Chapter 16
Ryder
The tractor-trailer workshop smells like oil, rubber, and metal that has been overheated too many times. The main lights are off, leaving only a few harsh industrial lamps hanging over the work floor. The jarring brightness makes everything look like dull brass.
Two men sit tied to metal chairs in the middle of the concrete bay.
Liev stands a few feet away from them, silent and still, but his posture is relaxed in a way that always makes people underestimate how dangerous he actually is. Viktor waits near one of the support pillars, arms crossed, watching the captives with bored patience.
I lean against a long workbench, my laptop open in front of me. I try not to stare too long at my husband.
He’s ridiculously handsome in those tactical pants and fitted tank, revealing his muscled bare arms. I’ve only caught glimpses of him less than fully dressed; we’re careful around one another. Resisting temptation.
One glance at the stubble on his jaw, and I’m licking my lips. Imagining the sandpaper feel of it against my inner thigh.
This is insane; it’s been ten days since my car was run off the road.
Two days ago someone tried to kill my husband in a bank.
Now we have the men responsible tied up in a Bratva-controlled mechanic shop that fronts as a repair place for tractor trailers.
It’s used as a local shipping company that unofficially ships items that aren’t on any manifests.
Progress.
“Start talking,” Liev says calmly.
One of the men swallows hard. He looks like he belongs exactly where we found him earlier tonight—loitering outside a liquor store in a neighborhood that thrives on bad decisions.
His partner looks even worse; his lip split from when Viktor dragged him into the van.
They share twin tattoos: hearts with the number 21 in thick script centered inside.
21Hearts. It’s the gang sign I noticed when we first arrived in Miami. It has certainly expanded beyond selling weed on street corners. The question now is, how did they get tangled up in this mess?
“We told you already,” the first man says. “We don’t know who hired us.”
Liev’s gaze drifts slowly between them.
“I don’t like repeating myself,” he says.
The second man shifts in his chair. The zip ties around his wrists creak against the metal.
“It was online,” he blurts. “Black market boards. Someone posted the job.”
“What job?” I ask.
His eyes flick toward me, clearly surprised that I’m speaking.
“To follow you two,” he says quickly. “Track your movements. That’s it.”
My fingers move over the keyboard as I scroll through the data I’ve been pulling from the chat servers we traced earlier. The communication trail is messy and layered through several encryption tools, but nothing about it screams professional organization.
Which makes this entire situation stranger. Whoever orchestrated this is hiding themselves well, but not the men they hired. Why? Why be so messy?
“You were paid to follow us?” Liev asks slowly.
The first man nods eagerly.
“Yes. Just surveillance. And…scare you a little.”
Heat rises up my neck. I grip the laptop tighter, fighting the urge to throw it at them. “Just surveillance? You almost killed me when you ran me off the road!”
The man who’s been talking looks panicked now. It’s interesting he seems to react more when I speak versus when my husband does. “That was—” He glances at his partner, mouth snapping shut. But I can guess; it was a move taken too far by men who don’t know what they’re doing.
Messy. Again.
“Then what? You decided to shoot me for free?” Liev asks.
The man hesitates. The second captive answers instead.
“That wasn’t us.”
The entire room goes still.
Viktor pushes away from the pillar.
“Explain,” he says quietly.
“We were supposed to keep an eye on you,” the man continues. “Report where you went. They weren’t even mad when they found out she—you—were fine.” He says, glancing at me. “But the bank… someone else was supposed to handle the rest. That wasn’t our job.”
My gaze lifts from the laptop and meets Liev’s across the room.
He’s thinking the same thing I am. This wasn’t just a random gang deciding to try their luck. Someone is hiring disposable people. 21Hearts, and whoever was sent after Liev at the bank.
“How were you contacted?” I ask.
“Private messages through the forum,” the first man says. “Different accounts every time. They paid in crypto.”
“Did you ever meet them?” Liev asks.
Both men shake their heads quickly.
“No,” the second one says. “Everything was done online.”
I close the laptop halfway and step closer, studying their faces. They look scared, but not like trained criminals who are hiding something important.
They look like idiots who took easy money. Like the teenagers my father would recruit right out of high school. The same age as I was back then, too young to die so early, but not knowing any better. But these two made it into early adulthood, at least.
“Which forum?” I ask.
They exchange a look.
“Backscatter,” the first man says finally.
I nod slowly. I know the platform. It’s one of the deeper black-market boards that floats around the dark web. It’s popular with small-time operators who think anonymity makes them untouchable.
The problem is that Backscatter attracts amateurs.
People who think they’re smarter than they actually are.
“They were paid to follow us,” I say, glancing back at Liev. “Not to kill you. So who was that?”
His jaw tightens slightly. It’s obvious that the two men in front of us don’t know anything else. One explains they weren’t hired for the bank shooting, but saw the communications come through for it. They were bitter that their gang wasn’t trusted with it.
If they were paid to watch, then scare me, then someone wanted information first. Tracking patterns. Studying routines. Learning where we go and when.
That kind of preparation usually means something bigger is coming.
I open the laptop again and start typing.
Liev and Viktor have both moved close enough so that our prisoners can’t hear the conversation.
I try to ignore the way my husband towers over me.
He feels more like a shadow tonight in his dark clothes and heavy boots.
It’s so different from his typical immaculate suit and dress shoes.
My body instinctively responds to the roughness of his appearance, but my mind tries to make sense of why we’re being targeted and who might be behind it.
“If the messages came through Backscatter, there’s a chance the one that posted it made a mistake somewhere in the routing,” I say. “A reused wallet address, an IP leak, something.”
Liev watches me for a moment, then turns back to the captives.
“You two will stay here,” he says calmly. “If my wife finds something useful, you might live long enough to enjoy the mistake you made tonight. Getting caught could be the smartest decision you’ve made.”
Both men start panting.
I continue working; the code scrolling quickly across the screen as I dig through layers of encrypted traffic logs.
For the first time since the ambush, Liev and I are moving in the same direction.
Whoever paid these men is about to regret it.
I sit with the laptop balanced on my knees while lines of code crawl across the screen.
The workshop has gone quiet again, except for the soft hum of the overhead lights and the occasional clank of metal from one of the cooling engines nearby.
Viktor has moved closer to the prisoners, standing behind them with the kind of silent patience that makes people nervous.
Liev stands near the edge of the light; his attention fixed on the two men tied to the chairs.
“We assumed the target was one of us,” I say without looking up. “But it wasn’t; someone wants both of us taken out of the equation down here.” Someone didn’t like that we were setting up territory in Miami. “And they’re using multiple groups to get to us.”
I glance up at Liev.
He doesn’t look surprised.
His expression is calm, almost thoughtful, but there is something colder behind his eyes now.
It’s the same look I saw the night he and Kazimir had me tied up in the boat, grilling me about my father.
Kazimir Baranov was ready to do anything to get his fiancée back.
Back then, Liev was just the right hand-man and easy to taunt.
I never imagined that someday I’d be his.
Liev walks closer to the prisoners. The echo of his shoes against the concrete sounds throughout the garage.
“You don’t know anything else?” he asks.
The men hesitate. “No.”
It’s honest, nervous. Liev studies them for a long moment. Then he nods once.
The movement is small, but Viktor understands it immediately. “Take them to the back room,” Viktor tells two men waiting near the garage doors. Boeviks, I’ve learned in the last few days; low-level enforcers loyal to Liev, carrying out violent tasks.
The prisoners start protesting at once.
“Wait! We told you everything!”
“Please, we don’t know anything else!”
Their voices fade as they’re dragged toward a side corridor that disappears into the darker part of the building.
I watch them go, my stomach tightening slightly.
“What now?” I ask.
Liev turns toward me. “I’ll take care of them. They won’t be a problem after tonight.”
His tone is matter-of-fact. He’s going to kill them.
“Are… you—?” I ask, staring at him in surprise.
His hand is already ghosting over a knife that I know is in his pocket.
It’s the one I bought for him when I was out with my mother, the one I presented to him carelessly a few days later, saying I didn’t need it.
Even though the moment I laid eyes on it in that back room, it made me think of him.