Chapter 21
KONSTANTIN
I leave the Old Foundry in the rearview mirror, but its smell clings to the inside of the Ferrari.
The engine screams as I push the car past a hundred and forty down the empty highway. The streetlights blur into one long yellow streak over the hood. The world outside is flying by, but inside the cabin, the quiet is so heavy it’s hard to breathe.
Beside me, Helena is silent.
She’s curled into the passenger seat, gripping her ruined, blood-stained jacket so tight her hands are shaking. She hasn't spoken a single word since we sped away from the Italian’s guns.
She stares straight ahead at the dashboard, lost in her own thoughts.
I clutch the steering wheel so hard my own hands start to shake. My fingers are already split open and bleeding from where I punched the Sentinel's warped steel frame, and they ache with the pressure.
I welcome the pain.
The sharp sting is a reminder that I’m still awake, that this isn't a nightmare, and that she’s actually sitting beside me, breathing. Safe.
I need a fortress.
The penthouse won’t do. It’s too exposed. It's a place of luxury, and right now, luxury is a trap. I need concrete. I need thick steel doors, underground levels, and an army of men with automatic rifles standing between my wife and the rest of the world.
More importantly, I need the underground clinic.
"We're going to the Meat Grinder.”
My voice sounds alien to my own ears. It comes out as a low, rough gravel that finally breaks the heavy silence in the car.
Helena doesn't look at me. She doesn't turn her head. She gives a tiny, barely noticeable nod. The shock has a tight grip on her, pulling her deep underwater.
I ease off the accelerator as we get closer to the southern edge of the industrial district.
The Meat Grinder is my main processing warehouse and the real beating heart of the Bratva's muscle. It looms ahead like a concrete mountain against the night sky. From the outside, it’s an abandoned shipping facility, but the second my headlights hit the rusted chain-link gates, they slide open.
I pull hard into the lower bay of the warehouse and slam the brakes. The tires screech against the polished concrete, and the smell of burning rubber fills the emptiness.
The place looks like a war camp tonight.
Floodlights cut through the dark, casting sharp shadows across the floor.
Dozens of heavily armed soldiers patrol the catwalks and the loading docks with assault rifles slung across their chests.
Their faces are grim. They know what happened on the bridge.
They know Lev is bleeding out in the basement.
They're waiting for the order to burn the city down.
I kill the engine.
I don't wait for my men to open the doors. I'm out of the car in a second, rounding the hood to pull Helena’s door open. I reach in and press the buckle release. It clicks loudly.
She flinches.
When the back of my hand grazes her shoulder, a violent tremor wracks her whole body.
The reaction hits me like a punch to the chest. My jaw locks so hard my teeth ache.
Moretti did that. He put that flinch inside her.
He tied her to a chair and pressed a blade to her skin until her body learned to expect pain.
"Come," I say, dropping my voice to the quiet tone I keep only for her.
I don't let her walk on her own. Her legs are shaking too hard to hold her up. I reach in and wrap my arm around her waist, anchoring her to my side, and pull her against my body. I walk her straight toward the iron staircase that leads up to my glass-walled office.
My men part to let us through. They see the soot, the grease, and the blood soaking my clothes. They see the dirt smeared across Helena’s pale face and the way she leans into my side.
No one says a word. No one asks a question. They know better than to look me in the eye right now. The pure rage rolling off me is enough to feel in the room. If anyone speaks, I might kill them to relieve the tension.
I guide her up the clanging metal steps. Every footstep echoes like a gunshot. I push the heavy office door open, guide her inside to the black leather sofa, and sit her down. Then I slam the door shut and drop the heavy steel deadbolt into place, instantly cutting off the noise of the warehouse.
Before the silence can even settle, a sharp, frantic knock hits the glass.
It's Doc, the underground surgeon who runs the illegal triage suite in the basement. His white coat isn't white anymore. It's covered in fresh, bright red blood. Lev’s blood.
I yank the door open and let him in.
"Examine her," I command, pointing to Helena.
The doctor approaches her slowly. I stand right behind him, hovering over his shoulder and watching his every move. Even in a clinical setting, I hate another man putting his hands on her.
Helena sits completely stiff on the edge of the leather sofa. She lets the doctor click his penlight and shine the bright beam into her eyes to check for a concussion. She lets him gently press his gloved hands along her collarbone and down her ribs.
He traces the exact line where the seatbelt of the Sentinel caught her when the loader crushed the car. She winces.
A small gasp escapes her lips when he presses against her left side.
"Is it broken?" I demand.
"Deep tissue bruising," the doctor says quickly, stepping back to give me space. "And severe whiplash from the crash, but her ribs are intact. There's no internal bleeding that I can detect. Given the state of the vehicle, she's lucky to be walking."
"And the hand?" I ask. My eyes lock onto her right hand, resting limply in her lap.
The doctor reaches into his bag and takes her shaking fingers. He uses a wipe to clean away the dried blood.
The slice Moretti made is fully visible now. It's a shallow cut right at the base of the joint. It lines up perfectly with the black marker circle he drew to map out where he was going to cut her finger off.
It was a slow drag of steel meant to terrify her rather than actually maim her, but seeing that thin red line on her pale skin makes my vision go dark at the edges.
A roaring sound fills my ears.
The doctor wraps a white bandage around her thumb, carefully hiding the wound and the marker ink from sight.
"It's superficial," he says quietly, packing his supplies away with nervous hands. "Keep it clean. It'll heal."
He steps back and clutches his bag to his chest, ready to bolt.
"Lev," I say.
The doctor freezes, and his gaze drops to the blood-stained concrete.
"We stopped the bleeding," he says, his voice dropping into a grim, clinical monotone. "We managed to graft the femoral artery, but he lost a great deal of blood before he hit my table. His heart stopped twice during the procedure."
My chest tightens. All the air leaves my lungs in a single rush. "Is he awake?"
"He's in a medically induced coma in the basement," the doctor replies, shaking his head slowly.
"His body can't handle waking right now.
The next forty-eight hours will decide everything.
If the graft holds, and if his brain wasn't starved of oxygen for too long, he might wake.
If not, we'll have to amputate the leg to stop the tissue from dying.
That's assuming his heart keeps beating. "
The words hang in the air.
My lieutenant. My right hand. The man who has stood beside me through every battle and every hit for the last decade is dying in a basement. And it's because I put him in a decoy car. Because I underestimated my enemy.
"Keep him alive," I snarl. "Do whatever it takes. I don't care what it costs. If he dies, Doc, you better hope you know how to perform miracles on yourself."
"I'm doing my best, Boss." The doctor nods quickly, looking terrified, before slipping out the door.
Ivan steps in right after him. He has his laptop balanced in one hand and a tracking monitor in the other. He looks at the blood smeared on the floor, then at Helena sitting frozen on the couch, and finally at me. He kicks the door shut and throws the deadbolt himself, locking us in.
"The tracker is active," he informs. His voice is low but urgent. "The signal is moving fast. They took the tablet and are heading North on the back highways, straight toward the Moretti compound."
Ice spreads through my veins. The adrenaline of the rescue is completely gone, leaving only the crushing reality of what I did.
I need to hear it. I need the harsh truth to ground me in reality.
"Tell me what I gave them," I say, stepping closer to him. "Say it out loud."
Ivan glances nervously at Helena, then back at me. "Boss, you don't need to do this right now. We need to plan."
"Say it!" I yell, the sound echoing off the thick glass walls.
Helena flinches on the couch. She pulls her knees to her chest and curls into a small ball, but I can't look at her yet. I stare at Ivan.
I need him to drive the knife in. I need to face what I chose to do.
He swallows hard and straightens up, forcing himself to look me in the eye to deliver the final blow.
"You gave them the master key," he says. "The tablet holds the encrypted return coordinates for the Lady Anastasia. When that ship enters international waters, Moretti can use it to override our crew. He can lock the navigation and sail our entire lifeline straight into his own harbor."
Ivan grips the edge of my steel desk, his hands squeezing tight against the dark metal.
"And when it docks, he has the decryption codes for the crates. You gave him twenty shipments of military-grade RPGs, C-4 explosives, and automatic rifles. That’s enough firepower to wipe the Bratva off the map. He can level this city. You handed him your key to the Throne."
I stare at the concrete floor.
I threw away twenty years of careful, painful planning. Squandered the vengeance I promised my father while I watched him choke to death on his own blood. I handed Don Moretti a loaded gun and pointed it at my own head.