Chapter Twenty-Six Konstantin’s POV #2
Sergei and I had spent most of the night in my home office, and it was almost dawn.
We were hunched over the two monitors, the screens casting a sickly blue-white glow on our tired faces.
Outside, the Manhattan skyline was a distant, uncaring behemoth, but here, in the heart of Brooklyn’s industrial maze, we were deep in Dimitri Volodin’s turf.
“He’s tighter than Morozov. See this?” I pointed out, tracing a route on a diagram filling a 32-inch screen—a complex web of IP addresses and data packets. “Vitya was a sprawl, an oil slick over half the city. Sloppy. Loud. But Dimitri, the bastard, is embedded deep.”
“He didn’t build a separate shadow-net. He threaded his poison right into the shipping line. New York Atlantic Freight, boss. The one running the docks from Pier 44 to Newark,” Sergei answered.
He tapped a point on the diagram. It was an anomaly—a tiny, secure subnet nested within the massive, legitimate corporate firewall.
“The bills of lading, the cargo manifests, the scheduling for every container ship coming into port…” I muttered, more to myself, realizing the depth of it.
“His entire operation—the drugs, the untaxed liquor, the smuggled designer goods—it all moves under the cover of a legitimate global logistics company. If we pull the thread on Trey’s little knot, the whole fucking shipping operation will unravel. ”
“Exactly, boss,” Sergei agreed. “This isn’t about running numbers in the back room; it’s about controlling what gets stamped, what gets loaded, and what gets waved through Customs without a second look. The motherfucker is making mafia moves.”
He zoomed in, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “He’s using their own encrypted channels. We can’t just hack in and download the ledger; the moment we touch it, the whole system alarms. They’ll know we’re inside the Atlantic Freight network, not just Dimitri’s.”
“Then we don’t hit the ledger, Sergei. We hit the map.
We need to find the choke point. The physical location tied to those three terminals.
The office, the shack, the trailer where the paper trail meets the digital one.
The shipping line is his shell, but the network is his blood.
We need to cut the vein without killing the host to get all the evidence in the cleanup.
Every single affiliation he has with Vitya must be found and sent to the authorities. ”
Clearing Alina’s name in Russia wasn’t just right; it was personal.
“Then we end the bastard. He can continue being the host from the great beyond,” I added, and Sergei chuckled.
My phone vibrated, and I went over to my desk to pick it up.
Viktor.
I signaled to Sergei to leave as I answered the call.
“Brother,” I called.
“Konstantin. Dimitri has sent a message. Claims he has ‘insurance’ on the Lobanov Bratva.”
“The lunatic,” I mumbled.
“It could be anything. Anyone. But it’s definitely connected to the Morozov case, you know how Dimitri works. Have you found out more about his business?”
“Yes, brother. I’m currently on it.”
“Good. Everything must be underground, you know the fool has legit ties. We shouldn’t waste our resources on cleanup because of him.”
“Yes, brother. I’ll update you again soon.”
“I’ll be expecting it.”
As the call ended, I realized the ‘insurance’ Dimitri had might be Alina. It could be false dossiers, photographs, anything to ruin her. And me.
A gnawing unease arose within me.
She was more than just leverage to me; I’d rather die than let the slimy bastard get to her.
I dialed a number on my phone.
“Sergei. Get two more men to the house. Double her security,” I instructed before ending the call.
I left the office and went to her room. Opening the door, I found her curled beneath the covers, asleep. I shut the door and went back to my room.
***********
“Plans have changed,” I stated as I entered the library where Alina was. She sat with a book in her lap.
“To what?”
I had shared the Dimitri findings with her earlier in the morning, leaving out the part about doubling her security. But the plans then have been tentative, and none of them included the bombshell I was about to drop on her.
I sighed, folding my arms as I stood in front of her. “You’ll come with me. It’s the only way draw Dimitri out.”
“As bait,” she mused, and I clenched my jaw.
It was an option I wasn’t fond of, but it was the surest way to go. I couldn’t let the bastard slip out of my hands. The idea of watching my back every single moment for what he could do to her was unbearable. I didn’t want it.
She blinked and her face went pale. Then her face hardened with resolve as she said, “Well, I won’t hide while you fight my battles.”
That’s my girl.
**********
Hours later, after two cars had gone ahead to the docks, we were on our way there. Sergei and my other men, including some guards, followed closely in different cars. Alina was beside me in the back while a guard drove.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I promised her. “I’ll protect you with my life.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” she remarked, chuckling.
“Things might get ugly. I need you to know that.”
“I know,” she said, shrugging. “But we can look forward to celebrating together after this.”
“We can.”
She sighed and looked out the window for a moment before turning towards me again.
“Do you ever think about the raid where Siroc died?” she asked, her voice almost quiet.
“Yes,” I confessed. “Every time I look at you.”
It was the first time I admitted my guilt, and I could feel the air between us shift from accusation to grim intimacy.
“I’m sorry for taking him from you. But I didn’t think I’d have any reason to be then,” I told her. “I was just doing my job, and Siroc had been stealing from me.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
We sat in silence for a few more seconds as we neared the docks.
“Does that mean you’ve forgiven me?” I questioned.
She smiled at my question but didn’t answer.
“We’re here,” I told her.
“Of course. I already saw—”
A sniper’s bullet hit the window, showering us with glass. The guard in our car and those in the others scrambled around us, and I shot my right hand out to shove Alina down, pulling my gun out with my left hand.
Let it begin.