Chapter 9
Sofiya
SONG: RUN RABBIT BY ALT BLK ERA
The next delivery is routine until it isn't. Aleksandr sends me to a warehouse on the East Side, neutral territory, where deals happen in the shadows and everyone pretends not to notice the blood staining concrete floors.
I'm carrying another USB drive. More blackmail material, probably.
More leverage in the endless game of control the Pakhan plays with his people.
I’m wearing black jeans tonight, with a light sweater that is uncomfortable in the smoggy heat of the city but will keep my arms protected if I run into trouble.
My boots have good traction steel toes, should the need arise.
My usual attire would draw too much attention here, where the women present are either working or working, if you catch the distinction.
The warehouse smells like rust and old fear while the industrial lights cast everything in sickly yellow, the kind that makes everyone look jaundiced, guilty, already dead.
Three men wait near a card table, smoking and playing a game with dice that involves more cursing than actual rules. The tallest one looks up when I enter.
Igor.
Ten years older, gray threads through his hair now with lines around his mouth from too many cigarettes and not enough remorse. But unmistakably him. The hands that held me down while Anatoly carved into my back. The voice that told me I was getting what I deserved.
My entire body goes rigid, and every instinct screams at me to run or fight or do something besides stand here like a deer in headlights.
But I've trained for this. Prepared for the moment when I'd face them again.
The breathing exercises, the compartmentalization, the ability to bury emotion so deep it can't interfere with action , it all serves its purpose in this moment.
I smile, a soft, uncertain one. Everything he'd expect from a woman alone in a warehouse with three armed men. "Delivery," I say, holding up the drive like an offering.
Igor's eyes travel over me, slowly assessing. The kind of look that makes my skin crawl. The kind that makes you want to shower in bleach and fire. Every single woman in the world knows this look.
"Aleksandr's new girl?" His voice is rougher than I remember. Cheap liquor and cigarettes have weathered it.
"Da."
He gestures to the table. "Put it down. Then stay, have a drink with us." He laughs at his companions.
Not a true request.
I walk forward and set the drive on the table, my hand trembling slightly—not from fear, from the effort of not reaching for the knife strapped to my ankle. Not yet. Not here. Too many witnesses. Too many variables I can't control.
"I should get back," I say.
"Aleksandr can wait." Igor pours vodka into a plastic cup before handing it to me. "Drink. It's rude to refuse."
The other two men watch with interest that makes my stomach turn. They're wondering if Igor will share. If I'll resist. What entertainment my fear might provide.
I take the cup and sip. The vodka burns—cheap shit that tastes like regret and bad decisions.
"Good girl," Igor says. His hand finds my waist, pulling me closer. "You're prettier than the usual messengers. Aleksandr has good taste."
His touch feels like insects crawling on my skin, like desert sand grinding into open wounds. Like every nightmare I've had for ten years condensed into one moment of contact. I force myself not to flinch. Not to react. Just smile and sip vodka and let him think I'm harmless.
"You're so big," I lie, he’s barely taller than me. I let my voice go breathy. "So strong." Vanity is every man's weakness. Igor's especially.
His grip tightens possessively. "You think so?"
"Mm." I lean closer, letting my lips brush his ear. "Want to go somewhere private? These others...they're watching." I can feel him getting hard against my hip. Disgusting. Predictable.
"There's an office in back," he says, already moving and thinking with the wrong head. Eagerly making the mistake that will cost him everything.
The other men laugh and make crude comments in Russian about what Igor's going to do to me. How lucky he is and how they want a turn after.
They won't get one.
Igor leads me through the warehouse, past crates stacked with what looks like packages of children’s toys.
I know they’re actually stuffed with cocaine.
We pass rusted machinery that probably hasn't worked in decades to a small office with a metal desk and a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.
He locks the door behind us after entering.
Mistake number two.
"Come here," he says, unbuckling his belt.
I walk toward him slowly, hips swaying, playing the role he expects. I get close enough he can smell my perfume and reach for me with both hands.
Close enough to strike.
My knee drives into his groin with every pound of force I can generate. All those hours at the gym, all that training, all that rage condensed into one perfect point of impact.
He doubles over, gasping, surprised as much as hurt. Thankfully I’ve knocked the wind out of him and he’s not calling for help.
I don't give him time to recover. The knife comes out of my boot—small, wickedly sharp, and perfectly balanced for throwing or cutting.
I don't throw it. This needs to be personal.
Intimate. The kind of violence you can only deliver when you're close enough to count someone's eyelashes.
I grab his hair, yanking his head back, and look into his eyes, making sure he sees me.
Really sees me. "Remember the desert?" I ask. "Remember Yelena?"
Recognition flares. Then fear. Beautiful, satisfying fear.
"No," he chokes out. "You're…you died …"
“I begged you to stop,” I say, moving the hand with the knife forward.
The knife enters below his ribs, angled upward, seeking vital organs with the precision of someone who's studied anatomy like scripture.
Who knows exactly where to cut to cause maximum damage while keeping someone conscious as long as possible.
He screams, well, tries to , but I clamp my other hand over his mouth, muffling the sound to a whimper.
"Shh," I whisper. "No one will care if they hear you.
" I repeat the same words he said to me back at him. I twist the blade and feel it scrape against bone. Against the soft resistance of liver and intestine as it cuts through. The body is remarkably fragile when you know where to apply pressure. Blood pours over my hand , hot and slick, darker than I expected. I’m grateful I wore black today, something inside of me knew this would happen.
His legs give out, but I hold him up, keeping him vertical, and my eyes locked with his.
"You carved an X into my back," I say through gritted teeth. " You raped me. You, Anatoly, and Ivan. You took turns. Do you remember?"
He's trying to speak, but blood bubbles form at his lips. Pop. Reform. I pull the knife out, and he gasps. The wound is catastrophic but not immediately fatal. He'll have a few long, agonizing minutes.
"I remember everything," I continue. "Every cut.
Every laugh. Every time you told me I deserved it.
" I drive the knife into his thigh. Femoral artery.
Blood sprays across the concrete floor in rhythmic pulses.
His heartbeat made visible. He's still trying to fight, hands scrabbling at my sweater, but he’s weak, ineffective.
The strength draining out of him with every beat of his failing heart, the blood pouring out of his arteries with every beat like a countdown.
I step back, watching him collapse. I continue staring into his eyes, watching as they dim like someone slowly turning down a dial.
"You don't deserve death this quick," I tell him.
"But I don't have time for slow. Consider yourself lucky.
" The knife finds his throat , and I make a quick slash, the kind that severs the carotid and windpipe in one motion.
Blood is everywhere now, pooling on the floor and soaking into my boots.
Spattering the walls in abstract patterns that would be beautiful if they weren't made of death.
Igor's mouth works, trying to speak, to beg , but only wet gurgling sounds emerge. His hands press against his throat like he can keep himself together through sheer will. He can't.
I watch him die. Count the seconds and memorize the way his pupils dilate. The way his skin goes gray. The exact moment when the person becomes a body. Thirty-seven seconds from throat cut to complete stillness. I committed every one to memory.
The thrill hits like a drug. Pure. Intoxicating. Electric. This is what I've been training for. What I've been living for. The moment when one of them pays for what they did. But underneath the thrill, something else. Something darker and more complicated.
Guilt.
Not for Igor. He earned this death. Deserved worse. But guilt for the girl I was who begged for mercy and got none. Guilt that killing him doesn't bring her back. Doesn't heal the scars. Doesn't make the nightmares stop.
Revenge tastes like victory and ashes at the same time.
I clean the knife on Igor's shirt. My hands are steady, but I expected them to shake. Expected some physical manifestation of the line I've just crossed. But nothing comes. Then door opens behind me.
I spin. Knife raised. Volk stands in the doorway. He takes in the scene with one sweeping glance. The body. The blood. Me, standing in the center of it all like some vengeful goddess made flesh.
"We need to go," he says. Calm, like this is routine. "Now."
"How did you—"
"Later. Move." His hand closes around my wrist, and he pulls me toward the door. I resist for a heartbeat , for one last look at Igor's corpse and the physical proof of my revenge. Then I'm running.
Volk leads me through the warehouse. It’s a different route than I entered, toward a back exit I didn't know existed. His hand never leaves my wrist, anchoring me and keeping me moving when shock threatens to freeze me in place.
Outside, the night air hits like a slap. Cool after the warehouse heat. Clean after the copper stench of blood. His car waits in the alley, engine running and driver's side door open.
"Get in," Volk orders.
I do, and he's behind the wheel before I can shut my door, pulling away from the warehouse.
"They'll find him soon," I say. My voice sounds strange. Disconnected. Like it's coming from someone else's mouth.
"Not as soon as you think. I bought us time."
"How?"
"The other two men. They're... indisposed."
I look at him. Really look. His knuckles are bruised , and there’s fresh blood on his collar. Not his own.
"You killed them?"
"No, just made sure they'll sleep for a few hours. Long enough for us to get out undetected."
Us. The word carries weight.
"Where are we going?"
"My place. You need to clean up and change clothes. And we need to establish your alibi."
My alibi. Right. Because I just committed murder. Because the Bratva will tear Phoenix apart looking for Igor's killer. Because I'm now a target in ways I wasn't before.
The thrill is fading. Reality settling in.
Volk reaches over, taking my hand. His palm is warm. Solid. Real in a way nothing else feels right now. "Breathe," he says. "You did what you had to do."
"I killed him."
"Yes." He doesn’t say anything else, and it's exactly what I need.
"I've been planning it…and now that it's done I don't…I don’t know—" My voice breaks. "I don't know how I feel."
"That's normal."
"How would you know?" I regret the question as soon as I ask it. If anyone knows, he does.
His jaw tightens , eyes fixed on the road. "I think you know how. The first time you cross that line, the first time you take a life , it changes you."
"I'm already changed. The desert changed me." It’s the first time I’ve mentioned what happened.
"This is different. This was your choice. Your hand. Your knife. There's no going back from this."
I know. God, I know. The weight of it settles over me like a shroud.
We drive in silence. Phoenix slides past outside the windows as normal people do normal things. Going to dinner, seeing a movie, living lives that don't include murder and revenge. That doesn't include the crushing weight of choices that can't be unmade.