5. Ruslan
RUSLAN
Tuesday afternoon, and I’m standing in the public library because one of my books has moved.
Not a book I own. Not officially. But it is mine in the ways that matter.
The book is supposed to sit on the fifth shelf in Russian history, between two titles no one touches unless they’re writing a dissertation or trying very hard to look busy. Every Thursday, if there’s a message, one of my men leaves it there. If there isn’t, the book stays where it is.
This morning, it was gone.
At ten forty, one of Stepan’s boys checked the shelf and found an empty space.
At noon, the book came back on the third shelf.
Wrong place. Wrong day. That isn’t a mistake.
Someone knows the drop.
So now I’m here, holding the book in my hand, checking the spine, the dust jacket, the pages near the binding. Nothing falls out. No note. No mark. No obvious signal.
Whoever moved it either panicked or wanted me to know that my ruse is up.
Both options piss me off.
I close the book and glance toward the security camera above the reference desk.
That’s what I need now. Footage from this morning.
Whoever took the book. Whoever put it back.
If the camera caught their face, this becomes simple.
The problem is getting the footage without turning the whole library into a scene.
Then I hear the cart stop. I look up.
Zoya Hart stands at the end of the aisle with one hand on a cart of returns and the other around a stack of books pressed to her chest. For a second, she just looks at me.
She doesn’t hide it quickly enough.
Her eyes widen a little. Her mouth parts, then closes. Pink moves up her throat and into her cheeks before she looks away, then back again as if she’s annoyed with herself for looking away at all.
She’s nervous.
Not afraid. Not yet. Just nervous in that soft, obvious way people get when they like someone and hate that it shows.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hello.”
Her eyes drop to the book in my hand. “You’re here.”
“I am.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
I look at her.
She realizes what she said and immediately tightens her grip on the books. “I mean, you usually come on Thursdays.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Do I?”
Her blush gets worse. “Yes.”
“You noticed.”
“I work here,” she says quickly. “I notice regular patrons.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“You’re saying that like it isn’t.”
“I’m saying it like I’m interested.”
That shuts her up for a second.
Good.
I shouldn’t enjoy it. I do anyway.
Zoya Hart is not the kind of woman who belongs near men like me.
She has dark hair pinned up messily, a soft cardigan, a skirt that follows the round shape of her hips, and a face that gives away too much.
She looks like she spends her days helping people find books and apologizing when they bump into her.
She also looks at me like she has imagined things she would die before saying out loud.
That thought brings last night back into my head before I can stop it.
The stranger. The phone. Her breathless little replies. The way she went from awkward to filthy once she trusted the dark enough.
I still don’t know her name. I don’t know her face. But I remember every pause in that conversation, every line where she got braver, every answer that made my hand tighten around my phone.
I look at Zoya again and hate where my mind goes. Because now I wonder what she would be like if she stopped being so careful.
“What are you looking for?” she asks.
I tap the book once with my thumb. “This.”
“Oh.” She glances at the title. “You found it.”
“Someone else found it first.”
Her brow creases. “What does that mean?”
“It means this book was moved this morning.”
“That happens all the time.”
“Not this one.”
The caution enters her face slowly. She’s still flustered, but now she’s paying attention properly. Good. She isn’t stupid.
“Why does it matter?” she asks.
I look toward the camera again.
She follows my gaze. When she looks back at me, the blush is almost gone.
“You want the security footage,” she says.
“Yes.”
“I can’t give you that.”
“I didn’t ask yet.”
“But you were going to.”
I almost smile. “You’re good at this.”
“At what?”
“Noticing things.”
Her fingers tighten around the books. “You make that sound like a problem.”
“It can be.”
She stares at me for a second, and something shifts in her expression. She still likes me. That’s obvious. But now she’s starting to understand there’s something wrong with this conversation.
I should step back.
Instead, I say, “I need to know who touched this book.”
“Why?”
Before I can answer, I catch movement in the glass panel at the end of the aisle. A man near periodicals shifts his weight. Another stands by the front doors, one hand inside his jacket.
They aren’t reading. They aren’t waiting for anyone.
They’re watching me.
I put the book down.
Zoya notices immediately. “Ruslan?”
“Come here.”
She frowns. “What?”
“Now.”
The first shot hits the shelf behind her.
For half a second, she doesn’t react. The sound is too loud, too wrong for the room. Wood splinters from the shelf. A row of hardcovers drops to the carpet around her feet.
Then the library erupts. Someone screams near the front desk. A chair crashes over. People drop behind tables.
Zoya is still frozen. I grab her by the waist and pull her into me, turning so my back is between her and the aisle.
“Get down,” I say.
She looks up at me, white-faced. “Was that a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Why—”
“Down, Zoya.” I push her lower as the second shot takes out the glass panel at the end of the row. She folds into me then, shaking hard, her hands clutching my coat.
“Why is someone shooting?” she whispers.
“At me.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and I see a flash of fear there instead of a demure flirt. Good. She should be afraid of me.
I look past her toward the staff corridor behind the reference desk. Rear exit. Alley. My car is two minutes away if my driver is where he’s supposed to be.
“Can you run?” I ask.
She stares at me like she doesn’t understand the words.
I take her face in my hand, not gently, not roughly either. Just enough to make her focus. “Zoya. Can you run?”
She nods once.
“When I move, you stay with me. Don’t stop for your bag. Don’t look back. Don’t try to help anyone unless I tell you to.”
Her eyes flash despite the fear. “People are hurt.”
“I know.”
“We can’t just leave them,” she says.
“Yes,” I admit. “That’s why we’ll call the police as soon as we’re out. But if you stay here, you die.”
She hates it. I can see that. But she understands.
I take her hand and pull her out of the aisle. We move low past the endcap. Another shot hits somewhere behind us, and she jerks so hard I nearly lose my grip. I tighten my hand around hers and keep going.
“Eyes forward,” I say.
“I can’t breathe.”
“You can.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re talking. That means you’re breathing.”
She makes a broken, furious sound but keeps moving.
The reference desk is ahead. One of the librarians is crouched behind it, crying into a phone. Zoya turns toward her, and I pull her back before she can break away.
“No,” I say.
“She’s my coworker.”
“And the police are coming. Move.”
The gunman near periodicals steps into view. I shove Zoya behind the desk as he raises his gun. The shot goes over us and punches into the wall calendar. Paper and plaster scatter down over her hair.
She covers her mouth with both hands.
I grab a heavy metal bookend from the desk and throw it hard across the room. It hits a lamp near the computer station with a crash. The gunman turns toward the sound.
That gives us enough time.
I pull Zoya up and push her into the staff corridor.
She stumbles over a mat. I catch her under the arm and keep her upright. The corridor is narrow and ugly, lined with bulletin boards, stacked cartons, cleaning supplies, a broken printer no one has bothered to throw away. Behind us, footsteps hit the tile.
Zoya hears them. “Oh God,” she says.
“Don’t stop.”
“They’re coming.”
“I know.”
“How are you so calm?”
“Because I’ve done this before.”
She looks at me then, really looks, and I see that answer scare her more than the gunfire.
We reach the service door. I shove it open and push her into the alley first.
Cold air hits us. My eyes scan the surrounding and plan leverage. Wet concrete. Garbage bins. The back of a delivery truck parked halfway across the lane.
My driver is already pulling up at the mouth of the alley.
A shot cracks behind us. Brick bursts near my shoulder.
Zoya screams.
I turn and cover her with my body, one arm over her head, her face pressed into my shirt. She’s shaking badly now. I feel every bit of it.
My driver fires twice from the car. The sound bounces off the alley walls.
Zoya flinches both times but doesn’t collapse.
“Car,” I tell her.
She looks at the gun in my driver’s hand and freezes again.
I curse under my breath and take her by the hand. “Zoya, move.”
This time she does.
I open the rear door and put her in first. She scrambles across the seat, and I get in after her. The door shuts, and the car pulls away hard.
For a few seconds, there’s only breathing. Hers, ragged and loud. Mine, controlled because it has to be.
I check the rear window. No car directly behind us. No bike. No second vehicle cutting through traffic yet.
Beside me, Zoya stares at the driver, then at me, then down at her own hands. They’re shaking in her lap. Her cardigan is torn near one button. There’s dust on her cheek. Her hair has come loose around her face.
“What the hell was that?” she asks.
“A hit.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “A what?”
“An attempt to kill me.”
“In my library?”
“Yes.”
She lets out a laugh that sounds close to breaking. “You’re saying that like it’s normal.”
“It is normal for me.”
She goes very still.
That answer does what the bullets didn’t. It puts the truth in the car with us.
She pulls her hand away from my sleeve when she realizes she’s still holding it.
“Take me home,” she says.
“No.”
Her face changes. “Excuse me?”
“You can’t go home.”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
“I know.”
“Then tell him to take me home.”
“No.”
Her voice rises. “You don’t get to say no to me.”
I lean closer, not to intimidate her, but because I need her to hear this.
“The men who came after me saw your face. They saw me take you with me. If they know who you are, your apartment is the first place they’ll check. If they don’t know yet, they will soon.”
The anger drains out of her slowly. Fear replaces it.
“This is your fault,” she says.
“Yes.”
She blinks. She expected me to argue.
“I was shelving books,” she says, almost to herself. “I was just shelving books.”
“I know.”
“I came over because…” She stops, and I see embarrassment cut through the shock. “It doesn’t matter.”
It does matter. It matters because she came over for me. It matters because five minutes ago she was blushing at me in the history aisle, and now she’s sitting in my car with gunfire still ringing in her ears.
I look away before that becomes something I have to think about.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Somewhere safe.”
“That means nothing.”
“It means you’ll be alive when we get there.”
She stares at me, horrified. “Who are you?”
I could still lie. Not well. Not after this. But I could give her enough to keep her quiet.
Instead, I say, “My name is Ruslan Karelin.”
“I know your name.”
“No,” I say. “You know what I let the library have.”
Her lips part.
I lean forward. “Change cars. Call Stepan. Tell him the leak knew I was there.”
My driver nods.
Zoya hears all of it. When I sit back, she looks at me like she’s finally seeing the man who has been standing in front of her for months.
Not the quiet patron. Not the Thursday crush. Something else.
Something much worse.
“Ruslan,” she whispers. “Who are you?”
I hold her gaze. “I run the Karelin organization.”
She doesn’t understand the words at first.
Then she does. Her face goes pale.
“The mafia?” she asks.
I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
Her eyes go wide, and for the first time since I’ve known her, she looks at me with real fear.
Good, I tell myself. That’s safer for her.
But when she presses herself against the door and looks away from me, I don’t like it at all.