Chapter 20 #3
“Her father wants to be.”
Yuri crossed to the bar, grabbed the bottle again, and poured two fingers without asking. “Think he buys the act?”
“He buys what I let him,” I said.
The door opened again, and Nikolai stepped back in, expression neutral. “They’re gone.”
“Did he say anything?” I asked.
“Only that he’s patient.”
Yuri snorted. “Irish patience. That’s a new one.”
“It won’t last,” I said. “He wants something. And now he thinks I’ve got something to lose.”
Yuri looked at me. Serious now. “Do you?”
I didn’t answer. Not out loud. But I already knew.
I stood there for a long moment after Nikolai spoke, the contract still untouched on the table like it could stain my hands if I even looked at it too long. Not because it tempted me. Because it presumed me .
Cormac thought a man like me could be swayed by soft smiles and old-world politics. Like offering me a woman was the same as offering me a deal.
He was wrong.
I wasn’t interested in alliances made of porcelain and ink. If I wanted to build a future, I wouldn’t do it through bloodlines I didn’t choose. And I sure as hell wouldn’t do it with a girl who couldn’t even meet my eyes.
I moved to the edge of the table, picked up the contract, and dropped it into the drawer beneath the map. Locked it. Let it sit there. Rotting.
“So,” Yuri said after a beat, leaning back against the bar. “You gonna tell me what the hell that was, or am I supposed to pretend we didn’t just entertain the Irish royal family in your basement?”
I didn’t look at him. Just reached for the scotch I hadn’t touched before and finally drank. The burn hit clean. Efficient.
“That was Cormac reminding me he still wants a seat at this table,” I said. “And me reminding him that the chair is already taken.”
“By her?”
I didn’t answer. But he didn’t need me to.
“You know they’ll come harder for her now,” he added, voice lower. “If they think she’s the reason you won’t give in.”
“Then let them.”
He watched me. Nikolai stayed silent. Always the anchor. Always reading the room without the need to speak into it.
“And if she is pregnant?” Yuri asked, quieter now. “What then?”
I turned to him slowly. “Then she stays mine.”
A beat of silence passed. No one challenged it. No one had to. Because there was no question of what I meant.
Th e clock moved forward in a way only my world understands. No hours. No time. Just signals. Confirmations. Movement.
By the time the text came through—clear to proceed—we were already walking toward the elevator.
Nikolai handed me the tablet with the latest port clearance as the elevator doors slid open. “We’ll take the lead car,” he said. “Two flanking, one trailing. All dark, all secure. Maksim’s already at the dock.”
“And the cargo?” I asked.
“Loaded. Checked. Touched only by our hands.”
Yuri cracked his knuckles as the elevator descended, his expression looser now—but not lighter.
“You think this one’s going to be quiet?”
“No shipment is ever quiet,” I said. “Just delayed noise.”
The elevator opened into the underground garage—cold, clean, with concrete that echoed every step like it was listening.
The cars were waiting. Matte black. Reinforced. Unmarked.
Nikolai climbed into the passenger seat. Yuri slipped into the back beside me.
I shut the door.
Silence settled around me again. But this kind?
This was the kind I knew how to use.
The hum of the engine was low, smooth. Silent enough to think. But loud enough to keep the quiet from cutting too deep.
The city bled past the windows—dim streetlights, shuttered storefronts, and shadows moving between alleyways like they didn’t want to be seen.
Smart.
The further we drove, the fewer lights there were. Roads rougher. Street signs faded and bent. No cameras. No questions. Exactly how I liked it.
Yuri was sprawled beside me, legs stretched, gaze flicking to his phone every few seconds as if waiting for a change in wind direction.
“You trust Maksim to handle the weight?” he asked eventually, not looking at me.
“I trust him to follow orders,” I said. “Trust is earned by consistency. Not time.”
He made a low sound, something between a chuckle and a breath. “Cold.”
“It’s not cold. It’s necessary.”
Nikolai didn’t speak from the front, but I saw the slow nod in the mirror. He agreed. Of course he did. He didn’t believe in warmth either.
The car turned off the main road and onto a stretch of cracked pavement leading toward the docks.
The lights changed here—yellow, flickering, casting everything in a dirty gold haze.
Cargo cranes loomed in the distance like steel skeletons.
Stacks of containers towered over the asphalt, color-coded and numbered, silent witnesses to a thousand secrets no customs officer ever documented.
Our car slowed as the entrance gates came into view—unmarked. No logos. Just rusted chain-link and a checkpoint booth manned by one of ours. Maksim.
He stepped out when he saw us. Hand on his earpiece. Gun visible on his hip.
I rolled down the window before the car even stopped. “Clear?”
“All clear, Boss,” he said. “Security swept the lot. No external eyes. Cameras on loop. We’ve got five on the perimeter and two on the rooftop. Just in case.”
“Container status?”
“Dropped twenty minutes ago. Still sealed. Handler’s waiting.”
I nodded once, and the car rolled past him into the heart of the yard.
The smell hit immediately—salt, oil, steel. The kind of industrial mix that never washes out of your clothes.
Spotlights cut through the dark in patches, illuminating flashes of metal and shadow. There were four men standing by the shipment—two of ours, two from the secondary port handler team we paid extra to keep their mouths shut.
The container sat at the edge of the stacked line—mid-size, ocean blue, with a manifest sticker already scuffed at the corner.
I stepped out of the car before the engine cut. Boots on wet concrete. The sound echoed.
Everything stopped for a second. Conversations, movement. Eyes shifted toward me like gravity had shifted.
Good.
Let them feel it.
Yuri and Nikolai followed at my flanks, a half-step behind.
Maksim was already walking us toward the container, nodding at the others to back off as we approached.
“Two rows in,” he said, gesturing at the seal. “Guns first—Ukrainian origin, repackaged in Greek shipping crates. Hidden beneath electrical equipment. We checked half. All clean.”
I reached for the clipboard Maksim handed me. The manifest was fake—but perfect. Weight match, serial alignment, even the name of the import company in Marseille we’d fabricated six months ago.
“Crates labeled?” I asked.
“Marked with red tape under the lids.”
I handed the clipboard to Nikolai. “Crack the seal,” I said.
He gave a short nod and moved forward, unlocking the metal latch with a mechanical hiss. The doors swung open slowly, the internal lighting inside the container flickering to life. The smell of cold metal and oil hit like a wall.
Inside—rows of industrial crates. Neatly stacked. Professionally arranged. You’d think it was high-grade refrigeration equipment if you didn’t know what you were looking for.
Yuri stepped up beside Nikolai and popped the lid off one. Inside—foam casing. Red tape beneath.
He peeled it back carefully. Exposed steel. An assault rifle, matte black. No serial. Ukrainian modification, custom suppressor. Three more beneath it.
“That’s clean,” Yuri muttered.
“And the coke?” I asked.
“Back left. Tucked behind the dummy cooling units.”
Nikolai moved toward the back with Maksim, checking the codes.
I stayed where I was. Didn’t need to see it. Just needed to see them —how they moved, how they worked, how they looked at the product like it was money, not risk.
“Offload happens at 5:10 sharp,” I said. “No noise. No lights. Three trucks, staggered ten minutes apart. No one leaves this yard until I say so.”
They all nodded.
Maksim spoke low. “You want the coke weighed?”
“No,” I said. “It was cut before it got on the ship. If it’s light, someone dies in Colombia.”
Yuri exhaled through his nose. “Efficient.”
“Necessary,” I said again.
Always necessary.
Everything here was quiet. Clean. Controlled. But the silence underneath it told me something else was coming. It always did.
The cold sting of ocean air mixed with the scent of steel and diesel. My world.
The hum of work buzzed beneath the surface—forklifts shifting weight, crates being moved under cover of darkness, hushed orders passed between men who didn’t speak unless they were told to. No chaos. No confusion. Just order. Precision.
The rifles were catalogued and marked. The coke re-weighed, triple-checked, sealed again. Manifest documentation was logged and fake-dated for the customs system in Marseille. Our inside man would clear it by noon.
“Back row’s heavier than expected,” Maksim said beside me, voice low. “Weight variance of twelve kilos. Not product—packaging. Overstuffed crates.”
“Repack them,” I said. “Even if it costs time.”
“We’ll be tight for the truck drop.”
“Then move faster.”
He nodded once and peeled off.
Yuri exhaled nearby, his eyes flicking across the container yard like a wolf counting bodies. “Feels clean,” he muttered. “Too clean.”
“You saying you miss the shootouts?” I asked.
He grinned. “Not at all. I like my blood on the inside. Just saying—something’s off.”
I agreed. I just didn’t know what yet.
Until I saw him. Nikolai. Ten feet away. Still. Focused. But the tension in his posture was wrong. His jaw was set tighter than usual. His hand wasn’t on his gun—but it was close.
He didn’t speak to anyone. Didn’t interrupt the offload. Just stepped away from the others with the kind of precision that said he didn’t want to be followed but expected to be. Which meant it was for me.
“Watch the rest,” I told Yuri.
He gave a quick nod. I moved.
When I reached Nikolai, he didn’t speak. Just caught my eye and angled his head slightly—toward the far side of the yard. Away from the containers. Away from the lights. I followed without asking.
Yuri trailed behind us.
We reached the corner of the storage shelter—metal frame, shadowed, flanked by steel crates high enough to drown out sound. Nikolai stopped and turned, his voice low, clipped, even colder than usual.
“We have a problem.”
I said nothing. Just waited.
“Message came through. Lorenzo.”
That name cut clean.
“He knows,” Nikolai said. “Or he suspects. The bracelet. He remembered it. Went quiet for two days—then reached out. He didn’t go to her. He came to us.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What did he say?”
“He wants her brought to him. Alone. In forty-eight hours.”
Yuri let out a low whistle. “That’s not a request.”
“No,” I said quietly. “It’s a declaration.”
He knew. He didn’t say it. But I heard it between every word. Lorenzo knew exactly who she was. And now he wanted to see her for himself. Not out of curiosity. But because he thought she belonged to him.
The shadows pressed in tighter as Nikolai’s words settled between us. Forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours before Lorenzo made his move—one I already knew wasn’t a negotiation.
He wasn’t summoning her. He was claiming her. As if blood gave him that right. As if anything could.
Yuri’s voice broke the silence first. “What are you going to do?”
He didn’t say it casually. Didn’t say it with doubt. He said it like a man already bracing for the consequences.
I kept my eyes forward, watching the men load the crates in the distance like they weren’t moving fast enough. My jaw locked.
“I’m not giving her to him.”
Not now. Not ever. Not even if it meant war.
Yuri let out a slow breath, crossing his arms. “Then we better be ready. Because he didn’t ask. He informed .”
“Good,” I muttered. “Then he won’t be surprised when I ignore him.”
Nikolai nodded once, his voice lower. “He’s watching. Waiting for a reaction. That’s why he gave you a deadline instead of taking her himself. He’s testing your next move.”
Of course he was. Men like Lorenzo didn’t swing first unless they knew exactly where the blade would land. This wasn’t about the bracelet anymore. This was about power. Territory. Control.
And he thought she was a loose thread. He didn’t realize she was the blade.
I stepped back from the wall and turned to both of them. “Keep her away from him.”
“Away where?” Yuri asked.
“Anywhere but close to me,” I said. “He knows where I live. He knows my schedule. But he doesn’t know her routine. Not exactly. She’s still smoke in his periphery. Keep it that way.”
Nikolai frowned slightly. “You think he’ll try something before the deadline?”
“No,” I said. “But if she’s close—he won’t need to.”
Yuri cocked a brow. “So we vanish her without telling her?”
“No,” I snapped. “We don’t vanish her. We guard her. At every turn. Quietly. She doesn’t need to know what’s coming. Not until I decide.”
Nikolai met my eyes. “And if she finds out before that?”
“Then I deal with it.”
“Alone?”
“Always.”
I didn’t ask for protection. I gave it. And that meant shielding her from everything—even the truth. Especially the truth.
“I want eyes on her twenty-four seven,” I said. “No mistakes. No breaks. If she moves, you move with her. If someone so much as breathes in her direction, I want to know before they do it.”
Yuri gave a slow nod. “Got it. Shadow and silence.”
“And if Lorenzo sends someone?” Nikolai asked.
“Kill them.”
They didn’t question it. Didn’t flinch. Because they understood what was at stake now. Not just blood. Not just leverage. But her.
And that wasn’t something I was willing to put on the table. Not for Lorenzo. Not for anyone.