Chapter 11 #2
I pull my car onto the gravel driveway, tires crunching over the stones. The mansion looms ahead, dark against the gray sky.
Climbing out of the vehicle, my gun is already drawn.
The front door is ajar.
I step into the foyer. The smell hits instantly. It’s thick—iron and smoke in the air.
The first guard is lying near the staircase. Two shots to the chest. Clean. Professional. He never even unholstered his weapon.
I step over him and feel a flash of anger, not at him, but for him. He was a good soldier. He deserved a fight.
I move deeper into the house.
The second guard is in the hallway, slumped against the wainscoting. His throat has been cut.
The silence in the house is heavy. Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard settles with a groan. I check the rooms. It’s a slaughterhouse.
I kick open the door to Arthur’s study, gun raised.
Empty.
But it isn’t the emptiness of a crime scene. The chair isn't overturned. The lamp isn't broken. There’s no blood on the carpet.
On the desk, a glass of whiskey sits half-full, the ice melted. Next to it, a coaster.
Neat. Too neat.
A man being dragged at gunpoint knocks things over. A man fighting for his life leaves a mark.
Arthur left this room like a man walking out to a business meeting. He didn't fight. He finished his drink, stood up, and walked out the door with the men who killed my guards.
I push open the kitchen door and find the third guard, Mikhail.
He’s barely twenty-two. I recruited him myself from the streets of St. Petersburg because he was fast and needed to support his mother. I remember giving him his first paycheck. He’d looked at it like it was gold.
Now, he’s propped up against the island, clutching his stomach. Blood pools around him, thick and dark on the tile.
"Boss," he wheezes when he sees me. He tries to lift his gun, but his hand twitches uselessly.
I holster my weapon and slide across the blood-slicked floor to kneel beside him.
"Easy, Mikhail. Easy."
Assessing him, I spy the gunshot wound. Mortal placement. Even a surgeon on standby couldn’t save him.
I rip off my suit jacket and ball it up, pressing it hard against the wound. It won’t save him, but it’ll buy him time to provide information to avenge him.
He screams, a gurgling sound bubbling up from his chest.
"Focus on me," I command. "Who was it?"
His eyes are rolling back.
I grab his shoulder, shaking him slightly. "Stay with me, soldier! Who?"
"Moretti..." he gasps, coughing bright red blood onto my white shirt. "Don Moretti."
"Did they drag him?" I demand, pressing on the wound. "Did he fight?"
Mikhail shakes his head weakly.
"No," he wheezes. "He... he knew them, Boss."
My blood freezes. "What do you mean?"
"I heard voices," he whispers, his grip on my arm weakening. "Before they shot me, I heard Arthur. He wasn't screaming for help."
"What did he say?"
"He called the leader by name... Don Moretti..." he gasps. "He didn't sound scared. He just said... 'I'm ready.'"
"He said he was ready?" I demand.
"Yes," he breathes. His eyes roll back, fixing on the ceiling. "And then he walked away with them."
"I tried," Mikhail whispers, tears escaping. "I tried to stop them, Boss. I'm sorry."
The light is fading from his eyes.
"You did your job, Mikhail," I murmur. "You’ll die with honor."
He lets out a long breath, a rattle in his chest, and then he’s gone. His hand slips from my arm and hits the floor with a wet thud.
I stay for a moment, kneeling in his blood. Rage builds in my chest. Arthur Blackwood didn't send that message from his study.
He went with them
They took him to some hole, put a gun to his head, or worse, and forced him to give up the Founder's Key.
Midnight. North Gate. Run.
It wasn't a rescue plan. It was bait.
And Arthur, I know him. He’s a coward.
Did they promise him something? Did Don Moretti lean close and whisper that if Arthur delivered his daughter, he could have his company back? Did they offer him a way out of his debt?
He gave them the secret code that protected his company for twenty years. He unlocked the door for them. He’s willing to feed his daughter to the wolves just to see me bleed.
I stop. The realization hits me colder than the blood on my hands.
That message wasn't a father trying to save his daughter. It was a general trying to extract a spy.
Arthur isn't working alone anymore. He has the Italians. He used the Founder’s Key to open the door, and they used their tech to breach the system.
That means they likely saw the active schedules.
They know a massive shipment is active on the Venezuelan line, and they know I wouldn't move a ship that size unless it was critical.
But they don't know what’s on it. The schedule doesn't list the cargo.
But Helena knows.
I showed her. I forced her to sign the return manifest for the explosives yesterday. She’s the Director; the only person outside of my inner circle who holds the keys to that cargo.
Arthur isn't trying to rescue her. He’s trying to steal her back so he can interrogate her. He needs the intel in her head to destroy me.
I stand, my hands sticky with Mikhail's blood.
The war has started. And Arthur Blackwood fired the first shot by letting himself be caught.
I walk out of the house and don't look back.
I get in my car and floor it. I’m going to the tower, and I’m going to shatter Helena's hope before it gets her killed.
I storm through the lobby of the Blackwood Tower like a hurricane.
The new security guards I hired scramble to get out of my way. They see the look on my face, the cold, focused rage, the blood on my shirt, and they know better than to speak.
I take the private elevator to the top floor.
Lev is standing outside her office door. His shoulders slump at the sight of me.
"She’s been asking to leave," he says. "She’s claiming she has a headache. She wants to go home."
"Open it," I snarl.
He unlocks the door.
I push past him into the office.
Helena is standing by the window, clutching her purse. She spins around when I enter.
"Konstantin," she says, her voice tight. "I was just telling Lev. I'm not feeling well. I think I need to—"
"Stop.”
I walk toward her and don't stop until I’m in her personal space, forcing her to back up against the glass.
"I know about the message."
Her face crumbles. The lie vanishes, replaced by defiance.
"How do you know? You... you were monitoring me?"
"Of course, I was monitoring you. Did you think I would give you the keys to the kingdom and not watch your hands?"
"He’s coming for me!" she shouts, pushing against my chest. "My father is coming! He has a plan! He’s going to get me out of here tonight!"
"No, he isn’t. He’s gone, Helena!" I roar.
The volume of my voice silences her histrionics. She stares at me, chest heaving.
"What?" she whispers.
"I just came from your house," I say. "The guards are dead. Three of my men. Executed."
I hold up my hand, showing her the dried blood on my cuff.
"This is Mikhail’s blood. He was twenty-two. Your father isn't planning a rescue. He was taken."
"No," she shakes her head. "No, the message said—he said—he had a team."
"The Italians have him," I tell her brutally. "But they didn't take him by force, Helena. He left with them."
"Moretti?" she breathes.
Recognition flashes in her eyes.
"I saw the debt note," she whispers. "I found it in his desk. A marker for fifty grand. I knew he owed them money, but he promised me it was handled!"
"A payment plan?"
I almost laugh in her face.
My God, she’s na?ve.
"That's why they took him!" she yells, grabbing my lapels. "They took him because of the debt! They’re going to hurt him if he doesn't pay!”
"Help him?" I stare at her, incredulous. "You think this is a kidnapping for ransom?"
"He’s in danger. We have to save him."
"Stop," I shout, silencing her. "He isn’t a victim. He’s a collaborator."
"He’s my father!"
"He’s a traitor!" I roar. "There was no struggle in his study. His glass was on the coaster, and my guard heard him talking to Moretti before he left. He wasn't begging for his life. He didn't sound like a victim."
I lean in, letting the venom drip into my voice.
"He called Don Moretti by his name. He said, 'I'm ready,' and he walked out the door."
"That doesn't mean he’s a traitor!" she argues, though her tone lacks conviction.
"It was easy for them to come to him," I whisper. "Because they have done business before. He’s been paying the Morettis for years. I've seen the ledgers. Hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed to them."
"That was debt," she explains, trying like hell to reason it away. "He gambled."
"It was a relationship," I snap. "He pays them. And tonight? He decided the price of his safety was worth more than my life. He walked out willingly. He traded the Founder's Key for a clean slate."
"He wouldn't," she sobs, shaking her head. "He loves me. He wouldn't trade me."
"He sold you once already at a poker table. Why is it so hard to believe he’s selling you again?"
"You're lying. You hate him."
"Yes," I hiss. "I hate him."
"Why?" she screams, tears streaming down her face. "What did he do to you? Why do you hate him so much?"
I freeze. The truth is sitting on my tongue. He killed my mother. He killed my sister.
But I swallow it down. Not yet. She isn’t ready for the ghosts.
"Because he’s a disease," I say. "Because he destroys everything he touches to save his own skin. He betrayed me once. Long before you were part of this game. And now he’s doing it again."
She stares at me, searching my face.
"I don't believe you.”
"Then go," I challenge her.
I point to the door.
"Go to the North Gate at midnight, and see who’s waiting. If it’s your father with a hug, I’ll let you go. But if it’s a Moretti with a knife, don't say I didn't warn you."
I release her.
She stumbles back, hitting the window. She checks the door, then me, a million emotions playing out on her face. She’s broken. The hope that was lighting her up minutes ago is gone, leaving her cold and desperate.
"You hate him," she whispers. "And you hate me because I’m his daughter."
I look at her. I look at the woman who has plagued my thoughts for two days.
"I should," I say, before turning my back on her. Turning my back on that foolish lapse in judgment.
She is a Blackwood.
"Lev!" I call out.
He steps into the room.
"Take her back to the penthouse. Lock her in the guest suite. If she tries to leave, tie her to the bed."
I walk out of the office, leaving her sobbing against the glass.
I need a drink. It’s time to prepare for war.