Chapter 10 Konstantin
KONSTANTIN
The call comes just after midnight.
By the time I get down to the warehouse, the scent of smoke still clings to the air, clashing with salt and diesel from the docks. Floodlights cast harsh white over the broken security gate and the half-collapsed loading bay. The air is still, like the place is holding its breath.
Maksim meets me at the entrance, his shirt damp with sweat, blood crusted along his knuckles.
“Two guards down,” he says, jaw tight. “They used bolt cutters on the side fence, came in fast, precise. Knew where to hit.”
I step around the wreckage, past one of the damaged trucks still idling with its front tires blown. A crate lies splintered near the entrance, its contents stripped clean.
“Anything taken?” I ask.
“Not much. A few decoy cases. They didn’t go for the vault. Either they didn’t have time, or that wasn’t the point.”
I look at him. “Then what was?”
He shrugs once. “Message, maybe. Whoever it was, they weren’t looking to make money.”
I exhale slowly and walk deeper inside. The main floor is scattered with debris, but the real damage is at the back where the control room used to be. The wiring’s fried. Some of the monitors still flicker uselessly.
Maksim follows behind me, quieter now. “We’ve got a shipment coming in at the end of the week,” he says. “Important. And I don’t know if we can secure it here.”
He doesn’t need to spell it out. If this place is being watched, if someone’s testing our defenses, they’ll be waiting to hit us again.
I lean against the edge of the destroyed console and stare at the dark space, piecing together the pattern. One warehouse hit. Carefully. Just enough force to rattle us. Not enough to trigger a war.
Someone’s measuring us. Watching how I respond.
But I don’t know where to move next. Not yet. And when that happens—when the map doesn’t look familiar—I need to call someone who knows how to redraw it.
I pull out my phone, scroll through until I reach the number Viktor gave me. I haven’t used it yet. But I dial it now.
He picks up before the second ring.
“Konstantin,” he says, his voice unbothered, like he was expecting the call.
“One of my warehouses was hit tonight,” I say. “Someone was probing. I don’t know who.”
A pause.
“And?”
“I need a secure location to reroute an incoming shipment. Quiet. Temporary. But protected.”
“You’re asking for a favor.”
“I’m asking for advice,” I say evenly.
“Hmm. You know, the last time I gave you advice, you accused me of baiting you into something.”
“Because you were.”
He chuckles, low and short. “Touché.”
I wait. He likes the silence—it gives him room to feel in control. But I know how to wait too.
Finally, he speaks. “I’ll send you a location. Outside Long Beach. No one will trace it back to you, that I can guarantee.”
He hangs up.
I stare at the darkened phone screen for a moment, feeling the edge of something tightening around us. The game is shifting. Whoever hit the warehouse knows what they’re doing. And Viktor—he never does anything for free.
I pocket the phone and turn back to Maksim. “Call in a second crew. Lock this place down for now. We’ll reroute the shipment to a new facility. I’ll send the coordinates.”
Maksim nods once, not asking questions, and I step out into the cool night, the sea breeze washing over me.
I can feel it in my bones—this wasn’t random. Something is coming. And I’m running out of time to stay ahead of it.
My mind races through possibilities—rival crews, old enemies, ambitious outsiders. But this doesn’t smell like Bratva infighting. Whoever hit us wanted to be seen, but not known.
I step out onto the loading dock, where Maksim is already barking orders to two younger men who arrived while I was inside. They look nervous, glancing between the shadows at the fence line and the broken lock near the entrance.
I wave Maksim over. “Get the word out—nobody talks about tonight. Not to anyone outside this crew. If there are questions, tell them the shipment was delayed and nothing more.”
He nods. “And the guards?”
“Quietly paid. Their families get a bonus, and they keep their mouths shut.”
He folds his arms, watching me. “Who do you think it was?”
“That’s what I intend to find out,” I say, voice low.
Back in the car, I sit in the passenger seat while Maksim drives. I don’t speak, not yet. The city glides past the windows, glittering and silent. My phone buzzes—Viktor’s text. Coordinates, as promised. A warehouse in a dead zone near Long Beach. I forward it to Maksim and close the message.
He breaks the silence first. “What now?”
“We lock it down. I want full surveillance by tomorrow morning.”
He nods, but I’m not done.
“I also want you to find me everything you can on Grigori Vasin,” I say, letting the name settle between us.
Maksim frowns, his hands tightening on the steering wheel as we wind past the empty cranes and sodium lights of the port. “I don’t think I’ve heard that name before. Is he a local?”
“No,” I answer, watching the shadows flicker through the windshield, letting my voice drop to match the gravity in my chest. “He’s not local. And that’s what worries me.”
Maksim doesn’t push further; he knows when to leave questions unasked, which is one of the reasons I trust him to keep the wheels turning while I think several moves ahead.
I watch the warehouse lights vanish behind us in the mirror, the city shifting from the concrete wildness of the docks back to the broken promises of neon and glass.
Viktor may have given me the proof, but I don’t trust anybody’s judgment outside my own.
Nadya is the only exception, though that’s a truth I keep locked away, even from myself sometimes, certainly from Maksim or any other man in my crew.
There’s a line between knowing who to believe and who to listen to, and right now I don’t have the luxury of believing anyone but her, no matter what Viktor thinks he knows or what evidence he puts in my hand.
I look down at the blurry photo on my tablet again, the pixels straining to become something clear as I enlarge the frame.
My chest tightens with every small detail I can make out—the slouch of Nikolai’s shoulders, the uncertain tilt of his head, the ghost of his smile I used to see every morning at breakfast—because this image, incomplete and distorted as it is, is the closest thing I have to proof that my son is still somewhere in this city, waiting for someone to come for him, waiting for me to do what I promised I always would.
The rest of the world drops away for a moment, the ache in my chest crowding out the sound of the engine, the weight of responsibility pressing hard enough to remind me that I can’t afford to let my doubts slip, not now.
When I finally look up, the city has changed around us, the skyline a hard line against the dark. I pocket the tablet, resolve hardening with every beat of my heart.
My phone vibrates just as we merge onto the freeway. I unlock the screen and see Viktor’s name above a new message.
Viktor: Petrov Holding. Russian-flagged vessel, registered out of Malta.
Docked in San Pedro two nights ago. Manifest lists steel, electronics, and medical equipment.
Your warehouse attack lines up with its arrival.
Crew includes three men known to work for Grigori Vasin. I’d start there if I were you.
A second text follows before I can respond:
Check port logs for transfer paperwork signed by “A. Reznikov.” Name’s come up before in Grigori’s old circles. Don’t ignore this one, Konstantin. The vessel is likely your real problem.
“Maksim,” I say, voice low but sharp with purpose now. “Get me the port logs from two nights before the warehouse hit. I want camera footage, crew lists, manifests—everything.”
He nods, already reaching for the phone in the center console.
My eyes linger on the text, then move to the window, and for a long moment all I can see is the empty frame of that blown-out warehouse, the charred beams, the twisted steel, and the unmistakable message left behind—not in words, but in destruction.
“And who the fuck is Reznikov?” I say, not bothering to hide my irritation as I reread the text, catching the name buried in a forwarded attachment Viktor must have included—an operations manifest, the sort only a local insider would have handled.
“Reznikov?” Maksim echoes, frowning. “He’s the warehouse manager. Civilian. He’s been out sick for the past couple of days. Why do you ask?”
I keep my gaze fixed on the phone, the ugly pieces starting to fit together. “Because if a civilian manager goes missing right before an attack, that’s not a coincidence. Someone used him, or used his absence.”
Maksim glances at me in the rearview, understanding lighting in his eyes. “You want to talk to him.”
“Take me to him,” I say. “Now.”
Maksim nods, already taking the next exit, fingers flying over his phone to pull up Reznikov’s address. I watch the city lights slip by, a new layer of questions tightening in my chest. There’s always someone who thinks they’re safe on the edge of the game. There’s always a first mistake.
Maksim pulls the car onto a quiet residential street lined with narrow houses pressed shoulder to shoulder, their paint faded by salt air and years of indifferent tenants.
We double-check the address, then walk up a cracked path edged with tufts of grass that have fought their way through the concrete.
Reznikov’s place is the kind of building you could drive by a hundred times and never remember—a dented mailbox, a window air conditioner humming like a tired old fridge, porch light flickering yellow against the dusk.
Maksim knocks. Nothing.
He knocks again, louder this time, then calls out. “Reznikov! Are you there?”