His Hidden Heir (Kings of the Underworld #2)

PROLOGUE

RAINA

The room is too predictable for the kind of man I’m here to meet. White tile. Metal table. Four men with guns at the walls. One camera in the corner.

Sergei Baranov sits at the head of the table.

I’ve never seen him in person, only in grainy photos and news clips that never say his name. Every image I saw felt distant. This isn’t.

He’s in a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled once, strong wrists bare, suit jacket over the back of his chair. No watch. No ring. Short dark hair, grey at the temples. His eyes move the way the city whispers about—careful, slow, never missing a thing.

He looks at my laptop bag before he looks at my face.

“You’re Raina Mirova,” he says.

His Russian is clean and low. It carries even when he doesn’t raise his voice.

“Yes,” I say. “You’re late.”

One of the guards shifts. His hand tightens on his gun. I hear the breath he takes, ready to speak.

Sergei lifts two fingers.

The guard falls quiet.

“You’re not,” Sergei says. “Good.”

He nods at the chair opposite him.

“Sit.”

I sit. My palms are damp, but my fingers don’t shake when I pull my laptop out. I plug in the small encrypted drive his runner brought to my hostel an hour ago. Plain plastic, no mark. I already checked it for tricks on the metro.

Sergei watches my hands.

“You checked the drive,” he says.

“Of course I did,” I say.

“You find any gifts on it?” he asks.

“Nothing that scared me,” I answer. “Nothing that impressed me either.”

The corner of his mouth moves. It’s not a smile, but it isn’t nothing.

“You read the brief?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “You want me to test your walls. See if anyone is walking in and out of your systems. You want to know if the stories are true.”

“What stories?” he asks.

“The ones that say you built half your empire in Kaliningrad, and the other half in the city’s blind spots,” I say. “And that someone you trained is now carving along those same lines and not reporting in.”

He leans back in his chair, slow and easy.

“And what do they call this someone?” he asks.

“The Courier,” I say.

The guards don’t move, but the room tightens. The word lands and stays.

I open the directory on my screen. Logs. Camera feeds. Short internal notes. Most labels are stripped. The structure is clumsy at first glance, then neat once I follow the pattern.

“You brought me copies,” I say. “Not live access.”

“You haven’t earned live access,” he says.

“Yet,” I say.

His gaze snaps back to my face. Sharp. Interested.

“You’re quick,” he says.

“You didn’t bring me here because I’m slow.”

He huffs out a short sound. It might be a laugh. Might not.

“Tell me something I don’t already know,” he says. “Start with the Kaliningrad archive.”

I click open the folder tagged with the port name. A list fills the screen. Coordinates. Dates. Photos. Brief notes. Each line ends with the same word.

COURIER.

“You used to own him,” I say.

His eyes narrow a fraction.

“He worked for your structure in the old warehouse wars,” I continue. “You sent him to remove problems quietly, send proof, then vanish. He did that well.”

“You can see that from a list?” he asks.

“From the gaps around the list,” I say.

I sort the entries by date.

“His jobs line up with your biggest pushes,” I say. “Every time you moved on a corner or a dock, he cleared something first. A witness. A rival. A leak. Whatever it was, it kept your name clean.”

He stands very still.

“Until?” he asks.

“Until the pattern breaks,” I say. “The last six entries don’t match your moves. Same method. Same tag. Different targets. No clear benefit to you.”

I scroll.

“No payment trail, either,” I add. “Whatever he got for those, it didn’t pass through your usual routes.”

“You’re sure?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“How?” he asks.

“Because I spent the last week in a cafe basement pulling what I could from open records and rumors,” I say. “Then your runner handed me this drive and it matched too well. You built a ghost, and now it walks on its own.”

The room holds its breath. He watches me, heavy and thoughtful.

“You’re not afraid to say that,” he says.

“I’m already in your house,” I say. “If you don’t like what I say, I won’t make it to the tram. So I might as well be useful.”

Another flick of his mouth. Another almost-smile.

“You think he’s inside?” he asks. “The Courier.”

“I think he knows your systems,” I say. “I think someone who works under you let him meet your wires. Maybe for money. Maybe for fear. Maybe to feel clever. I don’t know yet. But he knows your cameras. He knows your alarms.”

I tap another window.

“These are from your estate,” I say. “You called it a routine check. It isn’t.

You’ve got tiny drops in feed around service doors and staff corridors.

Ten seconds here, twelve there. Perfect little cuts.

They sit on days when nothing important is marked, so no one looked twice. No one except whoever cut them.”

I look up.

“That’s why you called me,” I say. “You already saw some of it. You want a second set of eyes.”

“And do your eyes agree with mine?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say.

He studies me.

“Where did you study?” he asks.

“Online,” I say. “University files say Moscow State. The diploma is forged. The work isn’t.”

“So you forged your way in,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Why?” he asks.

“Because nobody wants to hire a girl from a broken district who learned to code in internet cafes,” I say. “But they’ll talk to someone with a seal on a paper.”

“And me?” he asks. “What are you trying to do with me?”

I meet his eyes straight.

“Eat,” I say. “Sleep somewhere that isn’t a shared bunk. And maybe poke at a system big enough to challenge me.”

His gaze heats a little at that.

“You like pressure,” he says.

“I hate boredom,” I say.

He looks at my laptop again.

“You've had these files for an hour,” he says. “How much more can you give me before I decide what you’re worth?”

“I can map the gaps in your estate feeds,” I say. “I can show you which doors Courier already tested. I can tell you how his style changed over the last year. I can tell you that he’s getting bolder.”

“How?” he asks.

“The early jobs were in empty places,” I say.

“Warehouses. Basements. Streets with no nearby cameras. The later ones edge closer to you. Hotels near your meetings. Service tunnels under your routes. And now your estate logs match his cuts. He’s not content to stay out at the border. He’s walking toward your center.”

Silence again. It stretches, but it isn’t empty. I can feel him weighing every word.

He stands.

“Close it,” he says.

I log out, pull the drive, power the laptop down.

One of the guards steps forward to take the device. Sergei gives him a look. The man stops, hand still in the air.

“I’ll take it,” Sergei says.

He picks it up himself and slips it into his pocket.

Then he holds out his hand to me.

“Come upstairs,” he says. “We’ll see if we can keep you from that bunk.”

His office door closes behind us with a soft click.

Up here, the city sits around us in glass. The river. The bridges. Blocks of light and shadow. It’s late, but the streets never sleep.

He pours two vodkas from a crystal bottle. No label. He sets one in front of me.

“Drink?” he says.

I pick it up. The glass is cold and clear. The vodka burns cleanly on the way down. My chest warms.

He watches my face.

“That bad?” he asks.

“That strong.”

“Good,” he says.

He sits on the edge of his desk. Not behind it. In front. Closer.

“You’re twenty-three,” he says.

“You pulled my school records,” I say. “You know how old I am.”

“I pulled your records,” he says. “Doesn’t mean I believe them.”

“Believe what you see, then.”

“I do,” he says.

His gaze runs over my face. Not rude. Assessing. My pulse jumps anyway.

“If I hire you,” he says, “you’ll live under my roof. Not out there.”

“That sounds safe and dangerous at the same time,” I muse.

“It is both,” he says. “You’ll eat at my table. Work in my house. My enemies will know you’re under my protection. They’ll know you’re a way to hurt me. You’ll be watched. You’ll be guarded. You’ll be tested.”

“By you?” I ask.

“By everyone,” he says. “But my word is final.”

“And you think I’m worth that risk?” I ask.

“I think Courier is already too close,” he says. “I think he watched my people grow lazy. I think he counted on them to miss the small cuts. I don’t intend to give him that satisfaction again.”

“You’re not used to being wrong,” I say.

“No,” he says. “That’s why you interest me.”

“How flattering,” I say dryly.

He smiles. This time, it’s real. Brief, but real.

“You spoke to me in there the way men twice your size are afraid to speak,” he says. “You didn’t flinch when you said I once owned a killer and lost him. You didn’t pretend you weren’t afraid. You just kept talking.”

“My knees are shaking,” I say. “You just can’t see it from there.”

He looks down. My legs are steady.

“You lie well,” he says.

“I practice,” I say.

He laughs under his breath.

“Last chance to walk away, Raina,” he says. “If you stay, this binds you. You work for me. You answer to me. You don’t speak of what you see. You don’t run data for anyone else. You don’t leak anything. Not a file, not a joke, not a story.”

“And if I say no?” I ask.

“You leave with what you know in your head,” he says. “That’s already more than I should allow.”

“So you’d kill me,” I say.

His eyes are calm.

“If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be upstairs,” he says.

That’s true, and we both know it.

“So you’d watch me,” I say.

“I already watch you,” he says.

Heat moves through me at that. Simple words. Heavy weight.

“Will you tell me the real reason you picked me?” I ask. “I know I’m good. I’m not the only one who can read a log.”

“No,” he says. “You’re not.”

“So, why me?” I push.

He studies my face for a long time before he answers.

“You saw Courier’s drift from a thin copy of my archive,” he says. “You felt the shift in his work. That matters to me.”

“That’s the business reason,” I say.