Chapter 10 Daniil
DANIIL
The call comes just after three in the morning. Lex's voice is clipped, stripped of anything unnecessary. “One of ours is gone.”
I’m already on my feet before the words finish leaving his mouth. “Which one?”
“South River hub.”
I stop for a fraction of a second. That hub isn't just another warehouse.
It's one of the primary arteries in the network.
Legal shipments occur during daylight hours, while Bratva-controlled consignments take place after midnight.
Thousands of pounds of cargo move through it every week, under customs noses that have been paid to stay shut.
“How bad?” I question.
“Gone,” Lex repeats, his voice like flint grinding against stone. “Explosion. Military-grade.”
I pull on my clothes, hands moving on instinct, then check the gun at my hip and chamber a round. “How many?”
“Two confirmed dead. Others injured.” Lex pauses, then, “We're still digging.”
The words ignite a fire inside me that burns cold instead of hot. Two men gone. Men I knew by name, who had stood before me and sworn loyalty, now reduced to blood and fragments in the dirt.
When I step out into the hallway, Maksim is already there, pacing like a panther on the edge of a leap. His eyes are bright with adrenaline. Timur looms beside him, silent but ready.
“The trucks are waiting,” Maksim reports.
We pile into the convoy without another word.
The city streets are mostly empty, the darkness stretching wide between the streetlamps.
Every red light is a target to be ignored, every empty intersection a brief flash of tires screaming against asphalt.
No one utters a single word until the smell hits us, thick and acrid, even through the closed windows.
Smoke, burning chemicals, and scorched metal.
When we round the final corner, the scene unfolds in chaotic fragments under the glare of floodlights.
The south wall of the warehouse is gone, blown outward in jagged teeth of steel and concrete.
Flames lick at the collapsed roof beams, stubborn even under the spray of the fire hoses.
Emergency vehicles cluster along the perimeter, lights spinning against the night like warnings in blood.
My men are everywhere hauling debris, dragging hoses, and shouting orders, but their faces are tight with strain. I get out before the truck fully stops.
“Pakhan,” Roman tries to intercept me, but I push past him.
The heat is immediate, baking the skin along my face.
The smell of cooked metal is so strong I can taste it.
I move toward what's left of the entry bay, my boots crunching over glass and blackened fragments of shipping crates.
Somewhere to my left, a man groans. Another curses in Russian, sharp with grief.
Two bodies lie under tarps near the far corner.
I don't need to see their faces to know who they are.
The shape of the shoulders, the boots still on their feet. They're my men.
Lex comes up beside me, his shirt streaked with ash. “Surveillance feed is still running off the backup system. I pulled it before the fire reached the servers.”
I nod once. “Show me.”
We step into what remains of the security office. Half the monitors are dark, their screens spiderwebbed with cracks, but one still flickers with grainy black-and-white footage.
The feed shows the loading dock at 2:14 AM. A delivery truck pulls in. There is nothing unusual until the rear doors swing open and four masked men spill out. They move with singular focus, each carrying a black case. No wasted motion or hesitation.
“Charges,” Lex murmurs quietly. “Shaped, directional. Same signature as the Dunkirk port hit last year.”
Lucien.
The men in the video work fast, planting the devices along the main support beams, then retreating in the exact order they entered. The first explosion detonates precisely eighty seconds later. The screen flares white, then goes black. This wasn't just sabotage. It was a message.
I step back out into the open air, where the smoke curls higher against the night.
My men glance up as I pass, but they don't stop working.
I kneel beside one of the collapsed steel beams, gripping it with both hands, and heave.
The muscles in my shoulders burn, my palms scrape against the twisted metal, but I keep going until the debris yields enough for Timur and Maksim to drag out the crushed remains of a cargo crate.
Inside is nothing but splintered wood and scorched packing material. But wedged in the corner, blackened and warped, is a plaque. I pick it up, the edges still hot enough to sting. The engraved letters are almost gone, but I know them by heart: Obsidian Vault International.
Lucien didn't just want to cripple my operations. He wanted me to see this. To understand that he can reach into the core of my empire, twist it in his hands, and throw it back at me in pieces. I close my fist around the fragment until my knuckles whiten.
“Pakhan?” Lex probes.
“He thinks this will make me hesitate,” I declare. “It won't.”
The night stretches on with the sound of generators and shouted orders, of beams being cut apart, and rubble being moved piece by piece.
I don't leave. I dig until my shoulders ache, and my lungs burn from the smoke.
Because if my men can stay here until the dead are recovered and the wounded moved, then so will I.
And when the last ember dies, when the last body is taken away, I will decide how to answer Lucien Antonov.
And I will make sure it's something he doesn't survive.
We're back at the estate before the sun comes up. The convoy rolls past the iron gates, the engines ticking as they cool, and my men getting out slowly, like every step pains them. Smoke clings to my clothes, and it'll be days before it lets go.
I don't send anyone to shower. I don't dismiss them.
I take them straight to my office. Lex stands to my right, his jaw locked.
Timur is all stone and bad weather. Roman keeps to the edge, his eyes on the doors and windows as if a scope sits between him and the world by default.
Maksim paces until I look at him once sharply, then he stops.
No one utters a word. They're waiting for me to begin. I place the burned fragment of the plaque on the table. Lucien's calling card. It makes a clinking sound when it lands.
“Final count,” I demand.
“Two confirmed dead. Sergei and Anton.” Lex answers. “Four wounded. Three stable. One critical.” He pauses, dragging his hand down his face.
I nod once. The gesture tastes like failure.
“I sent the families your words and what’s owed,” Lex adds.
I nod. Compensation packages will be delivered to the families within the hour. Money can't bring back the dead, but it can ensure their families don't suffer twice.
Sergei had three children. Twin boys, barely eight years old, and a daughter who just turned five. Anton was unmarried but sent half his earnings back to his mother in Perm. Good men. Loyal. They trusted me to keep them alive.
The silence is filled with unspoken rage and grief. These walls have witnessed countless meetings and decisions that determined who lived and who died. But never like this.
“The wounded?” I ask.
“Pavel took shrapnel to the leg. Doctors expect full recovery. Dmitri has burns on his arms and chest, second-degree. He'll be out for weeks. Igor suffered a concussion and some internal bleeding.” Lex's jaw tightens. “Yuki is the critical one. Collapsed lung, and internal injuries. Touch and go.”
Each name hits like another strike to the ribs. These aren't just statistics or casualties of war. They're men who've shared vodka at my table, who've stood guard during family gatherings, and who've bled for the Zorin name because they believed in something larger than themselves.
I lean back in my chair, the leather creaking under the strain of my body. The fragment of the plaque sits before me. Lucien's message is clear. He can strike anywhere, anytime. But messages run both ways.
“Double security on all remaining facilities,” I order. “I want armed patrols, surveillance upgrades, and random inspections. Anyone who isn't one of ours doesn't get within a hundred yards.”
“Da,” Lex confirms. “Nikolai is coordinating with our contacts in the police department. Any unusual activity gets reported directly to us.”
“What about the cargo?”
“Twelve million in losses,” Timur rumbles, his first words since we returned. “Three shipments of legitimate artwork bound for European collectors. Two crates of less legitimate materials heading to Montreal. All destroyed.”
The legitimate losses hurt, but they're replaceable. The other cargo represents months of careful planning. These connections took years to establish, and trust that can't be rebuilt overnight. Lucien didn't just attack a building. He attacked the foundation of everything I've built.
“He's testing our response time,” I observe. “Wants to see how we regroup, and where we're vulnerable.”
“There's more,” Roman adds, pulling a tablet from his jacket. “I found this embedded in the debris near the main entrance.”
He slides the device across the desk. The screen shows a single image: a black and white photograph of the warehouse, taken from an elevated position. But it's not the timing that locks the air in my lungs. It's what's written across the bottom in precise, elegant script: For old times' sake.
Lucien documented his handiwork like a tourist taking pictures at a landmark. The arrogance of it, and the casual cruelty, reminds me exactly who I'm dealing with. This isn't Viktor's impulsive rage or some rival family's territorial dispute. This is personal.