Chapter Four
Dmitri Konstantinov
The easiest way to win a fight is to let a man believe he already has. Power is never proven in the first strike. It reveals itself in patience, watching, and learning every pattern he doesn’t know he’s showing. By the time he realizes what he’s up against, it’s already too late.
It turned out Levi reported to a man who believed I had forgotten what happened a year ago. Zachary Martinez, the Minister of Transport in Cuba. A man whose life lay at my fingertips. My silence had unsettled him.
It has been a year since I was set up and attacked. I experienced something I had never done before. Defeat. I could have blamed my brother, Rodion, but the truth was simpler. I started that mess. While I was in California messing with Rodion, Zachary saw an opening and took it.
It was interesting to learn he had men watching me. It meant he was unsettled, especially now that he was reaching for the position of Prime Minister. I gave him the space to be nominated and approved, but I don’t forget a man who set a bomb in my car.
“Boss.”
Ivan’s voice pulled me back from the rhythm of my own thoughts. I had been hitting the punching bag for what felt like hours.
I stopped and turned to Ivan, who stood behind me with an envelope in hand.
He was one of my soldiers, ambitious enough to eye Akim’s position.
Ivan knew his duties well, but he was married, and I didn’t trust married men.
Women had their ways of coaxing a man into surrender and making them reveal secrets.
“I have the papers signed,” Ivan said, holding out the envelope.
That was efficient. I stripped off my gloves and grabbed it, tearing the seal. The papers with names and numbers slid into my hand.
“How many signed this?” I asked, flipping through the papers.
“Three of them.”
My eyes lifted to him. I hadn’t expected Ivan to pull that off.
Silas Clark alone was stubborn, paranoid, and expensive to corner.
I would have visited him if he had refused.
Instead, he signed. That gave me three boats under my control.
Their owners thought they secured profit.
They did not know what their vessels would really carry.
“Coordinate everything else with the team in the Bahamas,” I said, already heading out. “We are moving immediately. No unfamiliar faces on board.”
“Yes, boss.” Ivan kept pace behind me as we left the gym. The papers stayed in my hand, my attention fixed on the figures as we walked.
“One boat will be bait,” I said. “The other two will go straight to the destination. Bring Akim in.”
I pushed into the office and took my seat at the desk. Timing mattered. This deal had to close before my arranged marriage to the governor’s daughter. Once done, I could focus on Zachary. Marriage was the tool I would use to get close and destroy him while he still believed he had control.
“Akim is tied up right now,” Ivan said. “I can manage everything myself since—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I cut in, not looking up. “Akim knows the system. He’ll be your eyes.”
“Boss—”
I lifted my head and looked at him. The only reason he was still breathing was our history. We grew up together, plus Akim. He knew where the thin line was and when not to cross it.
“I’ll do that,” he said, bowing before stepping out.
The door closed behind him. I returned my attention to the papers, the numbers aligning as I read. Everything tied to those names belonged to me now. If any of them thought of twisting the deal, they would lose more than money. Millions would disappear, and so would they.
I needed a cold shower to clear my head before I dug deeper into the project. I slid the papers into a drawer and got up. There was a knock at the door, and before I could reach it, it opened.
Akim stepped in. “Can we talk?” he asked as I walked toward him.
“Can it wait?” I stepped out. He had been gone for two days, but Akim didn’t disappear like that without a reason.
“Yes, it can.” He followed behind me. “It’s about the thief. I can come later.”
It took me a moment for that to register. He took two days to get something on that thief. I almost forgot about her. Was it that difficult to pull her details?
“What do you have?” I asked, my interest sharpening. A woman who claimed me so easily deserved a closer look.
“A lot,” Akim said, keeping pace as we climbed the stairs. “Almost everything.”
“Almost?” I glanced at him.
“One detail doesn’t sit right,” he said. “I’m still digging. But what I have is enough to trap her.”
I stopped at the top of the staircase.
“I need the address, who she’s working for, and how she knew the location,” I said. “That’s enough to get me where I want to go.”
Akim handed me the file. “It’s all here. Her name is Inna Grace Anderson. She is twenty-five. She worked at Torres’s restaurant but got fired six months ago.”
I flipped through the pages as he continued.
“She has a younger brother. Cole Anderson. Nine years old.”
My eyes locked on the photograph clipped to the file. When I first saw her on the CCTV footage, I imagined someone worn down, desperate, and reckless enough to hide behind a lie that large. And not something like this.
The girl in the photo had neck-length hair that framed her face effortlessly. Her eyes were sharp, caught mid-expression as if someone interrupted her rather than asked her to pose. A small mole rested just below her left eye, near her nose, a detail noticed only by those paying attention.
I didn’t flip the page.
Her gaze in the photograph met mine, already daring me, as if she knew what followed thieves like her.
So this was my wife.
“They moved to Little Haiti the next morning after she stole the money, rented a small apartment, and—”
“The parents?” I cut in. If she had taken the money, survival had taught her early how to steal without flinching. Habits like that rarely grow in isolation.
Akim stepped closer and flipped a page, covering the photograph I had lingered on. “Her father has been gone for four years. This is him, Reed Anderson,” he said, tapping the file. “There’s no trace of a mother.”
“So he’s dead,” I said.
“No, he disappeared.” Akim’s tone stayed neutral.
I let it settle while scanning the file for patterns, tracing the edges of her life and moves.
“Does she still have the briefcase?” I asked, “Or did she pass it to someone else?”
“I believe she still has it. There was no handoff, no contact with anyone who could lay claim to the briefcase.”
That narrowed things in a fascinating way.
“The footage from that night shows her and the boy moving through the city around two in the morning,” he continued. “They stopped at a small restaurant. I accessed the footage myself, but they didn’t meet anyone.”
“Anything else?”
“I am tracking her phone so that I can see her movements. I’m waiting for your signal to approach.”
She was working alone. None of it fit. I closed the file and climbed the stairs to the next floor, my mind already spinning through possibilities.
“Should I make a move now?” Akim asked from behind me.
Too many pieces were missing. Motive mattered.
People didn’t steal like this without reason.
Hunger or inheritance? If her father had vanished years ago, he might have taught her this life before disappearing into it.
No trace of her mother only sharpened my attention.
People didn’t vanish from records unless someone wanted them to.
The report raised more questions than it answered. Curiosity settled over me instead of rage. She was becoming someone worth studying rather than crushing. And that was the problem.
“Not yet,” I said. “Let them enjoy the money first.”
We had two possibilities: she needed the money for her use, or she owed someone else and would meet them later.
“Watch out for a third party. The moment she meets anyone, I want to know.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Don’t let her feel watched,” I added. “Let them live freely,” for now.
That wasn’t mercy. It was a trap, and it worked best when the ground beneath it felt safe. I would give her the illusion that she had gotten away with it, just as I had with Zachary. I would appear when she least expected it, and then she would learn what it meant to touch what was mine.
If my instincts were right, she was not reckless. She was desperate and clever, a dangerous combination. She stepped into my world without knowing it, and that did not make her harmless. It made her interesting.