Chapter 23
VIKTOR
Idon’t sleep for days. I sit in the control room until the feeds blur, then I pace, then I sit again, and none of it changes the only fact that matters: Anya is gone.
The house is compromised. The men who were supposed to be watching her are dead.
The people who took her moved like they had rehearsed it, which means someone helped them, or someone watched long enough to learn our patterns, or both.
The worst part is the quiet that follows after the violence. The cleanup. The calls. The lists. Sergei’s voice tightening as he gives me names and numbers like that is supposed to make this manageable.
None of this feels manageable.
There is a gap in my chest that keeps widening with each passing hour. I keep thinking that if I move fast enough I can outrun the grief. That if I keep making decisions and issuing orders, I can keep my hands busy enough to stop them from shaking.
My men keep checking my face to see if I’m going to crack. They keep waiting for an explosion. They keep waiting for the moment I lose control.
In my darkest moments, I embrace the explosion. I want it to bring the whole city down. Not just Brooklyn, but all five boroughs. I want my anger to destroy everyone in its wake.
“The attack team pulled back across three different routes,” Sergei tells me. “We have traffic camera pulls on two vehicles, but plates are clean. The third vehicle is a dead end.”
“Who talked?” I ask tensely. It’s the most important question that I’ll likely get answered now.
“We don’t have confirmation yet,” Sergei answers. “We have a list of suspects, and we have two men in custody.”
“Where?” I look up at him sharply.
He doesn’t flinch. “In the basement.”
I nod once. I walk past Sergei and down the stairs. The air becomes cooler as soon as I hit the lower level. It smells like cement and metal and bleach. Soon, it’ll smell like blood.
There are two men tied to chairs under a single overhead light. One is a dock worker I recognize, and one is a driver I recognize. Both have fear on their faces. Both of them look like they already know what is coming.
The dock worker’s eyes widen when he sees me. “Boss, I swear—”
I pistol-whip him before he can get another word out. Guilty until proven innocent is the name of today’s game.
Sergei steps down behind me. “They were picked up within the hour after the breach,” he says. “Both of them had recent contact with someone tied to Grinkov.”
“Who contacted you?” I ask them.
The driver swallows. “A man offered me money to sneak a phone into the house. I said no.”
“You said no,” I repeat.
“Yes,” he insists. “I said no. I would never betray you.”
I stare at him for a long moment, assessing his body language and the fear in his eyes. “Then why are you sweating?”
His face flushes. “I’m tied to a chair in a basement. I think I’m allowed to sweat.”
“Answer the question,” I tell him, raising my gun in warning.
His eyes flick to Sergei, then back to me.
“I’m scared, Mr. Kovalev,” he says earnestly. “I don’t think there’s anything I can say that’s going to absolve me, but I promise you that I said no.”
His pupils dilate and I narrow my own eyes at him.
“You told him no, but you knew someone else who would take the bait,” I say calmly, reading him like a book. “Was it him?”
I turn on the dock worker, who starts talking very quickly.
“I don’t know nothing about a cell phone,” he says in sheer panic. “I’ve been with you for years, boss. I’d never betray you. Please, I have a family.”
“You know who did it,” I say calmly. “Someone both of you work with. Why are you protecting him?”
“There are a few guards who rotated between the docks and the house,” Sergei says calmly. “I’ll get you their profiles right away.”
The dock worker’s face goes gray. He knows we’ll find him out.
I step closer, slow and controlled. “Tell me what you did.”
He shakes his head quickly. “I didn’t do nothing,” he repeats, his voice breaking at the end.
“You’re lying,” I reply. “Your voice goes higher when you lie.”
His eyes widen in surprise, then shut tightly like he wishes he could take his own words back.
Sergei holds out a phone. “I’ve got his call logs,” he tells me. “There are several calls to a Brighton number before the attack.”
The dock worker stares at the floor. His shoulders shake.
“He called me,” he whispers. “He was freaking out. He thought she’d told you about the phone.”
“Who is he?” I ask.
He looks up at me with wet eyes, and I feel nothing. That is the scariest part. The absence of feeling. I won’t hesitate to kill this man.
“A man came to the docks,” he says. “He was polite. He asked questions. He said he was trying to prevent more deaths. He said Ivan Malenkov just wanted his daughter back.”
“What did he ask?” I ask.
The dock worker swallows. “He asked whether you were still in the borough. He asked whether you were moving. He asked whether you had doubled your security lately.”
“Did you answer?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, sir,” he replies in a shaky voice. “I told him it was none of his goddamn business and he should fuck off before he gets popped.”
Sergei’s voice stays flat.
“But you knew someone who wouldn’t be afraid,” I confirm.
The dock worker starts crying, and my men shift uncomfortably behind me like they want to look away. I do not.
“It wasn’t like that,” he says. “The kid approached me and asked what the guy wanted. I just passed along the information and told him to keep his nose clean. That’s all I did.”
I stare at him for another long moment. He’s telling the truth, but that doesn’t absolve him. He somehow made a link between Ivan Malenkov and one of my guards.
“How did you get involved?” I ask, turning to the driver.
He shakes his head violently. “I didn’t help him. I swear I didn’t.”
I glance at the driver once, then back to the dock worker.
“Then how did a dock guard get onto the house rotation?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers.
“You pulled strings,” Sergei says calmly. “I remember. You asked me to transfer your nephew from the docks.”
The driver’s shoulders collapse. “He’s a good kid,” he says in a small voice. “He’s just stupid.”
“Bring him to me,” I tell Sergei.
Sergei nods and leaves, taking another guard with him.
I step closer to the driver, until I am close enough that he can see there is no mercy on my face.
“She is pregnant,” I tell him. “She was injured. And you thought your goddamn nephew was worth risking your life over.”
“I didn’t know,” he whispers.
“That changes nothing,” I tell him.
I pull my gun and shoot him once. His body jerks, then goes slack. The dock worker starts to scream.
Sergei comes downstairs with the kid. I turn back to watch him as he takes in the sight of his dead uncle. Sergei watches me like he is trying to catalog what I have become, then he speaks quietly. “He’s just a kid, Viktor.”
“He’s old enough to take responsibility,” I say before turning on the kid. “Sit down.”
The dock worker is sobbing, begging, shaking hard enough that the chair rattles. Sergei snaps for the guards to move the driver’s body, then sits the kid down in his place. There’s still blood on the chair and he flinches, but I don’t give him any alternative.
I look at him. He can’t be older than twenty, but his actions still put Anya and my child in the hands of Mikhail Grinkov.
“Did you speak to Grinkov men?”
“No,” he chokes. “I didn’t. I swear. I didn’t.”
Sergei leans closer to me. “It is possible he is telling the truth. He might still be useful.”
I hold the kid’s gaze for a moment longer. He is terrified. He looks like he will tell me anything I ask just to keep breathing. After all, he is sitting just inches away from his uncle’s dead body. I believe him. That does not mean he gets to walk away without consequence, though.
“Cut him loose,” I tell Sergei. “He is going to work for us. He is going to take over his uncle’s job and drive where we tell him, and he is going to identify every man who approached him. If he lies, I will kill him slowly enough that he understands what he should have done differently.”
Sergei nods once.
I turn and walk back up the stairs. I go into the control room and stare at the monitors. The feeds show streets and corners and gates and nothing else. They cannot show me the one thing I need to know—where Anya is.
Sergei enters a minute later and closes the door behind him. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay, because that would be insulting.
“We have three Grinkov fronts operating within a two-mile radius,” he says. “Two clubs, one warehouse office. If you want to send a message, those are the nearest targets.”
“I don’t want to send a message,” I reply.
Sergei pauses. “Then what do you want?”
“I want to find her,” I say, and my voice stays even.
He nods. “Then we hunt.”
That is the difference between Sergei and most men. He does not waste time on emotion. He acknowledges it and converts it into action.
He starts with money, because money makes men talk faster than pain does. Sergei makes calls that freeze accounts tied to Grinkov businesses. He leans on bankers, bookkeepers, and property managers who would rather betray a Bratva boss than lose their lives.
I start with bodies.
The first Grinkov club we hit is a gaudy little place that calls itself a lounge. It has velvet ropes and men in suits who think they’re untouchable because their boss has a reputation. Those men are always the easiest to break because they’ve never faced real danger.
We go in through the back. I bring six men. Sergei stays off-site because someone has to keep the docks moving and the phones answered. I bring two shooters I trust with my life. I bring one man whose job is to keep the door closed and the civilians out.
The back hallway smells like smoke and cheap cologne.
A guard turns the corner and sees us. His mouth opens.
I shoot him before he can make noise. We move forward, fast enough that the people in the club don’t realize what is happening until it’s already over.
Music still plays out front. Women still laugh.
Glasses still clink. The front of the house stays in its little dream for an extra few seconds while we clear the back like a fire moving through dry brush.
We find the manager in his office counting cash. He looks up and freezes. His eyes go wide when he sees me.
“Mr. Kovalev,” he says, voice cracking. “I don’t want any trouble.”
I grab him by the collar and yank him out of his chair. He stumbles and tries to recover his dignity. He fails. I slam him into the wall hard enough that the framed photo behind him cracks.
“Where did they take her?” I ask.
His face goes pale. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he manages to cough out.
“You do,” I reply.
“I swear I don’t,” he insists. “I’m not high enough up to know anything. They let me deal with the money and don’t tell me shit.”
“Then call your boss,” I say.
He swallows. “I can’t.”
“You can,” I reply. “You are going to call the person you answer to, and you are going to put it on speaker. If you try anything clever, I am going to shoot you in the head and burn this place to the ground while your customers dance out front.”
His hands shake as he reaches for his phone. He dials.
A voice answers on the second ring, irritated and bored. “What?”
The manager’s voice wobbles. “It’s me.”
“Why are you calling?” the voice snaps.
The manager’s eyes flick to me, and I squeeze his throat slightly as a reminder.
He forces words out. “We have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” the voice asks.
I speak into the phone myself. “The kind where I’m in your club and your manager is about to die.”
Silence.
Then the voice on the other end turns cautious.
“Viktor Kovalev, I presume.”
“Yes,” I say. “You are going to tell me where she is.”
A short laugh, brittle.
“You think I know where Mikhail keeps his fiancé?”
“She is not his,” I reply.
The voice tightens. “You’re in deep, Kovalev. You’re going to get everyone killed.”
As an answer, I shoot the manager in the knee. He screams, loud enough that the music out front almost isn’t enough to cover it. Almost. My men shift to the hallway, weapons up, ready for the sound to draw attention.
I keep the phone close.
“You hear that?” I ask.
The voice on the other end goes quiet.
“Tell me something useful,” I say.
The man on the other end breathes through his nose. “You’re insane.”
“No,” I answer. “I’m motivated.”