Chapter Two
Natalia's heart hammered against her ribs as she slipped through the maze of back alleys, every instinct screaming at her to keep moving. She didn't stop until she'd crossed three streets, doubled back twice, and cut through an abandoned warehouse with half its roof missing.
Years of training had carved paranoia into muscle memory. Every reflective shop window became a mirror, parked cars became potential cover, and each shadow held the possibility of pursuit.
Alexei Volkov wasn't a fool. If he'd decided to have her followed, she needed to know before she led anyone back.
Only when she was satisfied the streets remained empty behind her did the adrenaline begin to seep from her bloodstream, leaving behind an unpleasant heaviness in her limbs. The district she returned to was forgotten by the rest of the city.
Boarded-up storefronts leaned against one another, and graffiti covered cracked brick walls. A flickering streetlamp buzzed overhead, illuminating puddles of filthy rainwater that never seemed to dry.
The apartment building she'd rented for the past two days fit the neighborhood perfectly. Half the windows were broken. The stairwell smelled of damp concrete, stale cigarettes, and mold. It was perfect, because no respectable person came here. More importantly, no one asked questions.
She climbed the narrow staircase, avoiding the loose third step she'd discovered on the first day, before unlocking the door to the tiny flat. The deadbolt clicked into place behind her. Then she waited, but there was only blissful silence.
She moved through the apartment automatically, checking each room despite knowing no one could possibly be hiding inside. Bathroom. The bedrooms and even the closets were empty.
She checked the windows, then drew the faded curtains. With that task done, Natalia finally allowed herself to breathe. The tiny flat was barely furnished. It had a battered sofa, stained coffee table, and a mattress on the floor.
Her duffel bag sat exactly where she'd left it. Her rifle case rested beneath the bed. Everything was left untouched. Natalia shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it onto the sofa before dragging a hand down her face.
She should have been planning her next move.
"You missed on purpose." Alexei's voice echoed through her head with infuriating clarity, low and certain. He didn’t sound accusatory or angry, but as if he'd simply stated a fact.
Natalia squeezed her eyes shut. She could still feel how close he'd been. Natalia could still smell his expensive cologne mixed with gunpowder. They stood near enough that she noticed the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, and saw those impossibly cold blue eyes that hadn't carried fear.
Her mind slipped somewhere else, to ten years earlier. She could still remember the glass exploding around her. The deafening crash still lived inside her bones. She remembered crawling across the floor on trembling hands.
Her palms slid through shattered glass, the sharp edges slicing into her skin. Tiny cuts opened along her forearms, and blood dripped onto the polished floor.
Someone screamed, but she couldn't remember who. Maybe her mother, or her. The room had become smoke and broken furniture. She'd been too terrified to stand, and too young to understand why men with guns had invaded her home.
Then, strong arms wrapped around her small, trembling body.
He held so carefully, like a treasure that would break.
Natalia remembered being lifted effortlessly against a warm chest. She'd buried her face there without thinking, sobbing uncontrollably.
His heartbeat was so strong, and she felt incredibly safe.
A boy's voice whispered into her ear. "It's okay."
His breathing had been uneven from running, but he sounded so confident. "You're safe now."
She remembered clutching his shirt with bloodied fingers and refusing to let go. He had carried her through the wreckage while bullets echoed somewhere outside. She never learned why he'd saved her, but Natalia never forgot his face and those blue eyes.
Natalia's eyes snapped open in the present.
"No." The whispered word sounded harsher than she'd intended.
She yanked both sleeves down instinctively until they covered her wrists. The movement exposed pale white scars that stretched like thin spiderwebs across both forearms before disappearing beneath the fabric again.
They were old wounds and completely healed, and yet every time she looked at them, she remembered the terrified little girl she'd once been. She rubbed at one scar through the sleeve.
Alexei Volkov. The teenage boy who had carried her to safety. The same boy who'd grown into the city's most feared Bratva King. A man whose name inspired whispered conversations, and whose enemies vanished overnight. His reputation was soaked in blood.
He was also her target tonight. The irony tasted bitter. Had he recognized her? No, it was impossible. Back then, she’d been thirteen, covered in blood and terrified. He'd probably met dozens of people over the years. She should have been just another forgotten face.
So why had he looked at her like he'd almost remembered? Her thoughts shattered as her phone vibrated violently across the coffee table. Natalia froze, and the screen lit the dim room. It was an unknown number, except she knew who was calling her.
She recognized the encrypted line immediately, and her stomach sank. Of course, her employer had eyes everywhere. Someone had probably already reported that Alexei Volkov was still breathing. She stared at the screen until the ringing almost stopped.
After taking several deep breaths, she answered. “It’s me.”
"I assume," he said, "there is an explanation as to why Alexei Volkov is still alive?”
Her client kept his tone cold and quiet. It was the kind of voice that never needed to shout to scare people. Natalia walked to the window and peeked through a gap in the curtains. She only saw an empty street.
“Yes,” Natalia answered.
There was momentary silence on the other end.
“I’m still waiting for an explanation,” he said.
"I failed,” she said.
Another pause, and this one was heavier.
"You failed," he repeated.
She kept her voice level. "Volkov escaped."
The explanation rolled effortlessly off her tongue. Ever since she was a child, she’d taught herself to lie.
"You expect me to believe Alexei Volkov managed to escape an efficient assassin like you?”
"He anticipated the shot,” she said.
"You had every advantage,” he reminded her.
Natalia clenched her jaw, knowing he was right. She had the elevation, the distance to make her shot. "I know,” was all she said.
His patience evaporated. "What happened?"
She stared at the cracked windowpane. "He moved."
"You missed,” he said.
"Yes."
"You—" The word dripped with disbelief. "You never miss."
Not intentionally. The thought remained locked safely inside her head. "I'm human."
"I didn't hire human." His voice hardened further. "I hired perfection."
Natalia accepted the criticism without protest. He wasn't wrong. Her reputation had been built over years. She took out her targets in one shot, made no mistakes, and didn’t leave any witnesses.
Clients paid extraordinary amounts because failure simply wasn't part of her vocabulary, until today that was.
"This," her client continued, "is unacceptable and unprofessional.”
“I’m aware,” she said.
"I have already paid half,” he reminded her.
"You'll get your money's worth."
A humorless chuckle. "Will I?"
Natalia closed her eyes briefly. "I had a bad day."
"A bad day,” he said dryly. "You expect me to trust my business to someone having a bad day?"
"No." The admission surprised even her. "I expect you to give me another opportunity, as I’ve worked for your family before and never failed once.” She continued before he could interrupt. "It won't happen again."
The words felt hollow because, privately, she wasn't sure she believed them. Could she really raise a rifle again and place Alexei's face inside her scope?
Could she squeeze the trigger knowing exactly who he was, knowing what he'd once done for her? She didn't know, and that uncertainty frightened her more than any gunfight ever had.
The man on the other end exhaled slowly. "I’m considering hiring someone else."
The words struck harder than she expected. It wasn’t because she'd lose the contract, as Natalia had lost contracts before. She didn’t even care that her reputation would suffer, because she could recover from that.
Something else twisted painfully inside her chest.
Another assassin wouldn’t hesitate, and he or she would place a bullet neatly between Alexei Volkov's eyes without losing a single night's sleep. Natalia swallowed, unsure why the thought bothered her so much.
"I understand,” she finally said.
"You do?"
"Yes." Her voice remained perfectly steady. "If you decide to give me another chance, call me."
Another pause. "I'll think about it."
The line went dead. Natalia lowered the phone slowly. The silence inside the apartment felt enormous. She tossed the phone onto the sofa before sinking onto the edge of the mattress.
For several minutes she simply stared at the opposite wall. Usually, after a failed contract, a professional would plan, gather intelligence, change positions, and study new angles. Failure was merely another problem to solve.
This time, though, none of that mattered. The worst part wasn't the damage to her reputation, and it wasn't losing a wealthy client. Hell, it wasn't even admitting she'd failed. It was Alexei, and she hated that her body remembered him.
Natalia wasn’t thinking of the frightened teenager from years ago, but the man.
Alexei had broad shoulders that stretched the expensive black suit he'd worn with effortless confidence.
She even recalled the powerful lines of his chest beneath crisp fabric, the way strength seemed woven into every movement without becoming arrogance.
His face lingered in her thoughts with irritating persistence. The sharp jaw, the faint scar near his temple, those impossible blue eyes. Eyes that sent the bravest men running, and yet somehow, he’d looked at her without hatred despite the fact she'd tried to kill him.
Natalia remembered standing close enough to feel the heat radiating from him, close enough that if she'd leaned forward even slightly ... Natalia abruptly stood.
"No. Stop thinking about him.”
She paced the apartment. This was ridiculous. Professional assassins didn't get distracted because a target happened to be attractive. They certainly didn't lose sleep over men whose names appeared on contracts.
She'd killed far better people, and far worse people. Natalia had targets she’d pitied and despised, and yet she never gave them a second thought. Alexei, however, refused to leave her mind.
Hell, the thought of another assassin succeeding where she'd failed left an unfamiliar ache beneath her ribs.
She pictured someone watching him through another scope. A finger tightening around another trigger. Alexei collapsing onto cold pavement, blood spreading steadily beneath him. His blue eyes staring sightlessly at the sky.
The image twisted something deep inside her chest. It didn't make any sense.
Until this contract had landed in her hands, she'd never once tried to find him or even considered stepping back into his life.
Whatever debt she'd owed the teenage boy who'd carried her out of that nightmare had remained exactly where she'd buried it, locked away with the rest of her past. Their lives had gone in different directions, and she'd accepted that years ago.
So why, now that someone wanted him dead, did the thought of another assassin pulling the trigger leave such a bitter taste in her mouth?
Her stomach clenched violently. She turned away from the image and pressed both palms against the wall. It didn't make sense, as it had been ten years. He probably didn't even remember rescuing her.
Why would he? To him, she'd been one terrified child among countless tragedies, but to her, Alexei had become the dividing line between two lives. Before Alexei, and after Alexei.
Everything she'd become had started with surviving that night. Business was business. That was the rule she'd lived by. Contracts didn't care about history, and bullets certainly didn't.
Yet somewhere between looking through the scope and standing face-to-face with the man she'd once trusted without question, something inside her had shifted. The question was no longer whether she could complete the contract. It was whether she wanted anyone else to.