Chapter 18
Dmitry
Andrey chose the place because he thought it gave him control. Same with the hour. Because men like Andrey believed darkness and isolation equaled safety.
The derelict industrial yard sat along the river’s edge, half swallowed by shadows and neglect, and rusted rail lines cut through cracked concrete. Warehouses leaned inward like rotting teeth. There was no foot traffic in this part of the city.
And that meant no one who would hear gunfire and care enough to call it in.
I’d arrived earlier than he wanted me there. Not because I was eager, but because I never walked into anything blind. I’d taken the time to map the exits, counted sightlines, and noted the blind corners and the places a man could disappear if panicked.
Andrey had picked this location because it made him feel safe. He knew the layout, access points, and the way sound carried along the river and died before it reached the road.
He thought familiarity gave him the advantage, but familiarity bred confidence. And confidence got men killed.
Zoya stayed in the car when I pulled in, exactly where I wanted her. Engine running. Headlights off. Windows dark.
I had her sit in the driver’s seat in case she needed to get the fuck out of here.
She sat low in the seat with the compact Glock I’d pressed into her hands minutes earlier, fingers steady around the grip the way I’d shown her: thumbs forward, wrists locked, safety discipline drilled into her in the shortest, harshest lesson of my life.
She wasn’t there to fight, but I wouldn’t let her be unprepared.
I made my way to the meeting place, adrenaline rushing harshly at the thought of leaving her. But it was a necessary evil.
Andrey waited near the center of the yard, just where I knew he would… far enough from cover to look confident, close enough to his exits to run. He was a coward down to the marrow.
He’d brought several men. Not his usual crew but hired muscle with visible sidearms. They were the kind of mercenaries who thought looking dangerous made them dangerous.
But I noticed right away they fanned poorly by overlapping sightlines and displayed no discipline. Placeholders. Exactly what I’d expected.
His gaze sharpened as he looked around before he snapped his focus back to me. “Where is she?” he demanded, the tightness in his voice betraying him.
I didn’t answer.
His eyes flicked around again, sharper now as he searched frantically, his anger growing by the second. When he didn’t see her, irritation cracked his composure.
“You were supposed to bring her,” he said, stepping forward. “This ends tonight.”
“It does,” I said calmly. “Just not the way you planned.”
Andrey’s mouth twitched, the faintest crack in his mask. He glanced at the yard, at his men, then back at me like he was recalculating in real time. “You always did like theatrics,” he said. “Dragging this out. You could have ended it already.”
“I did,” I replied.
That caught his attention. His eyes sharpened, narrowing.
My jaw tightened, but my voice stayed level. “I found him. He begged like all of you do. I killed him anyway, thinking about how you would be next.”
A thin smile crept across Andrey’s face, ugly and knowing. “And did that bring her back?” he asked. “Did it fix you?”
“No,” I said. “But it taught me something.”
“And what’s that?” he pressed.
“That men like you don’t stop,” I said. “You just change hands.” I had my focus on him, but I was very aware of every move his men made.
Something flickered behind his eyes then. Not bravado or arrogance. But uncertainty. He took a step back without realizing it, boots scraping against concrete. “You think this ends with me?” he said. “You think I was ever the only one?”
“I know you weren’t,” I said.
His jaw clenched. His men shifted nervously, their trigger fingers no doubt twitchy. One of them glanced at Andrey as if he were waiting for a signal that never came.
“You took her to use against me,” Andrey said, irritation threading through his voice. Not outrage, or even grief. Just sinister offense. “You thought she would make me fold.”
“You did,” I said evenly. “You gave me everything because you were too busy worrying I’d spoil your merchandise.”
His face didn’t change, but something in his eyes went flat and murderous.
“You touched her,” he seethed quietly.
“I didn’t ruin her,” I replied, voice calm as ice. “I claimed her.”
His jaw flexed hard.
“You made her useless,” he snapped. “You think anyone will pay top-tier for something that’s already been handled?”
There it was. Loss of market value. I took a slow step closer, and his men braced.
“She was never an asset,” I said. “You just dressed her up that way.”
His nostrils flared. “You destroyed her.”
“No,” I corrected softly. “I freed her and destroyed your illusion of control.”
That was when one of his men moved. He was too eager for action.
He was the kind of idiot who thought pulling first made him alpha.
His shoulders tensed before his brain caught up.
I saw it in the way his jaw set, the way his grip shifted on the gun, as if he were about to do something reckless.
His arm came up, weapon jerking toward me, muzzle wavering because he wasn’t steady.
He was trying to show off, but there was no point in proving anything here. They were all dead men.
I drew as his finger tightened. Using steady and calm composure and muscle memory. I fired once, center mass at the base of his throat before his first shot even broke clean.
The round hit high and hard. His head snapped back, and a wet, choking sound tore out of him as blood sprayed in a violent arc across the concrete and Andrey’s coat. He dropped straight down, hands clawing at his neck, trying to hold in something that wouldn’t stay.
Gunfire cracked through the yard. It wasn’t cinematic or even controlled. It was loud, violent, and disorienting. Muzzle flashes strobed against rusted steel, and the smell of burned powder hit the air instantly, thick and metallic. Rounds sparked off containers and bit into concrete near my feet.
I was moving, dodging, shifting, my composure ice-cold and hard as steel.
Two steps left, low and steady. I fired again, deliberate and controlled, not wasting rounds.
The man closest to the rail line jerked when the bullet punched through his chest. He staggered back, hit the metal siding behind him, and slid down, leaving a thick smear of blood as he collapsed.
The whole place had erupted into chaos, but I knew Andrey wasn’t firing. He was watching.
Even from thirty yards out, I saw it: the calculation in his eyes. His focus wasn’t locked on me. It shifted past me, scanning beyond the fight, beyond the bodies of his hired help dropping in front of him.
A cold spike slid down my spine.
One of his men fired wildly from behind a forklift.
I dropped him with a clean shot through the sternum and pivoted immediately, scanning for Andrey.
He was already moving. Not toward cover, and not toward his SUV idling near the gate.
He was cutting wide along the far fence line, running and using the dark and chaos as cover as he headed for the narrow service drive that curved toward the access road.
I knew he didn’t know where Zoya was, but regardless, he was moving toward her.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
A bullet clipped my shoulder before I could move. The limb went numb for a split second, fingers tingling as blood soaked into my sleeve. I forced it back because pain was irrelevant.
Zoya was the most important thing.
Something rushed through me as I hyper focused and started laying out the remaining motherfuckers.
The world narrowed to angles, distance, and breath.
Everything else dropped away. I tracked the first one through the smoke haze as he scrambled for cover behind a shipping container, his boots slipping in blood that wasn’t his, yet.
I adjusted half an inch and squeezed the trigger. The recoil snapped into my palm, familiar and clean. The round caught him high in the back, just below the shoulder blade. He pitched forward hard, face slamming into the concrete, fingers clawing uselessly at the ground before he went still.
Another one came around the side of a rusted forklift, shouting something I didn’t bother to register.
He fired too fast, too sloppily. Sparks kicked off the steel beside my head.
I pivoted, dropped to one knee, and put a round through his thigh.
He screamed, collapsing sideways, trying to drag himself behind cover.
I closed the distance instead. Two steps.
One controlled breath. I fired again and ended the sound coming out of him.
A third man tried to retreat toward the SUV by the gate, fumbling with his radio, probably calling for backup that wasn’t coming.
I caught him mid-stride. The shot hit, and he staggered, confused, as if his body hadn’t processed what happened yet.
I walked forward and fired again, this time higher. He dropped without another word.
The only thing I thought about—cared about—was protecting Zoya and getting to her.
By the time the last body hit the ground, the yard was quiet except for the ringing in my ears and the distant hum of engines. Smoke hung low in the air, and the concrete was slick and dark, shell casings glittering under the yard lights like scattered coins.
I stood there for half a second, chest rising slow and steady, scanning for movement. Nothing. Andrey’s men were down, and now it was time to go after the fucker.
I took off at a sprint and cut through the side gate and down the service drive, gravel spraying underfoot. My lungs burned, my shoulder throbbed, but I ignored both.
I heard it before I saw it. A single gunshot, sharp and close. My heart didn’t pound. It dropped.
I rounded the bend, and the scene hit me all at once. My car idled where I’d left it, the driver’s side door hanging open, the interior light spilling into the dark like a beacon. No movement. No Zoya.
The gravel near the rear tire was disturbed; deep heel marks dragged sideways. There was blood, not pooled, not sprayed from a body, but a streak. Dark and wet against the pale stone.
I stepped closer, jaw locking so tight it hurt. There was a second smear near the open door, lower this time, like someone had braced a hand there.
Good girl. She got a shot off and hit that motherfucker.
I scanned the tree line and caught the faint glow of taillights disappearing through the secondary exit road. Andrey had planned this. He never intended to fight me head-on.
My fingers curled slowly into a fist, shoulder and arm screaming as muscle tightened around the wound. He took her, and I was going to fucking flay him.
I stepped to the open door and looked inside. Another smear of blood streaked across the center console. She fought, and I drew in a slow breath, forcing the rage down into something usable. Rage was loud and powerful.
If she’d gotten a round off, Andrey was wounded and bleeding somewhere.
I straightened slowly, every inch of me going still. If Andrey thought I was dangerous and psychotic before, him taking Zoya had made me downright lethal.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, forcing my breathing to level out before I dialed. I didn’t call soldiers, or my connections to the high level of the organization. I called the man who saw everything.
He answered on the second ring. “Yes.”
“Ilya,” I said, my voice flat and controlled. “I need eyes.”
There was no hesitation or questions on the other end, just a shift in his tone that was subtle but immediate. He was already getting me what I needed.
“Location.”
I gave him the coordinates of where I was. “Industrial yard near the east rail cut. Five minutes ago, a dark SUV exited the secondary service drive. I know nothing else aside from Andrey and Zoya Ivanov are inside that vehicle.”
No response, but I heard a keyboard click in the background.
“He’s bleeding,” I added. “He’ll need medical attention from someone underground.”
“Traffic cameras on the east corridor feed into the city grid. Private feeds take longer, but I can reroute through Tor.”
“Do whatever you need and make it quick. This is time-sensitive. I need this quiet so he isn’t alerted. If he knows he’s being hunted, he’ll panic and do something stupid.” I looked down at the streak of blood on the gravel near my car.
“He has Zoya,” I said before I could stop myself. I’d just revealed in those three words my one and only weakness, and silence on the other end followed.
“Understood,” was all Ilya said.
“I’m pulling every underground doctor on the organization’s payroll, and any private clinic that launders favors for the Bratva to see if there are any hits.”
I scrubbed a hand in my hair and then climbed in the car. I didn’t know where they were going, but I needed to move. “And air,” I added. “Private strips within a forty-mile radius. Helicopter pads registered under shell companies tied to him. I want fuel logs and take-off windows.”
“I’ll have something in three minutes.”
I trusted him. Ilya Zilokov didn’t guess or take chances. He was the best at what he did. He was known as The Reaper for a reason.
Another beat of silence. “Are you wounded?” Ilya asked, deep and low when I hissed.
I glanced down at the blood soaking through my shirt. “Not enough to matter.”
“Deal with it before you bleed out chasing him.”
“I’ll deal with it after I find him.” I ended the call before the rage could creep into my voice.
The night pressed in around me, thick and electric. Somewhere out there Andrey thought he’d taken back control and his power. Thought he’d forced my hand, but he was wrong.
He didn’t take my weakness. He gave me purpose.
Gravel ground under the tires as I pulled hard onto the service road. My shoulder screamed with every turn of the wheel, but the pain kept me sharp.
My hands tightened until the leather creaked beneath my grip. This wasn’t rage. This was fucking purpose.
“I’m coming for you, malyshka.”
And when I found Andrey, I wouldn’t leave anything left to bury.