Chapter Seventeen - Annie
I know better than to believe Dimitri’s decision to bring me along means trust. It isn’t trust—it’s possession.
A leash disguised as an invitation. He keeps me close because it pleases him to watch, because having me at his side lets him prove to his men that even a woman like me bends under his hand.
I take the opening anyway.
Each meeting, each exchange, I sharpen the picture in my head.
The coded talk of shipments, the quiet negotiations over territory, the way certain men defer and others push too far.
I keep my eyes down, my mouth shut, but my ears are open.
He thinks silence means obedience. He doesn’t realize silence can mean strategy too.
A name keeps surfacing, floating like a shard of glass in the current.
Moreno. Gabriel Moreno. Sometimes it’s muttered in irritation, sometimes with a twist of contempt, sometimes as a warning.
Each time, my stomach knots tighter. I don’t know why yet, but the sound of it digs under my skin in a way the rest of their jargon doesn’t.
Late one night, the chance comes.
The estate is quieter than usual, a hush lying heavy over the halls.
Dimitri’s men keep to their posts, their boots echoing faintly when they change shifts, but the wing leading to his office is empty.
I know he’s elsewhere. Downstairs, perhaps, or in one of the back rooms where business is conducted long after midnight.
I slip through the corridor, my steps soft on the thick carpet, heart racing too fast. The door gives under my hand with a soft click, and I step inside.
The room smells of smoke and leather, of vodka evaporated from glasses left too long on the desk. The air is colder here, still, like the space remembers all the orders given within it. Shadows stretch across the walls, cast by the single lamp left burning on the corner of his desk.
I move quickly, quietly. Every drawer is locked, heavy and stubborn when I test them. Everyone except one.
It slides open with a faint scrape. Inside: an envelope, thick and worn at the edges. No name, no markings, nothing to suggest what it hides. My pulse leaps.
I slide it free, fingers trembling, and pull back the flap.
Photographs spill into the light. Black and white, grainy, taken from a distance. Men leaving cars, standing in alleys, shaking hands in dimly lit corners. At first, they blur together—faces I don’t recognize, movements too ordinary.
Then I see him.
My father.
The photo is dark, but there’s no mistaking him. His shoulders hunched in the way I remember, his profile sharp even in grain. He’s standing beside another man, their heads bent close, speaking in a way that looks urgent even without sound.
The other man’s face is clearer. Gabriel Moreno.
The name that’s been haunting the air for weeks.
The blood drains from my face. My stomach knots so tightly it hurts.
Why is my father here? Why with this man? The last I knew, he was nowhere near this world—messy and unreliable, yes, but not tangled in this. Not standing side by side with a name that makes seasoned men in Dimitri’s circle stiffen.
I grip the desk for balance, the photos shaking in my hand.
A thousand questions rush through me, choking. Did Dimitri know when he took me? Did he bring me into this house because of my father, because of what he’s done, or who he’s standing with?
My throat burns. I don’t have time for answers.
My phone is slick in my hand as I unlock it, snap a single picture of the photograph, and put it back before the sound can betray me. I slide the photos back, tucking the envelope into the drawer exactly where I found it.
My pulse thunders in my ears, loud enough I’m sure the walls must hear it. I wipe my fingerprints from the edge of the envelope with the hem of my sleeve, push the drawer shut until it clicks into place, and force myself to breathe.
The hallway outside is still empty when I slip back into it. My steps feel heavier now, the shadows thicker. Every sound echoes sharper, every draft against my skin colder.
I retreat to my room with the photograph burning in my pocket like a secret too dangerous to carry.
When I shut the door, leaning hard against it, my breath stutters. The image won’t leave me: my father’s face, my father’s shoulders, bent close to the man Dimitri’s enemies whisper about in tones laced with warning.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, clutching the phone so tightly it cuts into my palm. The photo glows up at me, grainy but undeniable.
Gabriel Moreno, and my father. Together.
The air in the room feels thin, suffocating. I press my hand to my chest, willing my heart to steady, but it doesn’t.
The pieces are shifting, and I’m caught in the middle. Dimitri doesn’t even know yet that I’ve seen them.
***
The next day, he doesn’t give me time to think.
Morning barely settles over the estate before a guard knocks at my door, his voice clipped: “You’re wanted.
” I dress quickly, heart still knotted around the secret buried in my phone, and follow the path I know too well now—down corridors lined with watchful eyes, into the waiting car where Dimitri sits like the storm given flesh.
He doesn’t explain. He never does. “With me” is all he says, his tone brooking no refusal.
The city is gray and damp, last night’s rain still clinging to the streets. I sit beside him in silence, my palms pressed flat against my thighs to stop their trembling. Every mile pulls me closer to answers I’m not ready for, yet can’t stop chasing.
The warehouse looms at the edge of the docks, its walls stained with salt and time, its doors guarded by men who scan us with sharp, restless eyes. Inside, the air smells of iron and oil, the light thin and cold. Tables are set up, papers and maps spread across them.
Waiting there is Gabriel Moreno.
I know him instantly, even though I’ve only seen his face in a photograph. His presence fills the room, not with Dimitri’s quiet gravity, but with the kind of restless energy that makes every other man sit straighter. My chest tightens so hard I almost forget to breathe.
Dimitri greets him with the measured calm I’ve come to know. No handshake, only a nod. The others exchange clipped words in Russian and Spanish, voices low but edged with the bite of steel.
I stand where Dimitri told me—at his side, close enough that my sleeve brushes his. His hand rests at the small of my back again, casual to anyone else, but I know better. It’s ownership. It’s a warning. Stay.
The conversation turns to shipments, routes, percentages. On the surface it’s business, but underneath I hear it—the tension straining at the seams, the threat coiled in every pause. Dimitri’s tone never rises, his words precise, unshakable.
Moreno presses harder, his voice smooth, but eyes sharp as blades.
I don’t dare speak, don’t dare ask the questions burning in me, but my mind races ahead anyway. If my father was seen with this man, what does that mean? Was he a pawn? An ally? A traitor?
Most of all, why is Dimitri meeting Moreno now, speaking to him like an equal enemy rather than a ghost in photographs?
Every glance exchanged feels like a blade slid under the table. Every silence hums with the possibility of violence. I watch Dimitri’s hands, steady as stone, his posture calm, his presence unyielding. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t waver.
I do. Inside, I’m already connecting timelines, motives, pieces of a puzzle that shouldn’t belong to me but now do.
I hold my breath, praying he can’t see the truth in my eyes—that I’m not only watching him.
I’m watching Moreno too.
***
Later, I sit on the edge of my bed, the curtains drawn tight against the gray evening, phone heavy in my hand. My thumb slides across the screen, the image pulling up with a dull glow. Grainy, blurred, but unmistakable.
My father.
I zoom in, heart thudding. His face is younger, lines softened by time not yet lived, but the wariness in his eyes is sharp. He looks like a man standing on the edge of something he can’t turn back from. Like he knew what was coming.
Beside him—Gabriel Moreno.
The name has been circling me for weeks, heavy in Dimitri’s meetings, carried in his men’s muttered tones.
I thought it was another piece of business, another rival with teeth bared.
But this photo tells a different story. Dimitri’s interest in Moreno isn’t about shipments or territories.
It’s about something bigger. Something that swallowed my father whole.
I close my eyes, the phone trembling in my grip.
If Moreno was with him, if Dimitri has photos, if this war touches them both… then maybe the key to knowing why my father is gone sits in Dimitri’s hands.
I tell myself I’m gathering information for survival, that knowing keeps me alive in a house where ignorance is fatal.
But the truth is sharper. I want to know everything.
Every dark piece, every whispered name, every reason behind the violence simmering beneath Dimitri’s calm exterior.
Even if it drags me deeper than I meant to go.
The door opens without warning.
I jolt, fumbling the phone and shoving it under the blanket just as Dimitri steps in. He closes the door behind him with a clean click, his presence filling the room like the air itself bends around him.
He studies me. Always studying. “Hiding something?”
I force a smile, light and brittle. “Maybe I was bored. Maybe I was waiting for you.”
His brow arches, the faintest ghost of amusement in his expression. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“You’re too sure of yourself.”
The space between us shrinks before I can think. He moves closer, slow but deliberate, his gaze locked on me as though daring me to break eye contact. My breath catches.
“You test me,” he says, voice low, “and you think I don’t notice.”
I tilt my chin, defiance coiling with the fear in my chest. “Maybe I like testing your limits.”