Chapter 8 #2
"What exactly do you need from us?"
And just like that, I've won.
We spend the next hour discussing specifics. Territories they'll control. Profit percentages. The timeline for switching their allegiance from Kira to me. By the time we finish, I've secured three more pieces of her organization.
Three more nails in the coffin I'm building.
They leave first—safer that way, less obvious. I sit alone with the bottle of vodka and the hollow victory.
This is what I wanted. What I planned for six years.
So why does it feel like I'm destroying something valuable instead of getting justice?
"She was devastated, you know."
I look up. Ruslan has returned.
"What?"
"After you disappeared. Kira." He moves back into the room, closing the door. "I knew her family back then. Saw her at a few gatherings. She wasn't the same for months. Maybe longer. She was destroyed. I honestly don’t know how she recovered. Everyone speculated she would take her own life."
I don't want to hear this. Don't need his observations complicating the certainty I've built.
"People grieve," I say flatly. "Doesn't mean she didn't cause it."
"Maybe." He pours himself another vodka. "It was real. She was broken. Genuinely broken. She lost a lot of weight.”
"Your point?"
"No point." He downs the vodka. "Just an observation. From someone who's been in this life long enough to know the difference between performance and pain."
He leaves again, and this time he doesn't come back.
I sit there with his words echoing in my head.
Semyon said the same thing. Everyone who saw her in those first months after my disappearance said she was devastated.
But grief can be faked. Manipulated. Used as a tool.
Can't it?
I force myself to remember the evidence. Her father's debts. Her rise to power. The perfect timing of it all.
It fuels my resolve to keep going.
I down the rest of my drink and leave the restaurant. Roman asked me to meet him. I’m not sure why, but to say I’m a little leery is an understatement.
I drive my new car, courtesy of Roman, down to the warehouse district.
The place hasn't changed much in six years. I park the car and climb out. The familiar smell of tires, grease and filth greets me.
I stand across the street from the building where I was taken and can’t help but have a flashback.
An SUV with tinted windows pulls up behind me. Roman climbs out of the backseat.
“What’s this about?”
He raises his hand and makes a gesture. Soon, heavy machinery started rumbling down the road. I frown with confusion.
“It goes down. Now.”
“Goes down?”
“This place is nothing but bad memories,” he says. “It’s better to tear it down and build something new. You’re back. We will rebuild.”
I nod.
He gestures once again, and an excavator moves in. The noise of walls coming down fills the street. Dust rises in large plumes.
I watch and try to remember that night with perfect clarity.
The meeting had been called at the last minute. I should have known something was off. There wasn’t supposed to be a meeting.
And I remember Kira’s words. She told me to be careful. Why? Did she know? She never told me to be careful. Dmitri wasn’t there when I arrived at the warehouse. I haven’t told anyone about the text that pulled me from Kira’s bed—but she did.
Dmitri had been executed days after my disappearance. I wonder if they were working together, and she turned on him.
I have so many questions, but I know I can trust no one.
I've replayed that night a thousand times. Used it as fuel for my hatred. Proof that she set me up.
But standing here now, watching the building that held my last moments of freedom crumbling, I feel doubt creeping in. Doubt about her guilt.
She was young, relatively sheltered despite her family's connections. In all the time I knew her, I never got the impression she was sneaky or vindictive.
"I want to see the original evidence," I say. "The files from your investigation. All of it."
Roman's expression doesn't change, but I see calculation flash through his eyes. "Of course. You have every right. I'll have my people pull the files tomorrow."
I leave the warehouse site with Roman's promise echoing in my head.
The drive to Semyon's apartment is automatic. I don't consciously decide to go there—my hands just turn the wheel in that direction. Like my body knows I need someone who won't lie to me, even if the truth is uncomfortable.
He opens the door before I can knock, takes one look at my face, and steps aside without a word.
I shed my jacket and drop into the chair by the window, staring out at Moscow's lights without really seeing them.
"How are you doing?" Semyon asks from the kitchen. I hear the clink of glasses, the pour of vodka.
"Fine."
"Bullshit." He hands me a glass and settles into the chair across from me, putting the bottle in the center of the table. "Try again."
I down the vodka in one swallow, welcoming the burn. "Kira came to see me. At the estate."
Semyon's expression doesn't change, but I see his grip tighten on his glass. "And?"
"And nothing." The words come out harsh. "She cried. Swore she never betrayed me. Gave me the same story everyone else does. That she still loves me."
"Do you believe her?"
The question sits heavy between us. I should say no immediately. Should reaffirm my certainty in her guilt.
Instead, I pour myself another drink.
"I don't know." The admission feels like defeat. "I want to believe she's guilty. Need to believe it. But every person I talk to says the same thing—that her grief was real. That she was destroyed."
"Maybe because it's true," Semyon suggests quietly.
"Or maybe she's a better actress than I gave her credit for." I lean back, closing my eyes. "I showed her the scars. Told her exactly what they did to me in that prison. She cried like it physically hurt her to hear it."
"Maybe it did."
"Stop." I open my eyes and glare at him. "Stop defending her. You're supposed to be on my side."
"I am on your side." He leans forward, elbows on his knees. "That's why I'm asking questions you don't want to answer. Because watching you destroy the woman you love is destroying you."
The words hit harder than they should. I stand, moving to the window to put distance between us.
"I fucked her," I say, my voice flat. "In the garden at her engagement party. Pressed her against a wall and took her like I had every right.”
Semyon doesn't respond immediately. "How did that feel?"
"Like coming home." The truth rips out of me before I can stop it. "Like everything wrong in the world suddenly made sense again. Like I could breathe for the first time in six years."
"Maksim—"
"And then I told her I hated her. That I was going to destroy her.
That everything between us was just unfinished business.
" I press my forehead against the cold glass.
"I'm turning her organization against her.
Taking her people one by one. By the time she marries Roman, she'll have nothing left.
And I'm doing it all while knowing it might be wrong. "
"What can I do to help?" Semyon asks. "Tell me what you need."
I laugh, and it sounds broken even to my own ears. "I don't know. Maybe I should just leave. Get out of Russia. Start over somewhere that doesn't have her ghost around every corner."
"You'd never leave." His certainty is absolute. "You'd die first."
He's right. I know he's right. The thought of running makes my stomach turn. I didn't survive six years of hell just to give up now.
But I also don't know how to move forward. Don't know how to reconcile the hatred that kept me alive with the doubt that's eating me from the inside.
"Roman's pulling the investigation files tomorrow," I say. "All the evidence that pointed to her family. Maybe that will help."
"Or maybe it won't tell you what you want to hear."
I turn to face him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're looking for proof of her guilt because you need her to be guilty. Because if she's innocent—" He stops, shaking his head. "If she's innocent, then you're destroying an innocent woman. The woman you love. For nothing."
"She's not innocent." But the words lack conviction even as I say them.
"Are you sure?" Semyon stands. "Or are you just afraid of what it means if she is?"
I don't answer. Can't answer. Because he's right, and we both know it.
"Tell me about the kidnapping," Semyon says. "Walk me through it again. Every detail."
"Why?"
"Because maybe if we go through it together, we'll see something you missed.”
I drain my glass and start from the beginning. The text from Dmitri calling an emergency meeting. Leaving Kira's bed in the middle of the night. Her words telling me to be careful.
"Wait." Semyon holds up a hand. "She told you to be careful?"
"Yes."
"Why would she do that if she knew you were walking into a trap?"
"To make herself look innocent." But even as I say it, I hear how weak it sounds. "Or maybe she didn't know the specifics. Just knew something was going to happen."
"Or maybe she had a bad feeling and was worried about you." Semyon's watching me carefully. "Like someone who loved you might do."
I shake my head, rejecting the implication. "Dmitri was executed days after my disappearance. That's not a coincidence."
"No, it's not." Semyon nods slowly. "So maybe Dmitri was involved. Maybe he set you up. And maybe whoever killed him was covering their tracks."
"Or Kira had him killed to eliminate a witness."
"Did she have that kind of power back then?" The question is pointed. "You knew her, Maksim. Could the eighteen-year-old girl you loved have orchestrated a kidnapping, a murder, and a cover-up? That’s impressive."
I want to say yes. Want to insist she's capable of anything.
But the truth is, I don't know. The Kira I knew was fierce and intelligent, but she wasn't ruthless. Wasn't cold. That came later—after I was gone.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," I admit. The words feel like defeat. "Six years of certainty, and now I'm second-guessing everything."
"That's not weakness." Semyon puts a hand on my shoulder. "That's growth. That's being willing to question your assumptions instead of blindly following them."
"It feels like weakness."
"It feels like torture," he corrects. "Because you're caught between what you want to be true and what might actually be true. And those two things are destroying each other."
I sink back into the chair, suddenly exhausted. "All I know is that I can't stop now. Can't let go of the revenge that kept me alive. Even if it's pointed at the wrong target."
"That's not living, Maksim. That's just existing with purpose."
"It's all I have."
"No." His voice is firm. "You have more. You're back. You're free. You have choices now that you didn't have in that cell. The question is whether you're brave enough to make them."
I stare at him, feeling the truth of his words settle like lead in my chest.
He's right. I know he's right.
But I don't know if I'm brave enough to let go of the hatred that's defined me for so long. Don't know if I can survive without it.
"Stay here tonight," Semyon says. "Sleep. Clear your head. Tomorrow you'll get the files, and we'll figure this out together."
I nod, too tired to argue.