Chapter 20 – Konstantin
I prepare for war the way I always have—methodical, silent, ruthless.
The surveillance room hums around me, screens flickering with live feeds, weapons arranged with meticulous care. The warehouse blueprint glows on the main display, every entrance memorized, every blind spot already covered. By nightfall, this will be over.
The door opens behind me.
I don’t turn. I don’t need to. I see their reflections in the screens in front of me.
Lev. Dimitri. Roman. Mike.
I sigh and rub my thumb along the edge of the desk. “Before any of you start,” I say evenly, “no. I’m not being talked out of this. And no—I’m not bringing a parade with me.”
Roman snorts. “Shut up. Walking into a trap alone is a terrible plan.”
Mike leans against the wall, arms crossed, eyes sharp. “They’ll both be there tonight,” he says. “Reed and Markov. Same time. Same place.”
That gets my attention. I turn slowly.
“It’s bait,” Dimitri adds, already pulling up satellite overlays. “Too clean. Too convenient.”
“Good,” I reply. “Then it’ll be easier to kill them both at once. Makes the hunt more exciting.”
Lev steps forward, voice hard. “You don’t get to do this alone.”
I meet his gaze. “Watch me.”
Roman spreads his hands, irritation flashing. “You go in alone, you die alone. That’s not strategy—that’s ego.”
“This isn’t strategy,” I say quietly. “It’s justice.”
Mike’s mouth curves into something grim. “You burn that place down, you light half the city on fire with it.”
“I don’t care,” I snap. “I’ll reduce it to ash if that’s what it takes.”
Lev’s jaw tightens. “This is about Raelyn.”
“Yes,” I say, just as sharply. “Which is why I go alone.”
Dimitri steps in now, calm but lethal. “You don’t get to martyr yourself. Not when there are other ways.”
“There aren’t,” I cut in. “Not for this.”
Roman’s voice lowers. “You’re compromised.”
I laugh once, cold. “I’m focused.”
“You’re reckless,” Lev says.
“I’m finished pretending restraint matters,” I reply.
Mike pushes off the wall, eyes narrowing. “You walk into that warehouse solo, you’re playing their game.”
“No,” I say, leaning forward, hands braced on the desk. “I’m ending it.”
The room goes tense—charged. My brothers start talking over one another.
“We flank—”
“We draw them out—”
“We cut power—”
“We wait—”
“Enough.”
My voice isn’t loud. It doesn’t need to be.
Silence slams down instantly.
I straighten, meeting each of them in turn. “This man”—I tap the screen where Reed’s face freezes mid-step—“lied to my wife. He put her father in the ground and handed her grief like a gift. Markov signed off on it. They threatened her. They baited me.”
I step closer, my voice dropping into something sharp enough to cut bone.
“This isn’t a negotiation. This isn’t a team exercise. This is personal.”
Lev exhales slowly. “You’re asking us to stand down.”
“I’m ordering you to,” I correct.
Roman shakes his head. “She won’t forgive you if you die.”
“She won’t forgive me if I hesitate,” I reply. “And she won’t be safe while either of them still breathes.”
Mike studies me for a long moment, then nods once. “He’s already decided.”
Lev’s fists clench. “You come back.”
I don’t answer that.
Dimitri turns back to the screens. “We’ll lock down every exit. If anything moves wrong—”
“I’ll handle it,” I say.
Roman mutters, “Stubborn bastard.”
I almost smile.
I give them my final command, voice calm, absolute.
“I go in alone.”
And for Raelyn—this war ends tonight.
***
By evening, everything is in place.
Weapons secured. Routes memorized. Exit plans I don’t intend to use already burned into muscle memory. The house hums with controlled violence—guards moving, systems locking, brothers watching me like they already know this is the moment you don’t argue anymore.
Before I leave, I go to her.
Our room is quiet. Too quiet.
Raelyn sits by the window in one of my shirts, knees drawn to her chest, the fabric swallowing her frame. The city lights wash her in pale gold. She looks fragile like this—but when she turns and sees me, there’s steel in her eyes. Determination holding her upright.
She stands too fast, crosses the room, and grips my jacket like it’s the only solid thing left.
“Don’t go alone,” she says, voice breaking despite her effort to keep it steady. “Please. Don’t do this by yourself.”
I take her face in both hands, grounding us both. My thumbs brush beneath her eyes, memorizing her like I won’t get another chance.
“This is the only way,” I tell her quietly. “If I don’t cut the head off this thing, it never stops. They will keep circling you. Testing. Threatening. I won’t allow that.”
Her forehead presses into my chest. Her breath shudders.
“I can’t lose you too,” she whispers.
The words hit harder than any bullet ever has.
I pull her closer and kiss her—slow, devastating, nothing rushed. Not hunger. Not desperation. Something deeper. A promise. A farewell. A vow tangled so tight I don’t know where one ends and the other begins.
My hands move over her back, her waist, her hair—learning her again, committing every inch to memory like this is how I’ll survive whatever comes next. When I finally pull away, our breaths tremble together.
“I love you,” I say, rough and unguarded.
Her lips part. Her eyes shine.
“I love you,” she answers, cracked but sure.
That nearly breaks me.
I rest my forehead against hers for one last second—just one—then force myself to step back. If I don’t leave now, I won’t leave at all.
I turn away.
I don’t look back.
Because if I do, I might not finish this.
And for her—I have to.
The drive to the warehouse is silent.
Snow falls in pale, drifting sheets, softening the city, hiding tracks. The road glistens under the headlights, empty and waiting. I don’t turn on the radio. I don’t need noise. My mind is sharp. Clean. Focused to a point that feels almost peaceful.
This is what I’m built for.
I park a block away and walk the rest.
The warehouse looms like a rotting animal—steel ribs, broken windows, too quiet for a place that wants to pretend it isn’t occupied. I step inside alone. Weapon holstered. Hands loose. Steady.
The door closes behind me with a hollow clang.
Shadows shift.
Boots scrape concrete. Men fan out, slow and confident, thinking they already own the outcome. I let them. Let them feel powerful for another breath.
Then Reed steps forward.
Samuel Reed. Same weary face. Same false sorrow carved into the lines around his mouth. He smirks when he sees me, like we’re sharing a private joke.
“Rusnak,” he says lightly. “You came alone. That’s disappointing. I thought you were smarter.”
My fury hits instantly—hot, blinding—but I leash it. Fury is useless without control.
“Who targeted my wife?” I ask.
The room stills.
Reed laughs. Actually laughs. A short, ugly sound that echoes off the walls.
“You really think you’re in a position to ask questions?” he says. “This was a trap. You walked straight into it because you couldn’t stand the idea of losing her. Ego does that. Confidence too.”
He tilts his head. Studies me.
“Your reputation is impressive,” he continues. “But tonight? It gets you killed.”
The lights die.
Gunfire erupts from the dark.
I move before the sound finishes traveling—muscle memory taking over, thought narrowing to angles and breath.
I don’t spray. I don’t rush. I cut. A blade of motion through bodies that never see me coming.
A man steps out of cover—throat crushed.
Another turns—two shots, center mass, down.
A third tries to flank—his shadow gives him away before his foot does.
Silent. Fast. Finished.
I don’t chase noise. I chase intent.
Reed bolts.
I see him break from the cluster, panic finally shredding the composure he wore like armor. He runs deeper into the warehouse, boots slapping concrete, knocking over crates as he goes. He knows the layout. He thinks that matters.
I follow.
The air is thick with dust and cordite, the space opening into long aisles of stacked pallets and rusted machinery. My footsteps are measured, relentless. I don’t sprint. I herd. Every route he takes, I cut him off from light, from exits, from men who might still be breathing.
He fires blind over his shoulder. Bullets bite sparks from steel inches from my head. I pivot, slide behind a forklift, roll, and come up already aiming.
He disappears around a corner.
I’m on him in seconds.
A catwalk. Narrow stairs. He takes them two at a time, breath ragged now, fear loud. I take them clean, quiet, close enough to smell his sweat. He glances back and trips—catches himself, keeps going, desperation giving him speed he doesn’t deserve.
“Rusnak—” he shouts, voice cracking. “We can—”
I put a round into the railing beside his head. He flinches hard, stumbles again.
“Run,” I tell him. “I want you tired.”
He bursts through a door into the back section—office shells, broken windows, moonlight cutting the dust into pale blades. Snow drifts in through shattered glass. Cold. Clean. Final.
He spins, weapon shaking.
“This was never personal,” he pants. “Your wife—she was leverage. That’s all.”
I step forward.
“She was never yours to measure.”
He fires.
I knock the barrel aside, close the distance, and drive him into the wall. The gun skitters away. He swings wild. I break his wrist. Bone snaps. He screams. I don’t flinch.
I lean in close, voice low, controlled—nothing left to prove.
“You lied to her,” I say. “You buried her father twice.”
His knees buckle. I let him slide down the wall to the floor, gasping, broken, alive only because I allow it.
He tries to crawl. I put my boot on his chest and press, slow and deliberate.
The fight that follows isn’t chaos. It’s methodical.
I take him apart the way I was taught—pressure, leverage, pain applied with purpose.
An arm wrenched until the joint gives. Fingers bent back one by one until he’s screaming names, dates, routes. The truth spills out of him in shards.
Hart didn’t die in a crossfire.
He was handed over.
Drugged. Moved. Interrogated.
Killed when he wouldn’t give up the list.
Reed signed the transfer.
Reed falsified the report.
Reed delivered the death notice with practiced sorrow.
And Raelyn—
Raelyn was always the contingency.
I crouch in front of him, grip his jaw, force his eyes to mine. He’s sobbing now. Not remorse. Fear.
I raise the gun.
“Where’s Markov?”
He shakes his head wildly. “Please—please, Konstantin. I did what I had to. I was just the middle—”
The barrel presses into his forehead.
“Where.”
His breath stutters. He caves.
“Here,” he blurts. “He’s here. Lower level. East wing. Old cold storage—behind the generator room. Please—please, I told you everything. I told you—”
The moment the words leave his mouth, the decision is already made.
I pull the trigger.
The sound is sharp. Final.
Reed collapses backward, unfinished mid-breath, blood dark against concrete. I don’t look at him again.
I stand, adjust my grip on the weapon, and turn toward the corridor he indicated.
Markov is in this building.
And this war ends now.
I move fast, heading to the lower level east wing, just as Reed described. The warehouse opens into a cavernous back section, moonlight slanting through high, broken windows. Then I see movement.
A figure at the far end—already mid-motion, already running.
Adrian Markov.
Tall. Lean. Too composed for a man who knows he’s about to die. Dark coat flaring behind him, expensive even now. Hair slicked back, face sharp and foxlike. He moves with the confidence of someone who has escaped worse than this before.
He doesn’t look back.
He leaps.
“Markov!”
I fire.
The shot takes him in the shoulder. He screams—raw, animal—but momentum carries him through the massive window. Glass explodes outward as he disappears.
I sprint. Vault the debris. Reach the window just in time to see him hit the ground hard, roll, clutching his bleeding shoulder. He staggers up and runs for a black car idling behind the building.
I fire again.
The bullet clips his side. Another scream. He stumbles, but he doesn’t stop.
I jump.
The impact jars my spine as I hit the ground. I’m already raising the gun as he throws himself into the driver’s seat and slams the door.
I shoot at the tires.
One shot.
Two.
Rubber screeches—but not enough. The engine roars to life. Gravel sprays as the car fishtails, then straightens.
He’s gone.
The taillights vanish into the snow and dark.
I stand there, chest heaving, gun still raised, blood ringing in my ears. I lower the weapon slowly.
This isn’t over.
Adrian Markov just learned something tonight—
He can bleed.
And next time, I won’t miss.
I turn back into the warehouse. The air is thick with smoke and gunpowder, the concrete slick beneath my boots. Bodies everywhere. Twisted. Still. Silent. I nod once at the carnage.
No one is alive.
Good.
I stand there for a moment longer, chest rising and falling hard, blood drying on my knuckles, adrenaline still roaring through my veins. Victory sits uneasily in my gut—heavy, incomplete. One man escaped. One man always does.
I pull my phone from my pocket.
I call Nik, and as soon as he picks up, I don’t let him speak.
“I need to talk to my wife.”
“She’s right here. She hasn’t left the office since you left.”
I hear a shift and then Raelyn’s voice. “Konstantin?”
“It’s done,” I say. My voice is rough, torn raw by smoke and violence. “Not all of it. But enough.”
There’s a breath on the other end. Then a whisper, fragile and fierce all at once.
“Come home.”
Something in my chest finally gives. Not weakness. Release.
“I’m coming,” I tell her.
I end the call and step back out into the snowstorm. The cold bites into my skin, sharp and real, grounding me. The war isn’t finished. Markov is still breathing. And until he isn’t, this ends nowhere.
But Raelyn is waiting for me.
And that’s the only home I want now.