2. Sergey
SERGEY
The first thing I notice at the Tolya transfer estate is how everything is forced into shape. Even the trees seem like they’re holding in a breath. The hedges are cut so square the edges could open a vein. Even the gravel is quiet.
There’s too much money lying around here…
The iron gate is older than the house, black as gunmetal and taller than most of the staff, flanked by two guards who wear the Tolya badge but stand like they’re guarding the royal palace.
It’s cold enough in the morning to make my lungs ache, which is why I lean against the hood of the first SUV instead of pacing. I smoke because it gives my hands something to do, even if my brother pretends he hates the smell.
He stands apart, talking to the estate’s head of security in that low, biting way he has when something is behind schedule.
Mikhail in a mood is like a dog with its teeth bared, except he’d rather you not even see the teeth until they’re in your neck.
Three black SUVs, idling.
You’d think with the kind of money sloshing around in this part of Novarra, we could spring for cars that don’t stink of diesel and burnt plastic. The Tolya’s keep luxury for themselves and hand out intimidation for everyone else.
It’s about what people see rolling up, nothing else. Four of our junior footmen loiter near the last SUV, all of them younger than me, most of them acting like they’re in a movie about this life instead of actually living it.
They’re loose at the jaw, talk with their hands, and showing off the wristwatches they’ll have to pawn if this job goes south. Fresh tattoos to show how hard they are when last week their skin was bare.
You learn to clock the weapons before you learn the names.
Shoulder holster under the windbreaker on the tallest one; pocket clip for a switchblade on the little bastard who’s already sweating through his collar; the one with hair down to his chin thinks I don’t notice the grip of a snub nose at his ankle, but he walks with a limp like it’s the world’s worst-kept secret.
It’s pathetic, but at least they have their guns on them.
This is a delivery, not an execution, but you’d never know by how tense the air is. Mikhail never trusts other men’s paperwork. Me, I don’t trust a man who only looks you in the eye when it’s safe. The head of Tolya’s estate security has that problem, so I write him off in the first five seconds.
The instructions were simple: wait for the black sedan, verify the package, run the convoy north, and deliver the asset to the estate. A simple favor. We’ve done worse for less.
I take one last drag, and then flick the cigarette and grind it out on the sidewall of the tire. I ignore the look Mikhail gives me from twenty feet away.
A sharp whistle from the gate. Then the sedan appears and crawls through the front gates. It’s an imported luxury brand with blacked-out glass, and diplomatic license plates, the kind you only get if you know the right judge or you own him.
It glides to a stop between the SUVs. The driver—a corpse in a suit—gets out, opens the passenger door with a little too much ceremony, and then just stands there, eyes fixed straight ahead.
A woman steps out. Her pale hair curls around her ears, but it’s pinned back so tightly from her face it’s probably giving her a headache.
Her dress is black and simple, but I can tell from the cut that it’s expensive.
A small leather bag is clutched in her delicate hands, the way a priest holds a book during a funeral.
She doesn’t scan the grounds or look for exits or size up the men.
She just stands there, feet together, bag in front, like she’s used to being the calm at the center of a mess.
She waits to be told what to do.
The first thing her hands do is squeeze into the leather of the bag, once, so hard her knuckles bleach out. Then they’re still again. A lot of people think fear looks like screaming, crying, losing your shit, but this is real fear: the kind you press down deep, and pray nobody notices.
Mikhail breaks off from the head of security and strides up, shoes crunching once on the perfect gravel. He nods at the woman, then at the driver, who goes back to pretending he’s not part of this. The guards at the gate don’t move.
“Miss Acerbi,” Mikhail says. “If you’d like to come inside, we’ll finalize the route. Then we can get you out of the city before the evening rush.”
She looks him up and down, then nods. “Thank you,” she says. Her voice is soft, but not small. I can tell by the way the footmen all go quiet for a second.
Mikhail gestures toward the main house, but she shakes her head. “I’m fine here. I have what I need.”
I can’t help it—I let out a breath, and it almost turns into a laugh. The ballsy ones always crack sooner, but she might actually be made of the same cold stuff as Mikhail.
He doesn’t miss a beat; just nods once, then motions for the footmen to load her things into the SUV. There’s nothing but a single suitcase.
The four footmen jostle to be helpful, but she walks ahead of them to the second car and slides into the rear passenger seat. They all pause, waiting to see if she’s going to say something else, but she just gets in, closes the door softly, and waits.
Mikhail gives me the look—time to move—and I swing around to the driver’s seat of the lead SUV. The footmen scatter, two in the first car with me, two in the tail car, one of them grumbling about “babysitting duty.”
Mikhail spends one more minute confirming shit with the head of security, who looks like he’d rather be shot than explain anything else. I watch the guards by the gate, still unmoving, still staring straight ahead.
Through the window, I can see her—chin high, staring straight ahead.
Mikhail climbs into the front passenger seat of the middle car, where the woman sits. She turns her head toward him but her lips don’t move.
We wait for the signal, then the gate opens and I press my foot down on the gas.
I leave a little gap between our car and the sedan, enough that I could cut or brake hard if things go sideways, which they always do, eventually.
From my side mirror, I watch the estate disappear behind the curve in the road, and the iron gate closes behind the last SUV.
I’m used to the background noise of other men’s opinions. Most of the time it’s static: whose cousin snorted what, which footballer got blown in the parking lot behind City Hall, who’s up and who’s dead.
You tune it out because it’s all the same, and because nothing good ever comes from getting involved in the hierarchy of fuckups who orbit the real power. But today, the chatter comes with an edge, and there’s a hot current under the words that makes my teeth itch.
The men in the backseat are hand-picked, but not by us. They’re loud, confident in the way only men who’ve never had to drag a body up a staircase can be. It’s the dark-haired one with the facial scar—never healed right, you can tell he picked at it for months—who kicks things off.
“Bet Orlov won’t even make it to the altar before he breaks her in,” he says.
His buddy—the little one with the baby face—snorts. “Orlov doesn’t do the work himself. He’ll pay to watch it done. That’s his thing, yeah?”
They all laugh. The third, who hasn’t said a word so far, looks uncomfortable. Men like him are always hoping the cruelty will pass them by if they keep their heads down.
“She looks soft,” says the first one. “Won’t last a week. I’d give her two days before she’s on pills or begging for a bullet.”
This is what men say when they think no one will make them eat the words.
My jaw tightens until I feel the bone creak. I wish I could stop on the brakes and throw them all forward and then reach back and punch them all in the face one by one. I want to snap one of their arms and see if they still want to play tough.
“Shut your fucking mouths,” I bark. “You’re not being paid to talk.”
They’re silent immediately. That’s always how it goes—loud until they’re faced with someone who might actually do it.
The city is always worse from inside a car.
It’s something about the way the glass warps the view and makes the buildings seem more desperate to scrape the sky. The SUVs move in formation, like a slow-motion funeral procession, but nobody in our car looks like they’re mourning anything.
An hour into the drive, the skyline has been replaced by ugly, flat country—warehouses, half-finished office parks, and the kind of outlet malls you only see in nightmares. The guys in the back stay silent. On their phones. Sleeping.
Good. As long as they’re not talking.
The convoy hits the first checkpoint at the northern bridge. A uniformed officer waves us through without even checking the paperwork. That’s the kind of pull Orlov has—his name gets you through without questions. They didn’t seem surprised to see us, either. Mikhail must have radioed ahead.
I check my mirrors again. The middle SUV is right behind us, and I can just make out the silhouette of the woman’s head. She hasn’t moved, hasn’t slouched, hasn’t done any of the things people do when they’re bored or scared.
“Hey,” I say to the footmen in the back. “Keep your eyes open. We’re entering neutral territory.”
They straighten up, suddenly remembering they’re supposed to be professionals. The one with the scar mumbles something about coffee, but I ignore him.
We drive for another hour before the radio crackles. It’s Mikhail’s voice, clipped and precise.
“Pull over at the next rest stop. We need to refuel.”
I signal and take the exit. The rest stop is a sad little building with flickering neon lights and a gas station that hasn’t seen maintenance in a decade. I park near the pump and kill the engine.
The woman gets out of the middle SUV before anyone can open her door. She stands there, stretching her neck slightly, her eyes scanning the horizon like she’s memorizing it. The wind catches her pale hair and lifts it away from her neck.
Mikhail approaches her, says something I can’t hear. She nods once, then walks toward the small convenience store attached to the gas station.
I follow at a distance, watching the way she moves—like someone who’s used to being watched, but still doesn’t enjoy it. Her shoulders are set, but there’s a looseness in her stride that tells me she’s grateful for the chance to move.
Inside the store, the fluorescent lights buzz like trapped wasps. She picks a bottle of water from the cooler and brings it to the counter. The cashier—a kid with acne and a phone in his hand—barely looks up. She pays in cash, counts it carefully, and doesn’t wait for change.
I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, and watch the parking lot through the glass.
Mikhail is by the pump, talking to the attendant.
The footmen are scattered around the SUVs, smoking and checking their phones.
One of them is pissing against the side of the building, which is exactly the kind of professionalism I expect from Orlov’s hand-picked crew.
She walks past me on her way out, close enough that I catch the scent of her—something clean and sharply floral. She pauses for half a second, her eyes flicking to mine, and I see something in them that I wasn’t expecting.
Calculation.
As though she’s reading me the same way I’m reading her, and the realization sits strangely in my chest. Most people in her position are too busy being terrified to notice the details. She notices everything.
“You should eat something,” I say, and the words come out before I can stop them. “It’s a long drive.”
She looks at me like I’ve said something in a language she doesn’t speak. Then her expression shifts—not quite a smile, not really. “I’m fine,” she says.
She walks back to the SUV with measured steps. I watch her go, and I feel something hot and uncomfortable curl in my stomach. It’s not lust—I’ve felt that enough times to know what it is, and this isn’t it.
My stomach growls. She might not be hungry, but I am. I grab a protein bar and a bottle of water from the shop cooler, pay the kid who still hasn’t looked up from his phone, and head back to the convoy.
Mikhail catches my eye as I approach. “Everything good?”
“Fine,” I grunt. “She’s quiet.”
“Good. The quieter, the better.”
I want to say something about the way the footmen talked about her, about the things they said in the car, but Mikhail is already turning away and checking his watch. He doesn’t want to hear it.
To him, she’s cargo. A job. A payday.
We’re back on the road within ten minutes. The sky has darkened and the clouds gather like bruises. The radio says rain is coming, and the wind has picked up.
I drive faster than I should, pushing the SUV to keep ahead of the storm. I don’t want to stop before we have to, but we’re not going to make it to our checkpoint before the storm breaks.
Not by a long shot.