Chapter 10 Dimitri
DIMITRI
Iwake before dawn.
The bed beside me is empty, which tells me everything I need to know.
Katya chose the guest room.
Probably the smart choice.
If she had climbed in beside me, I would've taken her again and again, and that would complicate things.
This morning, the mission returns to the front of my mind where it belongs.
I have to sniff out the man who put a hit on my head within the Radich crew, and Katya is going to help.
I shower quickly, dress in the same clothes I wear to the track every day—dark jeans, boots, a plain shirt that doesn't draw attention.
When I pace into the kitchen, she's already awake, sitting at the table with her knees pulled to her chest.
She still wears my shirt and boxers.
Her hair is tangled from sleep, her face pale.
She doesn’t look at me when I enter.
Her gaze stays pinned on the bowl of cereal in front of her, half eaten and growing warm.
"Get dressed," I tell her, knowing she only has the same filthy clothing she took off yesterday.
I'll have to buy a few things for her at some point. "We have work to do."
Her eyes flick up, seeming wary. "What work?"
"The work you agreed to."
I pour coffee into two mugs, set one in front of her.
"You are mine now. That means you do what I say, when I say it, until this job is over, at which point you become your own again."
I sit across from her, leaning back in the chair.
"You want your freedom. I want information. We both get what we need if you follow my instructions."
Her jaw tightens, but she doesn’t argue.
Good.
She's learning.
I drink my coffee in two long swallows, then stand.
"Meet me at the door in ten minutes."
She nods, still not meeting my eyes as she takes her first sip of the black coffee and sighs lightly.
I walk to the bedroom and retrieve the pendant from the nightstand drawer.
The tracking chip I snuck inside is no larger than a grain of rice, embedded in the metal so cleanly that even under close inspection, it would go unnoticed.
I tested it myself before installing it.
The signal reaches up to five kilometers and feeds directly to an app on my phone.
She'll never be more than a stone's throw from me.
When she emerges from the guest room, dressed in her own clothes again, I hold the pendant out to her.
Her eyes widen as she opens her palm and I drop it into her grasp.
"I thought you were keeping this."
"I got something better last night… And you know the rules now."
I wink at her and straighten my collar as heat creeps into her cheeks.
She clips the chain around her neck, and I start for the door without telling her again to follow.
The drive to the track is quiet.
She stares out the window the whole way with her hands folded in her lap.
I focus on the road, running through the plan in my mind.
There are details to refine, contingencies to account for.
She's untrained, unpredictable, and her instinct will be to run the moment she sees an opening.
I need to make sure she doesn’t get that chance.
When we arrive, the track is still empty.
The morning crew won’t arrive for another hour.
I park near the training office and lead her inside.
"Sit," I tell her, gesturing to the chair across from my desk.
She sits, her posture tense, her eyes on the door as though she is already planning her escape.
I lean against the desk, arms crossed.
"Do you know who the Radich family is?"
She shakes her head, and I realize I have my work cut out for me.
Knowing about organized crime and being well acquainted with a single organization’s methods are two different things.
"They're our rivals. Enforcers, smugglers, extortionists. They operate out of the suburbs and have been expanding into Moscow for the past five years. My family tolerates them because open war is expensive, but tolerance doesn’t mean trust."
I pause, watching her face.
She's listening, but her attention is divided.
I need her focused.
"Nine months ago, I was told to expect retaliation. I killed one of their men years ago, and his brother hasn't forgotten. Since then, they've been tracking me. Watching my routines. Waiting for the right moment to strike."
Her eyes narrow.
"And you want me to get close to them."
"Yes."
I push off the desk, pacing to the window.
"But you can't approach them directly. They'd see through that immediately. You need a reason to drift. A reason they'll believe."
"What reason?"
"You're my runner now. You carry messages, deliver payments, sit in on meetings when I need an extra set of eyes. But you’re also mouthy. Undisciplined. You have a habit of placing bets you cannot afford to lose, and you're not afraid to talk back when you think no one important is listening."
She blinks.
"You want me to act stupid."
The expression she gives me is insulting.
She feels like my job for her is demeaning.
"I want you to act believable."
I turn back to face her.
"The Radich’s won’t trust someone who's too polished, too careful. They want people who are desperate and reckless. People they can exploit."
She leans back in the chair, arms crossed now.
"And what happens when they try to exploit me?"
"You let them. To a point."
I move closer, standing over her.
"You feed them small pieces of information—deliveries that don’t matter, meetings that've already happened, names of people who no longer work here. Enough to make them think you’re useful. Enough to make them want more."
"And then I'm free…?"
She's twitchy today.
I'm having second thoughts about whether I can trust her, but I have no other choice.
I won't just drag someone in off the street.
The way things happened so perfectly, it's like fate gave her to me.
She's it, or I can’t do this.
"Yes."
She exhales slowly, her shoulders sagging.
"Fine. Tell me what I need to know."
I spend the next three hours drilling her.
She sits at the desk while I pace, rattling off details she needs to memorize.
Radich couriers use black duffel bags with no logos, always arriving in pairs.
Their bookkeeper is a man named Varlam who smokes unfiltered cigarettes and never carries a phone.
Their street enforcers wear red shoelaces as identification, and their runners are expected to use coded slang when placing bets.
She absorbs it all without complaint, though I can see the strain in her eyes.
She rubs her temples.
"This is insane."
I stop pacing, standing in front of her.
"You need to understand what you’re walking into. These men are not forgiving. They don’t give second chances. If you slip, if you panic, if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, they'll bury you in a ditch outside the city and no one will ever find your body."
Her face pales, but she doesn’t look away.
"I won’t let that happen," I add, crouching in front of her with my hands on the armrests of the chair she's in.
"But you have to trust me. You have to follow the plan."
She swallows hard.
"So, what's the plan?"
I pull a folded paper from my pocket and spread it on the desk.
It's a rough map of the track and the surrounding blocks, marked with red and blue circles.
"Red is where the Radiches have been spotted in the past two weeks. Blue is where their couriers make pickups. They rotate every three days, but the pattern is consistent."
I tap the south gate marker.
"This is where you will start. Thursday afternoon. You'll be there to collect a payment from one of our regulars, a man who always pays late. The Radich crew watches that gate because it's the least guarded. If they see you there alone, carrying cash, they'll approach."
"And then what?"
"You play dumb. You act nervous. You tell them you work for me but you’re not loyal. You mention that you have debts. You let them think you’re vulnerable, but you sell them the story thoroughly."
She shakes her head and runs a hand through her hair.
"They'll see through it."
"They won’t."
I straighten, crossing my arms.
"I'm going to give you a cover that can't be questioned."
I meet her gaze, unflinching.
"This isn't optional. If you want to survive, you play the role I give you."
She exhales slowly, her shoulders slumping.
"You really think this will work?"
The Katya Volsky I met last week was defiant and headstrong.
This woman looking up at me from her chair seems intimidated and afraid.
Maybe fucking her really did mess things up.
Or maybe she's like this before every major score.
I don't know.
"I know it will."
I fold the map and tuck it back into my pocket.
"But only if you commit. No hesitation or second-guessing. You do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, and you don’t deviate."
She nods, though the tension in her body doesn’t ease.
"Good."
I check my watch.
"The crew will arrive soon. You stay close to me today. You watch how I move, who I talk to, how I handle problems. You don’t speak unless I tell you to. You don’t ask questions in front of anyone else. Understood?"
"Understood."
Her breath hitches, but she nods.
"Good."
I release her and step back.
"Now we need to get started. There's more work to do."
The plan is in motion, every detail accounted for, every contingency mapped.
And I don’t fail.
So I'm hoping my choice of partner for this mission is a good one.
If not, Katya may find herself in a very dangerous position and all this work of training her will be for nought.
I'd hate to see that happen, especially with how pliable she is under my touch, but if we fail, it's either her head or mine.
And it won't be mine.