyon grabs my arm and spins me around.
"You need to slow down," he says. "Think this through."
"I am thinking it through." I jerk free. "Every detail confirms it. Kira had me killed so she could take power. Now she's marrying Roman to consolidate everything."
“You once told me you loved her,” he says. “And that she loved you. You told me you were going to marry her.”
"Kira's family was in debt," I argue. "Desperate. Getting rid of me cleared the way for them to—"
"To what?" Semyon stops again, facing me. "Maksim, think about this logically. What did she actually gain from your death? She was going to marry you and become your queen. She was going to have everything. Power, protection, status. Why would she throw that away?"
"Because she wanted more!" The words explode out of me. "She didn't want to be someone's wife, playing second to a man. She wanted power in her own right."
"So she had you killed, knowing it would bring suspicion on her family? Knowing it would destroy her reputation and force her to rebuild from nothing?" Semyon's voice drips skepticism. "That's a hell of a gamble for someone who's supposedly brilliant and strategic."
"She made it work, didn't she?" I resume walking, faster now. "Look at her now. The Ice Queen. Feared and respected."
"Built an empire while grieving," Semyon corrects. "Everyone who knew her then says she was devastated for months. Barely functional."
"Or she's a good actress."
We walk in silence for a block. The rage is a living thing inside me, demanding satisfaction, demanding blood. My need to avenge my death is the only thing that kept me alive.
I can’t let go of it.
"You're not going to listen to reason, are you?" Semyon asks finally.
"I spent six years in hell because of her." I stop at an intersection, watching cars pass. "Six years of torture and planning revenge. I can't—I won't—accept that I was wrong about who betrayed me."
"Even if the evidence points somewhere else?"
"What evidence?" I round on him. "Everything I've heard confirms it. Her family needed money. I disappeared. She took over and built power. The math isn't complicated."
"You loved her."
"I did." Past tense. Deliberate. "Which makes the betrayal worse. She taught me a valuable lesson. I will never allow a woman to make me weak again."
He lets out a sigh. “I think you need to talk with her. Ask her. Why would she want you dead?”
"I told Kira everything," I admit. "About wanting to change how we operated. Move away from the brutal tactics. She listened to all of it."
"And what did she say?"
"She..." I pause, trying to remember. "She supported it. Said she was tired of the violence too. Wanted to build something better."
"Sounds like she agreed with you."
"Or she was pretending to agree while planning to eliminate me."
I remember her face when I talked about the future. The hope in her eyes. All of our conversations about raising a family in a life less brutal than the one we'd inherited.
"You're reaching," Semyon says gently. "Creating motives that don't exist because you need someone to blame."
"I need the person responsible to pay." I lean against a brick wall, suddenly exhausted.
"So you'd rather be wrong and get revenge than be right and lose your purpose?"
The question hangs between us like an accusation.
"Tell me honestly," I say after trying to see it from his side. "Do you think she betrayed me?"
Semyon meets my eyes. "Honestly? No. I think she loved you. I think she was destroyed when you disappeared.”
"But you don't know for sure."
"No. I don't know for sure." He pauses. "But neither do you. And you're planning to destroy her based on a theory that has more holes than evidence."
The anger surges back, hot and familiar. “Bullshit. My captors told me it was her that sold me out!”
“That’s the mental torture,” he reasons. "She was eighteen when you disappeared. "You really think an eighteen-year-old girl orchestrated your kidnapping and wasn’t smart enough to eliminate the evidence?”
"She's very intelligent. Capable of anything."
"Or she's a woman who lost the man she loved and found a way to survive." Semyon shakes his head. "You're so determined to see betrayal that you're ignoring everything that doesn't fit your narrative."
"What about the engagement?" I push off the wall, resuming our walk. "She's marrying Roman. The man who took my place."
"You of all people should understand being trapped. Having no good options. Being forced into choices you'd never make otherwise."
"I hear what you're saying," I say finally. "But I can't let go of this until I know for sure. Until I look her in the eyes and see the truth."
“Are you ready to be alive?” he asks.
I smile. “Oh yes. I will rise from the dead at the engagement party.”
He stops walking. “You can’t. That’s too much exposure.”
“But they’re my people, right? The woman that once loved me? The man that was like family to me. Surely, they can’t truly want me dead, right?”
It’s sarcasm and he knows it.
“You’re crazy.”
“You have no idea.”
The ghost returns to haunt the living. And this time, someone's paying the price.
I just have to figure out who deserves it.