Chapter 10 – Niko
Morning bleeds pale light across Chicago, the kind that makes the city look colder, harsher than it already is.
I sit in the back of the Jeep, watching the streets pass by, the rhythm of steel and glass and smoke.
Demyan drives like he always does—spine straight, hands steady on the wheel, eyes locked ahead as though the road might bite if he looks away.
He always lets me have my silence.
Especially on mornings like this.
We’re headed to Kirill.
Kirill has always been a strange kind of bastard—never ambitious enough to climb the ranks, never careless enough to get himself killed, and too damn connected to ever fully disappear.
He’s older, rougher around the edges, and most men would’ve dismissed him as small-time.
They’d be wrong. Kirill has ears everywhere, and unlike most men, he doesn’t sell what he hears to the highest bidder.
He brings it to me. Always has. That’s loyalty, and in my world, loyalty is more dangerous than any gun.
The Jeep pulls into the cracked lot of the warehouse. The building squats against the skyline like a carcass left to rot—windows broken, steel siding rusted and bent, graffiti crawling up its walls. Typical Kirill. Always hiding in plain sight.
Demyan cuts the engine. I button my suit jacket, step out into the bite of morning air, and feel the ground crunch beneath my shoes.
The door to the warehouse hangs crooked, like it’s been kicked too many times, but when I push it open, it swings smoothly. Oiled. Cared for. Typical Kirill again—making disorder look real when in truth, everything is watched, everything is maintained.
The scent hits first—old iron, smoke, and the faint tang of vodka soaked into wood. The kind of smell that tells me a man like Kirill hasn’t changed since the day he walked away from the Bratva.
Kirill leans against a scarred table in the middle of the room, cigarette dangling between his fingers.
He’s tall, still broad-shouldered, the kind of man who was clearly handsome once.
Time and liquor have softened him—hair thinning, lines carving deep into his face, a beer belly pushing against his shirt.
But none of it dulls the edge in his eyes. Those stay sharp, dangerous, amused.
“Boss.” His voice is gravelly, low, and he flicks ash onto the floor. “Good to see you as always.”
I don’t bother with pleasantries. My patience has been thin since Anton slipped through my hands.
“I had Anton,” I say, stepping closer, my shoes echoing on the concrete. “He escaped. Any idea where he might be?”
Kirill exhales smoke, eyes narrowing as if he’s weighing how much to give me. “Not exactly,” he admits, his lips curving into something that isn’t quite a smile. “But he’s moving. Quietly. Gathering men—old loyalists, desperate ones, the kind of dogs who’ll bite for scraps if he throws them.”
My jaw tightens.
Kirill continues, “Word is, Anton believes your wife still has something. A key, to be precise. To the ledger files.” His gaze flicks up to mine, sharp and deliberate. “That’s why he’s hunting, Boss. Not for you. For her.”
The temperature in the warehouse feels like it drops ten degrees.
Noelle.
My blood freezes.
Demyan’s words from a few days ago slam back into my skull—Anton using Noelle’s email, slipping partial Rusnak data dumps to our rivals like breadcrumbs. At the time, it had seemed like nothing more than a desperate play for leverage.
But then, on my nudging, Noelle locked down her accounts. She tightened her security, changed every password, scrubbed her trail clean. Which meant Anton no longer had the door.
But she did.
Even if she didn’t know it, Noelle was holding the only access trail left—the thin, golden thread that could unravel the entire Rusnak vault.
And Anton believed she still had it.
The realization lands like ice water in my veins. Noelle isn’t just in the line of fire—she is the line of fire.
My hands curl into fists at my sides, and for a moment, I don’t even hear Kirill’s drag of a cigarette or the muffled city noise outside. All I see is Anton’s face, that smug bastard, already planning his way back into Noelle’s life.
“Find Anton,” I bark at Kirill, my voice cracking like a whip through the warehouse. “You know how to reach me when you do.”
Kirill just nods, the kind of slow, knowing tilt of the head that says he understands more than I want him to. I don’t give him the chance to add anything else. My patience is gone.
I turn on my heel and march out, the echo of my footsteps snapping against concrete.
Demyan falls into step behind me, silent, smart enough not to ask.
My chest feels tight, lungs caged, every second a reminder that while I’m standing here talking, she’s out there—unguarded, unaware, still in danger.
The drive back blurs. The streets of Chicago flicker past, meaningless. All I can think about is her face, her laugh, the way she curled into me last night when she was shaking from the nightmare. She has no idea she’s standing on a fault line, that Anton is already clawing toward her.
When we reach the house, I don’t wait for Demyan. I slam the door shut behind me and take the stairs two at a time. My pulse is pounding in my ears, my body running ahead of my mind, desperate to see her.
I need to see her. To assure myself she’s okay. To put my hands on her and remind myself she’s still here, still mine to protect.
I push open the bedroom door, heart pounding, but she’s not there. My gaze sweeps the room until I hear the faint rustle of movement from the walk-in.
She’s sitting on the floor of my wardrobe, legs folded beneath her, a photo frame cradled in her hands.
My throat goes dry.
There’s only one frame in here, one I never left out in the open.
I already know what she’s holding before I see it—the photograph of me as a baby, wedged between my parents.
A moment in time I’ve kept locked away, untouched, because it’s the only proof I have that once, before everything turned to blood and steel, I was theirs.
For a second, I just stand there, watching her. She looks so small with it in her hands, so careful, as if she knows it isn’t something to be handled lightly.
I step forward, my shoes silent against the floor. When I reach her, I crouch down and hold out my hand.
She looks up at me, hesitant, almost guilty, but doesn’t resist when I take the frame from her fingers.
The image hits me the way it always does—a punch straight to the ribs. I stare at it once, just once, then slide it back onto the shelf where it belongs. Somewhere safe. Somewhere untouchable.
When I turn back to her, she’s still watching me, her eyes soft in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
“Were they your parents?” she asks quietly.
I nod once. The word sticks in my throat, so I let the gesture be enough.
She shifts, tucking her knees closer, and I lower myself to the floor across from her, the frame already back on the shelf, but the weight of it still heavy in my chest.
“So,” I murmur, tilting my head at her, “why were you snooping through my things?”
“I was bored,” she says instantly, without hesitation.
The laugh rumbles out of me before I can stop it. She doesn’t even try to sweeten it with a lie, doesn’t pretend she stumbled across the picture by accident. I love that about her—the way she’ll walk into the fire instead of skirting around it.
“You’re unbelievable,” I mutter, shaking my head, but my mouth is curved despite myself.
Her expression softens. “They looked…normal. Happy. It doesn’t seem like you were born into this. The mafia, I mean.”
Her words slip into the room like smoke, clinging to everything. For a long moment, I can’t answer.
“My mother died when I was just a kid,” I finally say, my voice rougher than I intend. “Too young to remember much of her. Sometimes I wonder if I even really knew her at all, or if it’s just scraps of stories my father told me.”
Noelle’s gaze doesn’t waver, so I keep going.
“My father…he was a Marine. A hard man. He didn’t treat me like a child, not once.
There were rules, always rules. Wake up early.
Train harder. Never show weakness. I think he thought he was preparing me for the world.
Maybe he was. Or maybe he was just making me into…
this.” I gesture vaguely at myself, at the sharp edges and the discipline carved too deep into my bones.
Her lips part, but I don’t let her speak yet.
“He died when I was sixteen. Heart attack.” The words still taste bitter, even after all these years.
“I thought I’d be free, but instead I was just…
lost. And that’s when I met Lukin’s father.
He saw something in me. Discipline. Precision.
A boy already broken into the shape they needed.
He took me under his wing, put me through training, and when I was old enough, he made me head of the Chicago wing. ”
I fall silent, the air thick with the ghosts I’ve just summoned. For a moment, it feels like I’ve said too much.
Noelle leans forward just slightly, her eyes searching mine. I shake my head. “That’s all there is to it. Nothing romantic about it, nothing I care to remember.” My voice drops lower. “I don’t like talking about it. Feels like…a life I already buried.”
Noelle nods, her expression unreadable but calm. She doesn’t press, doesn’t pry where she knows I’ve drawn a line. That’s something I respect about her—she takes the truth I give and doesn’t demand the pieces I keep hidden.
Silence stretches between us, heavy but not uncomfortable. We sit there on the closet floor, side by side, surrounded by the faint scent of cedar and the quiet hum of the house. For several long minutes, neither of us speaks.
Until our world shatters.
Glass explodes above us, the sharp crack of a rifle splitting the quiet. Instinct takes over before thought can form—I throw myself over Noelle, pressing her down to the floor as shards rain around us. Her gasp is muffled against my chest.
Another bullet hisses through the air, embedding itself in the wall behind us. My pulse slams in my ears, rage burning hotter than fear. Someone is in my house. Someone is aiming for her.
I keep my body curved over hers, every muscle taut, waiting for the next shot.