3. A Plan Set In Motion
A Plan Set In Motion
Fyodor
The morning air along the avenue was crisp and tasted of exhaust.
I’d spent twenty minutes standing in the stone archway of the bakery across the street, letting my breathing settle after the long walk.
From there, I had a clear line of sight through the high iron gates into the penthouse building’s private motor court.
Lev’s men were rotating through their morning sweep in predictable four-minute loops around the paved courtyard and the underground garage entrance. Professional and routine.
At 7:42 AM, the overnight detail began their handoff to the day shift near the executive drop-off bay.
That was my window.
I pulled the brim of my cap low, stepped out of the archway, crossed the street, and walked straight through the open iron gates into the courtyard.
Zhenya was standing beside his running sedan in the paved court, phone pressed to his ear, dictating orders with the sharp, rhythmic cadence he used when the world wasn’t moving fast enough for him. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
One of the younger guards stationed away from the gate post clocked me first at a few meters out. I saw him lock onto me with instant recognition—not with the panic of a man eyeing his killer, but the cold appraisal of a guard spotting a missing subject.
He took a fast step across the cobblestones to cut off my path.
“Mr. Levin—sir, stop right there—”
I didn’t slow down. I stepped directly into his space, shoved his reaching arm aside, and kept moving.
Zhenya snapped his head up at the commotion. The phone in his hand lowered slowly, his usual composure cracking wide open as he took a half-step toward me.
“Nikolai—”
I didn’t let him finish the name. I closed the distance and struck him across the face with the flat of my palm.
The crack of open hand against cheek echoed off the concrete walls of the vehicle bay. It wasn’t a fight; it was a cold mark of contempt.
In the next second, metal clicked. The young guard behind me reacted on pure instinct, unholstering his sidearm and leveling it at the back of my head. “Hands where I can see them! Step away!”
Zhenya didn’t flinch from the slap, but when the guard yelled, his eyes flicked to the drawn weapon—and something vicious took over.
He moved faster than a man in a suit had any right to, grabbing the guard’s wrist, twisting the gun downward, and driving a hard, methodical fist into the man’s jaw.
Twice. The guard hit the cobblestones sideways, his gun skittering across the pavement.
The rest of the detail froze.
Zhenya stood over the guard, chest rising slightly, adjusting his cuff.
“If you ever draw a weapon on him again,” he said, his voice dropping to a deadly murmur, “I won’t just fire you. I’ll make sure you never work security in this city again. Get your gear and get out.”
He cut his eyes to the remaining three men. “All of you. Clear the court.”
They dragged the young guard up by his jacket and cleared out within ten seconds, leaving the motor court dead silent.
Zhenya turned back to face me. The imprint of my hand was flushing red across his cheekbone, but he didn’t reach up to touch it.
“You came back,” he said softly.
“When was the funeral set?”
The question hung cold in the morning air.
Zhenya’s mask slipped for a fraction of a second, but I caught the shift.
“What?”
“His grandmother,” I said, taking a step closer. “When did your family schedule her burial?”
He stared at me, processing the shift in tone, the name, and the anger behind it. “Nikolai—”
“Don’t call me that. Did you think he wouldn’t find out?” I cut in. “Did you think you could just bury the only person who cared about him in a private ceremony with those parasites, and he’d never notice?
Zhenya took a step toward me, his posture softening slightly, though he kept his hands buried in his pockets.
“We aren’t discussing this out here in the open,” Zhenya said, in a low, unyielding voice. “The courtyard has eyes. Come up. We’ll talk inside.”
I held eye contact for a long moment, measuring the weight of his composure against the cold burn in my chest.
“Lead the way,” I said.
He turned toward the private elevator in the lobby, and I followed him in.
The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open directly into the penthouse foyer.
It was quiet inside—that same heavy, stagnant quiet I’d left behind a week ago. The air still carried the faint trace of over brewed coffee, and Zhenya’s cologne.
I didn’t wait for him. I walked straight into the living room, threw my baseball cap onto the leather couch, and turned around to face him.
Zhenya came in right behind me, letting the elevator doors close. He looked worn through. The red mark from my palm was still blooming across his cheekbone, but his expression had flattened into something carefully held together.
“Talk,” I said. “Why is her burial set for Saturday?Why is your family handling it like a closed-door board meeting?”
“Because you were gone,” Zhenya said, his voice devoid of the defensive edge most men in his position would have put up. “You vanished into a city of twelve million people with no clothes, no money, and no trace. I spent seven days tearing Moscow apart trying to locate you.”
“So your solution was to publish an obituary?”
“My solution was to force you to look at a screen,” he said, stepping closer.
“I knew you wouldn’t reach out to me. I knew you were actively avoiding Lev’s men.
The only thing in this world that would make you—or him—stop hiding was her.
I released the funeral announcement to the press this morning because I knew it was the one signal you couldn’t ignore. ”
I locked eyes with him, dissecting the look in his face for any sign of a lie. It was a cold, manipulative tactic. Pure Romanov logic. But it had worked. I was standing in his living room.
“You have your answer,” I said, reaching for my cap on the couch. “The funeral is Saturday. I’ll be there. And then I’m done with this place.”
I turned toward the foyer.
“Mikhail killed her.”
The words hit the back of my neck like a drop of ice water.
I froze, my hand hovering inches above the bill of my cap. The room went unnaturally still.
“What did you just say?” I turned around slowly.
Zhenya didn’t flinch. He stood in the center of the room, his blue eyes locked onto mine with a lethal, steady clarity.
“Her drip at the hospital,” Zhenya said, tone dead level.
“It was poisoned. It wasn’t heart failure.”
The air in my lungs turned to lead. A sharp, violent pressure surged behind my eyes—Nikolai, thrashing against the surface, trying to claw his way out at the mention of her name. I jammed my knuckles into the edge of the counter, forcing him back down, forcing the body to stay under my control.
“Sit down, Fyodor,” Zhenya said softly.
I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to tear something apart. But my legs moved anyway, and I dropped into the backless stool across from the kitchen counter, my pulse hammering in my ears.
“Explain,” I gritted out.
Zhenya sat on the stool across from me, leaning forward, his hands resting on his knees.
“The night you left, the night in Tver—wasn’t an accident,” Zhenya began, tracing each word with careful precision.
“Mikhail set the entire thing in motion. He arranged the fake tutoring job out in Tver to draw Nikolai out of the city. He paid off the logistics driver to jackknife that tanker on the highway so I couldn’t reach him in time.”
He paused, letting it sink in before he going on.
“And the woman?” I asked, the memory of her in his bedroom cutting through my mind.
“Inessa was paid,” Zhenya said plainly. “Mikhail bought her. He flew her back into the country and sent her into this penthouse with a script, specifically timed for when Nikolai walked through that door.”
“And his grandmother?”
“Collateral,” Zhenya said, his jaw tightening slightly. “Mikhail viewed her as an easy strike. Revenge for his brother, Vladimir.”
I sat motionless on the stool, my mind working through the geometry of it all. It was clean. Systematic. The kind of cruelty born from generational wealth and absolute entitlement.
“Where is Mikhail now?” I asked.
“Hiding,” Zhenya said. “He knows I’m coming for him. By the time I’m done, there won’t be a corner of this country safe enough for him to breathe in.”
He stood up from the stool, walking over until he was standing directly in front of my chair.
“Which is why you need to stay here,” he offered.
I let out a harsh, dry laugh.
“You want me to sit in your penthouse and play house while you go play soldier?”
“I want you alive,” Zhenya countered, stepping into my space. “Mikhail’s men are still on the streets. If you walk out that door alone, you are an open target. Here, you have security. You have leverage. Stay in the penthouse until after the funeral on Saturday. Let me handle Mikhail.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” I said, rising from the chair and looking him dead in the eye. “And I don’t need your protection.”
“This isn’t about pride, Fyodor,” Zhenya said, his voice dropping into that low tone enough to back a man into a corner.
He didn’t use Nikolai’s name. He looked at me, specifically, acknowledging who he was talking to. “You care about his safety. So do I. Moving around Moscow right now is reckless for both of you. Give me time to clear the field.”
We stood there in the quiet room, inches apart, measuring each other. He was offering a tactical advantage, and as much as I disliked the man, his logic was sound. Going back out onto the street with Mikhail’s men hunting us was stupid.
“Until Saturday,” I said coldly. “After the burial, we’re gone.”
Zhenya’s eyes pinned me for a long, unblinking moment, then gave a single, firm nod. “Fair enough.”
He checked his watch, adjusting the black strap against his wrist.
“There’s food in the refrigerator,” Zhenya said, turning toward the foyer to retrieve his suit jacket. “Take a hot shower. Get out of those clothes. Olga will be up here at noon if you need anything.”
“Where are you going?”
“To work,” Zhenya said, slipping his arms into his coat and straightening the lapels. His eyes flicked back to mine. “I have a family member to destroy.”
He turned, stepped into the elevator, and was gone.