Chapter 5
Lev
The shower is scalding. Just the way I like it.
I gave up trying to sleep after the confrontation with Varvara, and now duty calls.
My dick is stuck out in front of me, begging for attention, and I know the only way I’ll be able to focus is if I give it some.
With one hand braced on the tiles, I grip it with the other.
Tugging tightly, I close my eyes and bring Varvara’s face into my mind.
“Fuck,” I grunt and squeeze before increasing the speed.
I’m aching, ready.
I imagine her red lips around my dick, on her knees, those green eyes glaring up at me with that same fury she had in the park, except this time her mouth is full of my cock, and she can’t tell me to fuck off. The thought makes me groan and tug harder.
My fist braces on the wet tiles as I picture dragging her into some dark corner of the club, pressing her against the wall, hiking up that tight black skirt. She’d fight me. Of course she would. All teeth and claws and vicious words until I make her come so hard, she forgets her own name.
“Fucking hell,” I say, stroking faster now.
I imagine the sounds she’d make. Broken and desperate and furious that I’m making her feel so good.
The water pounds down on my shoulders as I work myself harder, chasing the edge. In my mind, she’s soaked and trembling, nails digging into my back while I fuck her against the wall. Her legs wrapped around my waist, her breath hot against my neck, cursing me even as she comes apart.
My cock throbs in my hand. I’m close.
My hand moves faster, rougher. The water pounds against my shoulders, steam filling the bathroom until I can barely see the tiles in front of me. I picture her bent over, that perfect arse in the air.
I imagine gripping her hair, pulling her head back, feeling her cunt clench around me as she screams my name.
The orgasm hits hard and sudden.
I open my eyes and see my cum splashing against the tiles as my cock pumps out enough to flood her.
For a few seconds, I just stand there, breathing hard, staring at it sliding down the black tiles.
That should have helped. It doesn’t.
I still want her. More than before, somehow.
“Fuck,” I say and reach for the sponge and soap. I wash off thoroughly, my cock still semi-hard, poised and ready for her cunt to slide on it. “Get a fucking grip,” I grunt and focus.
Nathaniel Mercer.
Right.
Turning the shower off, I grab a towel and dry off quickly. I need to get dressed and get on with the actual job Baron gave me instead of jerking off over a woman who probably thinks I’m a stalker.
Which, to be fair, isn’t entirely inaccurate.
I wrap the towel around my waist and head into the navy blue bedroom of my Mayfair mansion and pull open the wardrobe.
I select a dark grey Tom Ford suit and a crisp white shirt.
I pull on the pants and the shirt, leaving it unbuttoned while I sort my hair with my fingers into a spiky, casual mess that looks better than if I tried to style it.
Opening the top drawer of the dresser, I take out the Patek Philippe watch and put it on before buttoning up my shirt and cuffs.
I slide the shoulder holster on and check my Glock before sliding it into place.
The weight is familiar, comforting. I shrug into the suit jacket and adjust it until everything sits properly.
I finish dressing and grab my phone from the bedside table, checking for messages. Nothing urgent.
I head downstairs, taking the marble steps two at a time. My house manager, Pyotr, appears in the hallway with coffee already prepared.
“Afternoon, sir,” he says, handing me the cup.
I take it and drain half in one go. “I’ll be in my office for an hour and then out until later.”
“Shall I prepare dinner?”
“No. I’ll eat out.”
He nods and disappears back towards the kitchen while I head for my office. I close the door and lock it before moving across to the bank of screens that are running real-time data across the internet, scraping for the name Nathaniel Mercer.
This is why Baron gave me this job. All that talk about intelligence wasn’t really about being smart.
It was about knowing how to code an array of computers to do your bidding.
Six screens, each one running a different search algorithm I coded specifically for Mercer after my run-in with Varvara and before I tried to sleep.
Financial transactions, public records, CCTV access points, social media scrapes, mobile phone tracking triangulation, and one dedicated to cross-referencing encrypted communications.
Boring as fuck, but effective.
The data streams in, and I sit at my desk to scan through flagged entries, looking for anything that doesn’t fit the squeaky-clean profile Baron handed me.
Nathaniel Mercer’s bank transactions scroll past. Direct debits. Mortgage payment. Sainsbury’s. Tesco. M&S. Council tax. Water bill. Electric. The man lives like a spreadsheet.
I pull up his phone records next. Calls to his wife. Calls to work. Calls to his mum on Sundays. Christ, he even calls his mother-in-law every other Thursday. I pause and wonder if that is suspicious enough behaviour to warrant a deeper dive. I make notes.
His location data shows the same pattern that Baron’s file outlined. The routine is so predictable it practically begs to be exploited.
I lean back in my chair and stare at the screens. This level of predictability is going to become an issue. There is nothing so far that is screaming, ‘use me as leverage’.
I pull up the encrypted communications feed. Nothing flagged yet, but the algorithm is still working through backlog data. I set it to alert me if anything unusual pops up and switch to the CCTV access from the house across from Mercer’s.
The red flag is already there, and I’m instantly alert.
Just after midnight seven weeks ago, a dark sedan pulled up outside his house. I zoom in on the licence plate. The algorithm flags it instantly—rental car, paid cash, false name on the registration. Professional work.
A man gets out. I enhance the image as much as I can without losing clarity. Mid-thirties, dark clothing, cap pulled low. He walks up to Mercer’s door. Doesn’t knock. Doesn’t ring the bell. Just appears to post something through the letterbox.
Then he leaves.
Same car. Same deliberate movements. Gone in under a minute.
I pull up Mercer’s own home CCTV, which so far has nothing flagged.
As I cross-reference the date and time, I get nothing.
Literally a blank screen. Deleted.
Narrowing my eyes, I acknowledge that the system has an error and recode it to flag anything that is deleted or skipped.
It restarts and flashes through data it’s already dismissed.
It doesn’t pick up anything else while I sit here watching it, so I lean back in my chair and ponder the midnight visit.
Clearly dodgy enough that Mercer deleted it from his own CCTV, but didn’t know the house opposite has CCTV installed, which is very negligent on his part.
Either that or he didn’t even think to do it.
I need to know what was in that envelope.
I pull up the algorithm that tracks Mercer’s digital footprint and set it to flag any correspondence around that date. Bank statements, emails, texts, anything that might give me a clue.
While that runs, I switch back to the rental car. I run the plate through my network of contacts—the kind who don’t ask questions and don’t remember my name. Ten minutes later, I get a hit. The car was returned to a depot in East London the next morning.
I sit back and drum my fingers on the desk. Mercer deletes his own CCTV footage of a midnight visitor who takes professional precautions. That’s not the behaviour of an honest man. That’s the behaviour of a man with something to hide.
I save the footage to a separate drive and encrypt it, because if there is one thing I trust less than a copper with a clean mortgage, it is digital evidence left in one place.
Then I get to work properly.
I trace the rental through the depot. Two cameras inside. One on the gate. One half-dead thing above the office door that looks like it was installed when Blair was in government. I pull the return footage and scrub through it frame by frame.
Same car.
Same cap.
Same careful body language.
He pulls in at six fourteen, gets out, hands over the keys, signs whatever fake name he used, and leaves on foot. Better and better. He knew enough to avoid a second paper trail. He also kept his head down the entire time, which tells me he is either very experienced or very paranoid.
Probably both.
I isolate the signature from the paperwork camera and enlarge it. Meaningless scribble. Deliberate. I run facial enhancement anyway, even though I already know it will give me fuck-all. Cap brim. Collar up. Chin tucked. Professional enough to be annoying.
My email pings.
The digital footprint search has found one thing around the date of the envelope. Not an email, a text. It just says: paid.
That’s it. Nothing else.
The number it was sent to is dead, a burner.
I stare at the screen for a moment, then smile.
Paid.
Honest men don’t get midnight visits from professionals in hired cars, delete their own CCTV, and send one-word texts to burners. Honest men definitely don’t do all three in the same twelve-hour window.
“Well, Nathaniel,” I say, saving the text data into the same encrypted file as the footage. “You boring, sanctimonious bastard.”
I turn in my chair, and I’m surprised to see it’s evening. I’ve worked past the hour I told Pyotr I’d be.
Getting up from the chair, I pick up my phone and unlock the door. Pyotr appears with my keys and a nod.
I take them with a smile. He knows me too well.
Work for Baron is underway, and I’m getting somewhere that isn’t altogether boring, but now it’s time to play.
Chyornyy Barkhat, Black Velvet, is a short drive from here.
I already know Varvara is working tonight, so I intend to go and make a nuisance of myself, and hope she doesn’t knee me in the balls or temporarily blind me with pepper spray.
By the time I pull up outside, London is wearing its usual expensive lie.
Soft lights. Black cars. Men on the door pretending they are civilised because their jackets fit properly.
I wave the valet away and walk in without breaking stride.
The club swallows me at once. Bass under my feet. Gold light catches on bottles. Low conversation wrapped around money, entitlement, and people wanting something they probably shouldn’t have. Half the room shifts as I enter, without looking like it has.
Recognition.
Caution.
I take the slow route through the main floor, scanning automatically, and then I see her.
Varvara stands near the bar with a tablet in one hand and a tray tucked under her arm, dark hair pinned up again, mouth set in that annoyed line I already find far too sexy.
A man says something to her. She gives him a flat look that should have turned him to ash, then writes something on the tablet.
He moves on, but I stay still, watching her fill the tray, move through the crowd.
I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket, and I pull it out absently.
It’s Baron.
Anyone else, I would ignore, but I’m not a stupid man.
Moving quickly back outside, where I can at least hear myself think, I answer. “Yes, Pakhan.”
“Where are you?”
“Chyornyy Barkhat.”
A pause. “A stroke of luck. That’s exactly where I need you. A dead drop is happening there tonight. Unrelated to Mercer, that is taking a back seat right now.”
“Okay, dead drop to who?”
“Unconfirmed. The man you are looking for is handing off information to his handler about operations in Canary Wharf. Blonde, smug—a face you want to punch—about six one or two.”
“And the handler?”
“That’s who you need to get. Leave the dropper. We want the handler.”
“Okay, dead or alive?”
“Dead. No questions, no messing about in your usual playful way. Dead. Do you hear me, Lev?”
“Dead. Got it. And obviously, you want the information.”
“Don’t ask stupid questions. Find the dropper, follow his movements, witness the drop and take the handler.”
“Understood. Do you want me to go back for the dropper?”
“No, he is a useful idiot for now. Leave him to make the same mistake twice.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone for a second, then slide it back into my pocket and head inside.
Work first. Obsession later.
At least this is vastly more interesting than the Mercer case. This is where I live.
I step back into the gold-lit buzz of the club and let the noise hit me.
Bass. Laughter. Glassware. A hundred meaningless conversations hiding one that matters.
I slow my pace and switch focus. Blonde, smug, six one or two, a face I want to punch.
Useful description, that. Half of Mayfair qualifies.
I move through the crowd without looking hurried. Men notice me and then decide not to. Women do the opposite. None of them matter.
Varvara passes three feet in front of me with a tray of drinks balanced on one hand. She doesn’t even look in my direction.
Good. The last thing I need is another confrontation with her about me stalking her, even though I am.
I scan the bar area first. Then the booths.
Then the private corridor. I spot him near the far end of the room by the champagne display, speaking to a brunette in silver.
Tall, but still shorter than me. Blond. Face full of self-regard.
He laughs at something she says and checks his watch straight after. Impatient. Waiting.
I keep my eyes on him. He glances around, and I move around the perimeter so that I’m not a stationary target for his eyes to land on. He checks his watch again, and moves, ditching the woman who stares after him in disbelief.
He isn’t looking anywhere in particular. Eyes left, right, centre.
I move closer, needing to know who he is delivering the drop to.
He slices through the crowd sideways, and then his hand goes into his pocket. He bumps into one of the hostesses carrying a tray of drinks, and she steadies it with one hand.
That’s the drop.
“Fucking hell,” I say as I see who he targeted. “Fucking kidding me.” Varvara.
She looks over her shoulder as the guy moves away, and I hesitate, shoving a hand through my hair.
“Fuck.”