CHAPTER 3
ANDREI P.O.V.
I stepped out of the armored SUV, my polished Oxfords hitting the cracked pavement of a neighborhood that felt like a decaying corpse.
It was exactly the kind of district that bred roaches and desperate men, full of the screeching grind of distant subway trains and the permanent stink of exhaust fumes mixing with stale rain.
I adjusted my charcoal Brioni jacket, feeling the suffocating mediocrity of the street clinging to me instantly.
I fucking loathed being in public spaces that weren't under my direct control.
The lack of security, the unpredictable chaos of poor people, the blinding glare of the afternoon sun bouncing off a dirty shop window next to me—it irritated my skin like an allergy.
A city bus rumbled past the curb, belching a massive cloud of black smoke over the sidewalk.
I pulled a folded silk pocket square from my chest and briefly covered my nose, blocking out the smell of the masses.
I could burn this entire block to the fucking ground just to cleanse the air and no one of value would be lost. Yuri stood on the opposite side of the vehicle, his suit perfectly tailored, scanning the rooftops with the mechanical precision of a predator.
"Why here, Yuri?" I asked, my voice barely carrying over the drone of traffic.
"The informant is paranoid, Boss," Yuri said, his eyes never stopping their sweep of the street.
"Paranoia is a luxury for those who have something to lose."
I walked toward the target building, a pathetic little diner sitting between a boarded-up pawn shop and a liquor store.
The bell above the door chimed with an insulting, high-pitched ring as I pushed it open.
I stepped inside, and the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly.
The low hum of mundane chatter died down in a wave, dropping off table by table.
People instinctively sense a wolf entering the sheepfold, even if they don't know what they're looking at.
The jarring domesticity of the place practically assaulted me.
Pastel walls. Yellowed lighting making everyone look jaundiced.
The hissing screech of a steaming milk wand.
I paused right at the door. A group of teenagers blocking the aisle looked up, took one look at my face, and scrambled out of my path without me having to say a single fucking word.
"Find a corner. I want my back to the wall," I told Yuri.
"Already on it."
We walked toward the back of the room. The sticky sound of my shoes peeling off a floor that hadn't been mopped properly made my jaw clench.
The air in here smelled like burnt espresso beans, cheap sugar, and desperation.
We slid into a vinyl booth that had a massive duct-tape repair job slapped across the seat cushion.
I sat perfectly upright, refusing to let my back touch the grime on the rest of the vinyl.
I checked my Patek Philippe. The diamond-encrusted face caught the shitty fluorescent light, a stark, violent contrast to the peeling formica table in front of me.
I hated waiting for lesser men. My patience was a physical weight, grinding down my tolerance by the second.
I reached into my inner pocket and pulled out a silver flask.
I unscrewed the cap and took a hit of my own vodka, preferring the burn of premium liquor to anything this shithole could serve.
The table had a faint, tacky residue of dried syrup on the edge.
I moved my cuffs away from it, calculating exactly how much I paid my tailor to ensure my suits never touched surfaces like this for long.
"Five minutes, Yuri. Then we kill the informant and find someone more punctual," I said, capping the flask.
"He’s coming, Boss. Just saw his car."
I ignored the rhythmic ticking of my watch, the low-frequency hum of a broken refrigerator behind the counter, the distant clatter of cheap ceramic dishes.
I scanned the room, instantly dismissing the patrons as useless background noise.
My gaze settled briefly on a waitress weaving through the narrow gaps between the tables.
She looked like a ghost stuffed into a stained apron.
Pale, thin, moving with a mechanical, joyless efficiency that spoke of complete system failure.
I felt a flicker of absolute disgust for her weakness.
To me, anyone living this kind of life was already dead.
They just hadn't stopped breathing yet. She stopped at a nearby table and wiped it down, her movements so completely robotic she didn't even notice my intense, predatory stare tracking her. Her knuckles were heavily bruised as she gripped the wet rag, her dark hair thrown up into a messy bun held together by a cheap yellow pencil. I wondered if she even knew what she looked like in a mirror anymore, or if she’d entirely forgotten she existed.
"The help is exhausted," I noted, watching her turn around.
"Common in this district, Boss," Yuri replied, not even bothering to look.
She walked back to the counter and picked up a heavy plastic tray loaded with oversized mugs of steaming black coffee meant for the booth right behind us.
As she moved, I caught the mechanics of her stride.
She moved with a limp so slight only a trained killer would pick up on the uneven weight distribution.
Her heavy, dragging footsteps sounded like an anchor scraping the floor.
She bit her bottom lip, a small drop of blood appearing on the chapped skin as she suppressed a wince from her aching feet.
I felt the impending lack of balance before it even happened, my instincts humming with the friction of inevitable chaos.
"Watch the girl, Yuri."
"She's harmless, Boss."
I didn't answer. I just watched her. She’s going to fall. She’s too tired to stay upright.
She took another step. A rusted chair leg, jutting out at an awkward angle from the table next to us, caught her ankle.
She didn't scream as she lost her balance.
She didn't flail. She just exhaled a sharp, incredibly tired breath as the tray tilted precariously toward me.
For a split second, time slowed down. I saw the dark circles under her eyes in high definition.
The mundane world finally breached my perimeter, not with a bullet or a fucking knife, but with a clumsy accident born of absolute poverty.
My hand instinctively went toward the weapon under my jacket before my brain caught up and realized it was just a girl and a tray.
"Careful—" I started, shifting my weight.
"Oh, for God's sake..." she muttered, totally resigned.
The clatter of ceramic sliding on plastic rang out, followed by a sudden, violent silence in the cafe.
Four oversized mugs of scalding Americano dumped directly into my lap and across the chest of my Brioni.
The heat was immediate and stinging, soaking through the fine Italian wool straight into my skin.
The smell of wet wool and bitter coffee hit my face.
I remained perfectly still. I didn't jump up.
I didn't wipe at it. My face locked into a mask of frozen, lethal ice.
I looked down at the black liquid dripping from my silk tie onto my pants, my jaw tightening so hard the muscle leaped under my skin.
This was a profound violation of my person.
In my world, blood was much easier to wash off than the indignity of a commoner's stupid mistake. The empty tray hit the floor with a dull thud. I calculated the cost of the suit. Five thousand dollars. I calculated the cost of the girl’s life.
Nothing. I wondered which was worth more to me in this exact second.
"Blyad," I hissed softly.
"Suka," Yuri spat.
Yuri was a blur. His hand was inside his jacket instantly, the matte black grip of his Glock fully visible as he half-drawn the weapon, his large body shifting to shield me from the room.
The entire cafe gasped. I heard the scuffle of chairs as people dove toward the floor or froze like statues in their seats.
The escalation was immediate. The Apex had been insulted, and the Syndicate's response to an insult was always death. Yuri’s thumb hovered directly over the safety mechanism, his cold eyes locked on the girl’s throat as if searching for the carotid artery to put a bullet through.
The metallic click of his holster sliding against leather echoed.
The fluorescent light overhead flickered, buzzing in the dead silence.
I waited for her to collapse. I fully expected the sobbing.
The begging. The pathetic 'please don't kill me' bullshit that I heard in my fucking sleep from men ten times her size.
"Give the word, Boss," Yuri said, deadpan.
"Don't move, girl." I commanded.
She broke the script. She didn't look at the gun.
She didn't even look at Yuri. She looked at the ruined fabric on my lap, let out a long, rattling sigh that sounded like someone who had just experienced the worst day of her life, and simply couldn't be bothered to give a fuck about dying today.
She was treating me like a minor inconvenience.
I stared at her, genuinely confused. She rubbed her temple with a shaky hand, completely ignoring the massive enforcer with a firearm two feet from her face.
I looked for the tremor of terror in her hands.
There was none. Only bone-deep exhaustion.
She sighed heavily again. "You've got to be kidding me." She dropped her hand and looked at me. "Are you going to shoot me or let me clean this up?"