Chapter 32
ROLAN
Who are you, Rolan Belov?
The question sits in the space between us. I turn it over once before I answer.
The honest response is that I stopped knowing the answer to that question a few weeks ago. Maybe even months.
She saw me in the basement tonight. She doesn’t know that the man in the chair sent three people into my home to kill my daughter, along with everyone else in the building. She saw the end of it.
And she’s still here.
Not gone. Here, in the center of my office, standing at her full height with her eyes burning and her hands steady.
I move to the chair across from the desk and sit. I lean forward. I put my hands on my knees and redirect my gaze to her.
“Sit down, Elizabeth.”
The silence stretches for a moment.
“Sit down,” I repeat.
“I’ll stand.”
I nod. Have it your way .
“I’m the Pakhan of the Chicago Bratva. Head of the Russian mafia,” I explain. “Do you know what that means?”
A spasm crosses her face, quickly controlled.
“Yes, I think,” she gulps. “And you were—” She stops. Starts again. “What you were doing to that man. Is that?—”
“Yes.”
“Do you do that often?”
“When it’s necessary.”
She puts one hand on the back of the chair across from me. Her knuckles are white against the leather. “And the night of the attack. In the foyer. All that blood?—”
“Mine and theirs. Mostly theirs.”
The hand tightens on the chair. An ache radiates across my chest.
“I’ve killed people, Elizabeth,” I say, without softening it. “Not by accident. I’ve made decisions that ended lives, and I’ll make them again. The man in that chair tonight—” I stop. “I am not a good man. I’ve never claimed to be.”
Silence.
She stares at me across the room, and I stare back, waiting for the retreat, the reconstruction of distance.
“Why are you telling me this?” Her voice is barely above a breath. Unsteady at the edges but present. Still present, still here.
“Because you asked.” I hold her gaze. “And because you were going to find out regardless. And because—” I stop at the third reason. I don’t feel I have the right to simply say it.
Because I love you, because you’re important to me, and because I don’t want you to leave because you’re scared .
I watch her face.
I expect fear; for her to be so taken aback by it all that it causes a physical push.
But she doesn’t move. She stands there, processing .
Then her tongue moves across her lower lip, and she pulls in a breath that expands her entire chest.
Her mouth opens.
My phone rings.
It’s Alexei, priority line, the one that means “act immediately.” The sound cuts through the room like a blade through cloth. I answer before the second ring.
“Yes.”
“It’s Dmitri.”
“What happened?” I ask.
Elizabeth is staring at me, but she shows no reaction, which must mean she can’t hear Alexei.
“He got shot. The doc just called.”
“Shit. I’ll meet you in the operating room.” I hang up.
Elizabeth is still studying me.
“I have to go,” I tell her.
Before I can, she moves. Her hand closes around my forearm, her skin warm.
“You’re leaving?”
“I have things to take care of.”
Her grip doesn’t loosen. “One last question. Before you go.” Her voice only shakes a little. “Please.”
My jaw clenches. I nod.
“Us.” The word hangs there, spare and enormous. “You and me. What are we? What is this?”
My heart skips a beat. I want to tell her what she means to me in a way she can handle. And for a second, I’m almost strong enough to do it.
But my phone keeps ringing, and I know I can’t ignore it. Not again. Despite all the work I’ve occupied myself with over the last few weeks, I’ve been distracted, and it’s her fault. Even if she doesn’t know it.
I’ve grown weak because of her, and weakness in my field means certain death. It means Anya might grow up without a father or not grow up at all.
I can’t allow that to happen.
So, I give the only answer I can to protect us all. “This?” The word comes out flat. “This is a mistake.”
I leave.
Before I can witness the ruin of my words, I’m down the corridor, deafening myself to the crying, the shuffling footsteps, the slamming of a door.
I numb myself to it all, knowing that it will cost me my soul. That it will cost me her.
My chest aches.
This is for the best.
The office door is barely closed behind me when I read Alexei’s face.
His jaw is clenched. Worry fills his eyes.
“What happened?” I ask, crossing to the desk.
He’s standing beside the map table, tablet in hand, his posture rigid.
“The doctor called in. Dmitri contacted him two days ago — said he’d been shot. By the time the doctor arrived at the location, Dmitri was already gone.”
I stop. “Did anyone speak to him directly? Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“The doctor didn’t report it. Dmitri told him not to.
He only came to us today because Dmitri showed up at his practice this morning to have the wound redressed.
” Alexei pauses, choosing his next words with care.
“Whoever treated him initially knew what they were doing — the bleeding was stopped, the wound was stabilized. Without it, he’d likely be dead. But he refused to say who helped him. ”
I lean against the desk, turning this over. “He went soft and checked into a hospital?”
The thought doesn’t sit right even as I say it. If Dmitri walked into a hospital, there would be records, his name in a system, a trail that leads directly back to my organization.
Dmitri wouldn’t take that risk. He’s too disciplined, too trained, too aware of what exposure means for all of us. But if not a hospital, then who has the medical skill to stabilize a gunshot wound outside of official channels?
“Doesn’t Ellie’s friend work at the hospital?” Alexei asks. “She’s a pediatrician, but she’d have the training. If he showed up at her door bleeding?—”
“She’d help him,” I finish the sentence. Of course she would.
Interesting.
Also, dangerous.
“What exactly is going on with those two?” The question is directed at Alexei, but it’s really directed at the situation — at the widening gap of information.
“He didn’t report. He’s not following protocol.”
“Keep a close eye on them,” I order. “I want to know every interaction, every location, every movement. If Dmitri has gone off the rails, I need to understand how far before I decide what to do about it.”
Alexei nods, already reaching for his phone to relay the order, when his intercom crackles to life. He listens for a few seconds. His expression shifts.
“What now?” I ask.
“We have a possible location on Dushku, verified forty minutes ago.” He sets the intercom down and reaches for the tablet, pulling up a satellite map. “But that’s not all. He attacked first.”
“Where?”
“Three sites. Simultaneous strikes.” His finger traces the points on the screen, red markers blooming across the city grid. “The warehouse on Kedzie. The restaurant on Michigan Avenue. And the distribution hub in Pilsen.”
Three load-bearing points.
“Casualties?” I ask.
“Two of ours at Kedzie. The rest got out.” His jaw sets. “He’s fighting back, targeting infrastructure. Revenue lines. Supply chains. He’s trying to collapse the foundation.”
I study the map. The three sites, the angles of approach, the timing of the strikes — I search for the pattern underneath it all.
Dushku is methodical. I’ve always recognized this about him; it’s what elevates him from a manageable nuisance to a genuine threat.
But this level of precision requires more than methodology. It requires intelligence.
Someone is feeding him information.
A leak. Someone inside my operation is talking.
“Where is Dushku now?” I ask.
“That’s the part you’re not going to like.” Alexei zooms into the Pilsen marker. “He’s at the distribution hub.”
He’s staging from my own property. The realization fills me with pure, clarifying rage.
“Who’s available?”
“Everyone. All teams, all sites accounted for and standing by.”
I look at the map one final time. The red markers. The breach points. The single dot in Pilsen where a man who has been dismantling my empire piece by piece is sitting inside a building with my name on the deed.
The sound of Elizabeth’s tears echoes somewhere behind my thoughts.
I force myself to push it aside.
“Let’s go.”