Chapter 2
Dmitry
Idrove the catering van through the gates wearing a waiter’s uniform that strangled my neck and strained across my shoulders.
The real waiter was zip-tied in the back, gagged with his own socks, but still very much alive.
The dacha rose out of the snow. A palace built from blood money and tortured girls.
Heated marble driveways. Searchlights sweeping the sky. Dogs that were trained to go for the throat first.
Security wore tuxedos over body armor and pretended they weren’t packing Kalashnikovs. Inside smelled of champagne, cigars, and corrupt money so thick you could chew it.
Chandeliers the size of compact cars dripped light across Persian rugs. A string quartet sawed at Tchaikovsky while oligarchs laughed too loudly and politicians pretended they weren’t corrupt as sin and taking back alley deals.
And then there were the cages. Six of them, gilded and human-sized.
They were suspended from the ceiling with chains, swaying gently above the crowd like perverse ornaments.
And inside each one was a young woman, barely legal age.
They were all naked except for leather and gem-encrusted collars that spoke of ownership.
And their eyes… their eyes were hollow and already accepting of their fate.
Some stood motionless, wrists cuffed to the bars, silent tears tracking down their cheeks. Others were curled on the cage floor like broken dolls that weren’t done being used.
Despite the noise filling the room, I could hear a few of the women begging in Ukrainian, some in Russian, others in languages I wasn’t familiar with. They spoke as if they were praying, but no god was answering.
All I wanted to do was slaughter all these motherfuckers and free those pretty caged birds. Not allowing the death dealer in me to satisfy those urges was hard, but I had a bigger task at hand.
I gritted my teeth when, every few minutes, a fat finger adorned with gold and diamond rings, crooked. A handler lowered a cage, and a leash snapped onto the woman’s collar. And then she was led away by the motherfucker who wanted her.
Ten minutes later, the girl came back shaking, thighs red and already bruising, and face wet from crying.
I made a vow to kill every fucker in this room before I died.
I wove through the room with a silver tray of blini and caviar, face blank, shoulders rounded like every other invisible server. No one looked twice at the help, even if I was bigger than half of them.
After twenty minutes, I spotted Ivanov on the grand staircase, flushed and sweating, pawing a blonde young enough to be the daughter he kept locked away from all this.
I slipped into the service corridor, ditched the tray, and ghosted up the back stairs. I’d memorized the floor plan, and the only thought in my mind was making him hurt as much as humanly possible.
His office was easy enough to find, as well as keeping away from the cameras and armed men patrolling the corridors.
Heavy oak door. Biometric lock. But that wouldn’t stop me.
I pressed a small EMP disc against the panel, disengaging the lock.
Once inside, I shut the door behind me silently and stayed still.
Mahogany desk straight ahead and a wall of monitors cycling security feeds. The glass case was full of vintage camcorders, and although there weren’t any tapes inside, I knew what they were. Trophies.
Flashes of that seventeen-year-old boy forced to watch his mother being slaughtered slammed into my head, but I pushed the memories away. Now wasn’t the time.
I planted the C-4 under the desk. It was a tiny brick but could be operated with a remote detonator that could reach two miles away. It would be enough to turn Ivanov into a red mist splattered across this room and take out half of this house.
It was also undetectable by any sweeps.
I was turning to leave when something on one monitor caught my attention. A young woman on the balcony, wind whipping her white-blonde hair across her face and down the length of her back.
I didn’t know why I stood there for so long and watched her, but I couldn’t force myself to look away. Her ivory silk gown flowed and relaxed around her long legs. I knew who she was–knew everything about her–even though I didn’t know her.
Zoya Ivanova, twenty-three, five foot seven, and one-hundred-twenty pounds of lean muscle from dancing ballet her whole life.
And I’d been killing men since before she drew her first breath.
She turned from the balcony and leaned against it. Her face was visible to the camera. High cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. Mouth curved like a red bow. And skin the same color of moonlight on fresh snow.
I knew Andrey Ivanov kept her locked away from his business, from corruption and death. But the bruises I’d seen in surveillance photos told a different story. She knew pain even if she didn’t know the full rot of his empire.
Zoya wrapped her arms around herself and walked back inside like she was marching to her own execution. The poor little girl didn’t know her father was the judge, jury, and executioner.
I kept my focus on the empty balcony. I was so close to ending it all, to finally getting what I wanted. I’d be five million richer, and Ivanov would be in pieces.
Debt paid.
But she would burn, too, and all I could picture was my mother and how she didn’t deserve what had happened.
Zoya didn’t deserve the sins of her father even if casualties were part of this world.
I deactivated the bomb even though I contemplated leaving it connected on the off chance he let his daughter leave the property. But I knew better.
Viktor wanted Ivanov’s tongue in his hand. Fine. I would deliver the tongue… later. Tonight, the king would lose something far more precious than his life. His untouched princess. I’d use her as leverage. She’d be a living wound and proof the contract would still be honored, just on my terms now.
I left the office, C-4 and the detonator under his desk still connected. The job wasn’t dead. It was only delayed.
I found the security wing and two guards playing cards. I didn’t think as I slit the throat of the first man before he looked up. The second got half a scream out before my forearm crushed his windpipe and my blade slid home between ribs and pierced his heart. I twisted for good measure.
I dragged the bodies into a utility closet and stripped the uniform off one guard. It was small across the chest, but it would do. Next, I popped the earpiece in, clipped on the keycard, and went hunting for the devil’s daughter.
I followed the private corridor to the east wing, which was where her bedroom was located. Andrey kept her locked away like a porcelain doll he was terrified of breaking. Biometric door at the end, one guard posted outside. Big kid, early twenties, and trying to look hard in a tailored suit.
He straightened when he saw the uniform. “Kuda prysh’, suk—” he started, voice low and threatening. Restricted, bitch—
My hand was already moving. Blade up under the jaw, through the soft palate into the brain.
No sound but a wet gurgle and the faint scrape of steel on bone.
I caught him before he hit the floor, eased him down, and wiped the blade on his lapel.
The keycard from his belt opened the lock with a soft click.
Inside, the suite smelled of orchids and expensive perfume. Vanilla and honey undertones but too sweet, innocent, and wrong for this house.
Zoya was alone in the attached winter garden.
It was a room built off her patio doors and made up of glass walls that were foggy from the heat inside and the chill outside.
She stood in front of one window, staring into the nothingness of the outside world that I knew she’d probably never truly she’d experienced.
Her ivory gown clung to every curve she hadn’t yet learned to weaponize. I could see the diamond necklace around her neck. I knew Andrey spoiled her with jewelry, materialistic things that she probably hated.
Zoya didn’t hear me, not even when I stopped two feet behind her.
I was close enough to smell her perfume and the distinct, natural smell that was only hers.
And when she saw me in the reflection of the fogged-up glass, she only had a second to gasp and spin around before I had a hand clamped over her mouth and her back pressed to the glass.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “Ty ne dolzhna byt’ odna zdes’, printsessa.” You shouldn’t be out here alone, princess.
Blue eyes flared wide above my palm, but she stayed silent and still.
I loosened my grip just enough for her to breathe then removed it, daring her to speak. “Esli ty izdadesh khot’ odin zvuk, ya vyrezhu tebe yazyk.” If you make a sound, I’m going to cut your tongue out.
She narrowed those beautiful eyes as she clocked the blood on my cuff, the silver at my temples, and the way the uniform didn’t quite fit a man like me.
“You’re not security,” she whispered, voice steady even with my hand still hovering near her lips.
“No,” I said. “I’m the man who’s going to ruin your father’s night.” For a second, I thought she’d scream. Instead, she lifted her chin in defiance.
“Good. He deserves it.”
The words punched the air out of my lungs. Up close, I could see the bruises coming through under the makeup and finger marks on her upper arm shaped exactly like Ivanov’s grip, I assumed.
I didn’t know what came over me, but I reached out slowly and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. She flinched but didn’t pull away.
“What’s your name?” Her voice was still soft and almost breathless.
“They call me The Death Dealer.” I didn’t know why I answered, let alone told her the truth. “You can call me Dmitry.”
Fear flickered across her face, and I knew she recognized my name, had probably heard it spoken about when she was a child. I could imagine what was said to her and murmured the words,
“Tikho, malyshka... a to Diler Smerti pridet.” Quiet, malyshka... or The Death Dealer will come. I traced her jaw with a thumb that had ended more lives than she had years on this earth.
She swallowed. “Are you going to kill me?”
I should. It would be cleaner. Easier. Instead, I leaned in until my lips brushed the shell of her ear. “Not tonight, malyshka. I’m stealing you from this gilded cage and putting you in another… one where only I hold the key.”
Her breath caught, sharp and startled, her body tensing. I pressed the chloroform rag over her mouth a second later, and she fought hard for someone so small, nails raking my wrist, heel slamming my shin. But I was stronger, and the drug was merciless.
Her body softened against my chest, weighing nothing in arms. It was a far cry from the corpses I carried that were three times her size.
I lifted her like a kidnapped bride, and ivory silk spilled over my black sleeves stained with blood. The diamonds on her necklace caught the moonlight and glittered. I left her room, stepping over the dead guard in the corridor, his blood already cooling on the marble.
I carried her to the service alcove, one that every luxury wing had, and found a laundry hamper on wheels half-full of soiled table linens from the gala, heavy cream damask still smelling of caviar and champagne.
I zip-tied her wrists and ankles loose enough not to cut off circulation and taped her mouth as insurance.
I laid her inside gently, curled her limbs so she fit, and tucked the silk gown around her like I was wrapping something breakable. I pulled a thick tablecloth over her, hiding her long white-blonde hair, the diamonds, and, especially, the bruises.
Acting like I was just doing my job, I pushed the cart through corridors that were dim and half-deserted. Staff were drunk on stolen vodka or hiding from the bosses. Anyone who glanced saw only another faceless worker pushing laundry toward the loading dock. No one looked twice at dirty linen.
The job was fucked, but I didn’t give a single damn.
Outside, snow fell in thick sheets. I rolled the cart straight to the catering van, lifted the hamper into the back, and secured it. Snow fell harder as I pulled through the gates. In the rearview mirror, I saw the dacha lights blurring into smears of gold.
“Sleep, Zoya Ivanova,” I said, voice rougher than I meant. “When you wake up, the world you know will burn. And I’ll be the one holding the match and using you to make your father watch every flame.”
For the first time in decades, I had something alive that belonged only to me. It was a living blade to carve deeper into Ivanov than any bomb ever could.