Chapter 16 Dmitry
Dmitry
Imoved Zoya out of the bunker before dawn. Not because I was afraid, but because I refused to be careless.
Taking her to the warehouse had never been about protection. It had been about leverage. I’d taken Zoya here to break Andrey. Kidnap his daughter, dangle her safety, and force the intel I’d hunted my whole life. And it worked. He cracked and gave me everything.
And although I got what I came for, somewhere between the first night she looked at me like I wasn’t the monster, and the moment she came apart on my fingers, mouth, and cock, everything in me had shifted.
I felt gentleness for the first time. I experienced wanting to protect someone because I… cared so deeply that the very thought of her not being by my side was unimaginable.
Zoya wasn’t leverage anymore. She was mine, and I didn’t just want to keep her safe. I wanted her beside me, strong enough to help burn the whole thing down.
Static locations were always temporary. Andrey might be broken, but desperate men don’t stay quiet. If he wanted her back and I wasn’t willing to do that, he’d send bodies to collect her and destroy anyone who got in his way.
But Zoya was mine, and I wasn’t going to let anyone or anything touch her.
She didn’t argue when I told her we were leaving. Didn’t ask where we were going. She just watched me with those clear, steady eyes, as if she already understood the world I was about to drag her deeper into and was choosing to step in, regardless.
That look solidified it further for me on where she stood. Zoya wasn’t running from this life. She wanted to fight in it. Wanted to be the one who helped me end men like Andrey. Like her father. The ones who built empires on broken people.
And damn if that didn’t make me want her even more.
The drive stretched long and quiet. Not tense, but focused. We both knew what was up ahead on this path, and all the dark shit that was about to go down.
Steel and concrete bled into the dark forest and rising elevation. My personal property sat high, carved into terrain that punished anyone who didn’t belong there. It was fortified, private, and bought and built under an alias that could never be traced back to me.
When we arrived, she took it in slowly. The gates, cameras, and the quiet that came from control, not emptiness.
“This is where you live?” she asked in a breathless tone.
“One place, yes, but this is my private residence,” I said and watched the way she processed it all. No fear. No wide-eyed awe. Just that quiet, sharp intelligence of her eyes scanning the high fence that blended into the tree line as if it had always been there.
Zoya catalogued everything from the entry points to the subtle hum of motion sensors. Like she was already mapping escape routes or weak spots, even though she knew she was safe with me, even though she had just jumped headfirst into all of this.
Beautiful. Smart. The whole fucking package. It made my chest tighten in a way I wasn’t used to.
The property was built like a fortress because it had to be.
No flashy tech that screamed money. Just layers of quiet lethality.
Motion detectors were spaced every twenty feet, and thermal, low-light cameras covered every angle, feeding to a hardened room in the main house.
The gate itself was heavy steel, hydraulic, rated for vehicle impact. No keypad bullshit. No visible lock.
I pulled the slim black fob from my pocket and used my thumb on the biometric lock. A soft click, then the gate rolled open on silent tracks, just wide enough for us to pass single-file.
We passed through, and the gate closed behind us automatically.
I reached over and took her hand, feeling her fingers tighten in mine for half a second.
The drive narrowed, the gravel crunching under tires the closer we came to my home.
I pulled to a stop when we got to the garage.
The house itself was low, concrete, and half-buried into the hillside.
Once in the garage with the door closed, I climbed out and helped Zoya.
“Come on, malyshka.” I took her hand. It was small, warm, and so damn steady in mine as I led her toward the inner door.
I stopped at the reinforced steel door that had no handle or visible lock. I placed my palm flat on the scanner embedded flush in the frame. Retinal scan kicked in next with a red light that swept my eye. A soft beep sounded, and it opened, allowing us entry.
Inside, the alarm panel glowed softly on the wall. I stepped in first, pulling Zoya with me, and keyed the disarm code on the touchscreen… another thumbprint, another six digits. The system chimed once. Green.
The door shut behind us with a solid thunk, and the silence settled thick, intentional. Zoya looked around the entryway. There weren’t any windows at ground level. Minimalist design, built for comfort, but mainly safety.
“A fortress,” she breathed.
“Has to be,” I answered. “Hell isn’t below us. We are living in it.” I squeezed her hand once and led her deeper inside.
I didn’t soften the truth when we sat down in the main room. The house was quiet from the thick walls, and the low hum of the security system and Zoya’s heavy thoughts and unanswered questions filled my head.
She sat across from me on the leather couch, legs tucked under her, still in that oversized sweatshirt, hair loose and messy in a beautiful way. Zoya looked small against the dark furniture, but her eyes were steady. Waiting. Like she already knew this conversation would change everything.
I’d told her things already, and she put shit together. But I wanted her to be on the same level and mindset I was, and understand if she really wanted to go through with this.
“Human trafficking isn’t chaos, Zoya. It’s logistics.
Clean, organized, and profitable. Routes disguised as medical transfers with private ambulances, fake patient manifests, and hospitals that look the other way.
Shell companies move people the same way they move inventory with invoices, manifests, and offshore accounts. No mess. No traces.”
She didn’t interrupt, just watched me, absorbing every word.
“Snuff distribution?” I continued, keeping my tone flat, factual.
“It doesn’t live in basements and back alleys anymore.
That’s old-school. Now it hides behind encrypted platforms, paid subscriptions, dark web sites with tiered access.
Men pay thousands for exclusive content.
They think anonymity makes them untouchable.
Firewalls, VPNs, crypto payments. They’re wrong.
Everything leaves a trail if you know where to look. ”
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the sweatshirt hem, knuckles whitening for a second before she exhaled slowly through her nose. Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t look away. She held my gaze as if she were forcing herself to see every ugly detail without flinching.
“Andrey made sure others did worse so he could use it against them and absolve himself,” I said, keeping my voice low and even.
“That’s how men like him stay clean on paper.
They outsource the violence. After he killed my mother, though, something shifted.
He got smarter about it… colder. He realized getting his own hands bloody left traces no amount of money could fully erase.
So he changed the playbook. No more direct involvement.
No more witnesses who could point back to him.
He started using middlemen, hired muscle, and disposable people who took the fall if things went sideways.
He drew up the plans, funded the jobs, collected the profits, but never touched the knife himself again.
That way, when the bodies dropped, his name stayed off the reports.
Clean and untouchable. Or so he thought. ”
She nodded once, as if she locked that piece of information into a place with everything else I’d told her.
“He thought he could stay above it all,” she whispered. “But he couldn’t. Not forever.”
“No,” I agreed. “No one can. Not when someone like me is looking.”
She was quiet for a long beat after that, her thoughts clearly weighing heavily.
Then she looked back at me, voice soft but direct.
“How do you do it, Dmitry? How can you be part of the same organization as him—as these men—and still do the things you do? The bad things. The blood. The deals. How is that different from what he is?”
I let the question sit between us for a second because it deserved that.
“I’m no different in most ways, but I don’t fucking kill or hurt the innocent,” I said finally, low and flat.
“I’ve killed for money, and on orders. The mafia isn’t a club with a code; it’s a machine.
And I’ve been one of the gears turning it for a long time. ”
Her brow creased, not in judgment, just trying to understand.
“The difference,” I continued, leaning closer so she could see every line on my face, “is I don’t pretend it’s clean.
I don’t hide behind business or family or any of that bullshit.
I know what I am. And I’ve spent years waiting for the moment I could turn the machine against itself.
Destroy the parts that deserve to burn. Starting with men like Andrey and all the other branches on that rotting tree.
” I reached out, brushed my thumb along her jaw, slow and deliberate.
“I’m not a hero, Zoya. Never will be. But I’m the weapon that’s finally pointed the right way.
And if you want to stand next to me while I pull the trigger, you need to know exactly what kind of monster you’re choosing. ”
She held my gaze, unflinching. “I already know.” Then she leaned in and kissed me. It was soft at first, then harder, like she was sealing something between us.
I pulled her onto my lap, hands sliding under the sweatshirt, skin warm against skin. “Then we do this together. No illusions. No mercy.”