Chapter 18 #2
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I’m momentarily distracted and pull it out, thinking it might be Nadya. But it’s only Maksim.
I lost you. Where are you?
Ivana seizes this opportunity and pushes past me, but Viktor is quicker. He drags her back by her waist, twisting her arm behind her. “Where do you think you’re going?” He whirls her around so she’s facing me. “Do what you have to do, Konstantin,” Viktor says.
I pocket my phone.
I see the truth of it. She’s useless to me, but she’s still useful to Alexei. He abandoned her, but he’ll feel it. That’s how these things work. You cut out someone’s heart, and if they’ve got any left at all, they bleed.
Viktor shoves her toward me and she falls at my feet.
Ivana’s shaking, hands pressed together in supplication. “You’re not like him. You’re better. Please.”
Viktor leans close to me, voice barely a whisper. “He left her as bait, Kosta. You know that. Don’t show mercy. Show him what it costs to lose your favor.”
For a moment, I look at her—the mascara streaked down her cheeks, the way her hair falls across her face, the sharp tang of panic in the air.
She was never really part of this world, not truly.
But she played her part in getting my men killed, and Alexei—he needs to learn that there’s a price for what he’s done.
Viktor is right. It’s not about information.
It’s about sending a message, and messages in our world are written in blood.
I stand, dragging her up by the arm. She clings to me, sobbing now, promising anything, but none of it matters. I feel hollow, the way I always do before it happens. Viktor’s hand is heavy on my shoulder, reassuring. He’s the devil at my back, but I need him now.
“I’m sorry,” Ivana whispers, as if it changes anything.
I press the muzzle of my gun to her chest, just beneath her ribs. “You should be.”
“Please.”
I show her no mercy. I push Ivana up against the metal railing, the river stretching black and endless beneath us, swallowing the city’s lights.
She gasps, a high, broken sound, and for a second her hands clutch the cold rail behind her as if she’s considering the drop, as if the water might be kinder than whatever waits in my hands.
Her eyes dart everywhere—my face, Viktor’s looming presence, the water below, the empty span of the bridge—anywhere but the gun still pressed against her. I lean in close enough that she feels my breath, close enough that there’s nowhere left for her to run.
“For your sake, tell me something real, Ivana.” My voice is low, ragged with exhaustion, edged with the kind of promise that can’t be taken back. “No more stories. No more desperate guesses. One truth. That’s all you have left.”
She’s shaking hard, her knuckles white, eyes brimming with fresh panic.
“Konstantin, I—I swear, I don’t know,” she stammers, voice crumbling.
“He didn’t trust me anymore after the massacre, after you survived—he stopped coming home, stopped calling.
I swear if I had known anything about that, I would have told someone, anyone. I never wanted people dead.”
“But you didn’t, bitch. You let his family die for nothing,” Viktor says coldly. “Apologizing now isn’t going to change what you did.”
She shakes her head, tears running down her face, her voice collapsing into hoarse pleading. “You have to believe me, Konstantin. If you let me go, I’ll prove it, I’ll—anything you want, just don’t—” She breaks off, a sob catching in her throat as she hugs herself tighter to the rail.
I hold her against the railing, feeling her pulse thrumming with panic beneath my grip, her body so small now, pressed hard into the metal as if she might disappear inside it.
Her gaze keeps flicking to the water below, desperate, the city’s lights turning her tears silver.
She tries to twist away, but Viktor steps closer, blocking her in, the night colder around us.
His eyes are hard, unforgiving, and his hand finds my shoulder. His words are low, a growl just for me. “You want to hurt Alexei? You have to show him what it means to lose. She’s nothing to him, but make it cost him anyway. Make this quick.”
I stare at Ivana, watching her realize there’s no way out. Her hands slide along the rail as if she could somehow hold on, as if anything here could save her. For a second, I think about how she ended up here, so far from whatever she once was, and how it doesn’t matter anymore.
Viktor leans in, voice colder than the river. “End it. Send him the message.”
The truth is, I’m not even angry now. I just want it finished. I want the city to swallow her and this whole night with it. I want Alexei to feel what it means to lose even the things he threw away.
Ivana’s still pleading, her words dissolving into the rush of water below us. I tighten my grip on her arms, force her to meet my eyes one last time, searching for any reason to stop. There’s nothing. She’s empty now, nothing left to give, not even hope.
Viktor’s hand digs into my back, urging me forward. I let out a breath, feeling nothing, and shove her—hard—over the railing. Her scream rips through the night, swallowed instantly by the river’s black maw. There’s a splash, then silence, then nothing at all.
Viktor’s hand stays on my shoulder, heavy and approving. “He’ll hear about it by morning,” he says, voice quiet, certain. “He’ll know what it means.”
I stare down at the place where she vanished, the city rolling on, indifferent. The water takes her, and I let it.