Chapter 5
Maksim
The pit stinks of sweat, smoke, and spilled blood.
Fists fly. Teeth crack.
A man hits the mat and doesn’t get up.
The crowd goes wild—sick bastards foaming over someone else’s brain damage.
I don’t move.
I’m not here for the entertainment. I’m here because my cousin Vasilisa is gone. Eight years old. Last seen in her own front yard.
Her spineless father got a call earlier—voice scrambled, message simple:
“Pay the price, and we’ll return your daughter.”
Return.
Like a fucking package.
My jaw clenches so hard I taste blood. I haven’t said a word since I found out. If I open my mouth, I’ll kill someone.
And not in a way that solves the problem.
The Armenians run this place. They take bets, break bones, and move girls through the back like product. Everyone knows. No one says a fucking thing.
But I’m not here to place a bet.
I’m here to confirm a suspicion.
Angelo Amato’s beside me, bouncing on the balls of his feet, trying too hard to look like he belongs.
He doesn’t.
Not really.
He’s good with a gun. Better with a plan. But this place has a stink only I know how to wear.
I elbow him.
He glances at me.
I jerk my head toward the corridor. “Let’s go.”
The crowd noise fades as we move deeper into the belly of the beast. Concrete walls. Fluorescents that flicker like they’re afraid. Everything smells like mold and fear. We pass two men with crates. They don’t look at us.
Good.
The hallway forks. Left leads to supply. Right—to something worse. I know where we’re going. I’ve heard the rumors. Got good intel from a grunt I beat shitless. I open the door.
Cages.
Fucking cages.
Six. Maybe seven. Girls. Huddled. Hollow-eyed. Skin hanging off bones. A few don’t even look up when the door opens. One of them blinks at me like I’m not real. My fingers curl before I realize I’ve made fists. Angelo exhales beside me—sharp, disgusted.
“Holy shit,” he breathes. “We need to call someone.”
“Who?” I snap. “The police?”
I shake my head.
Coward. Fucking Amato.
He glares. “Our fathers.”
“No.” I step forward. “You want to run to your father, or do you want to prove you don’t need him?”
I turn to face him full. “We handle it.”
Angelo hesitates before finally nodding.
“Alright,” he says quietly.
“Good, we come back later tonight. Then, we burn this shit to the ground.”
***
Screams echo in the dark.
Metal groans.
Smoke curls under the rafters.
Girls pour out the back, shepherded by two of my closest friends willing to help. Their eyes are wide, stunned. But they’re running.
The fire catches fast. This place was built to rot. Angelo stands beside me, sweat dripping from his neck, breathing hard. We watch the flames chew through the roof. And then he freezes. Seeing or hearing something I don’t.
“Wait—” he says. “Is someone still inside?”
I follow his gaze.
A figure. Half-hidden in smoke. Not moving.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Let’s go.”
The heat punches me in the chest the second we cross the threshold.
It’s wrong in here— too hot, too loud, too alive for a place that’s about to die. Smoke claws down my throat. My eyes sting, vision warping as the flames lick higher along the walls. The air tastes like burning oil and rot and something metallic underneath it all.
We move fast.
A shape slumped against the far wall catches Angelo’s eye first.
“There—” he starts.
I’m already following.
The body’s half-burned, clothes fused to skin, face ruined beyond recognition. Fire ate him unevenly, like it got bored halfway through. His chest is still. Too still.
But a tattoo I know well is half visible around his ruined skin.
Vartan Sarkisian. Head of the Armenian gang.
I crouch, close enough that the heat bites into my knees. My hand comes up automatically, shielding my eyes as I lean in.
That’s when I see it.
A hole.
Small. Perfect. Centered right between what used to be his eyebrows.
A gunshot.
Clean. Precise.
Execution.
The fire didn’t kill him. Someone did. My pulse kicks hard, once—sharp, dangerous, but my face doesn’t change. I straighten just as Angelo steps closer.
“Is he—?” Angelo swallows. “Is that Vartan?”
“Yeah,” I say, voice flat. “He’s dead.”
That’s all he needs to know.
Behind us, something moves. A sound—wet, broken.
Angelo spins. “Shit, someone’s alive.”
I turn slower.
A figure barely holding together. Skin blackened, blistered, pulled tight over muscle. His breathing comes in shallow, rattling pulls, like every inhale is a fight he’s losing.
Arsen.
Vartan’s son.
My age.
I recognize the shape of him even through the burns.
Angelo steps forward. “Did we miss one of the girls? Did we—”
“No,” I snap, sharper than I mean to. “It’s not one of them.”
The smoke thickens, rolling low now, hungry. Sirens scream somewhere outside—too close.
Way too close.
I grab Angelo by the shoulder.
“Go.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t want to hear it. Like something in his gut knows this isn’t finished.
“Maks—”
“GO,” I shout, the word tearing out of my chest. “NOW.”
The ceiling groans overhead. A beam cracks.
That’s what finally does it.
Angelo backs away, eyes locked on mine for half a second longer than necessary—then he turns and runs.
Good.
He doesn’t need to know this fire was already a crime scene before we lit the match. That knowledge stays with me. I crouch beside Arsen. He groans again, fingers twitching in the ash.
I could leave him.
Let the fire finish it.
Let fate clean up the mess.
But Vartan’s lying dead with a bullet in his skull. Which means Arsen pulled the trigger. Killed his own father.
Maybe to stop him.
Maybe to save the girls.
Maybe because he finally realized what kind of monster his father was.
Doesn’t matter.
I grab him under the arms and drag. His weight is dead and wrong, skin sticking to my jacket where it’s burned through. Every step back toward the door scorches my lungs. My vision spots black at the edges.
Outside, the cold slams into me like mercy.
I haul him another few yards and dump him into a snowbank. He barely reacts. Just breathes. Barely.
That’s all he gets.
I don’t stay to watch.
I run.
Over the fence. Across the lot. My bike is where I left it, engine cold but ready. I swing on, kick it to life, and tear off just as red and blue lights cut through the smoke behind me.
The warehouse burns. The girls are gone.
Safe.
Vartan is dead.
A Win.
And now, Amato just has to keep his mouth shut.