Sergei
I get a call from an unknown number. Not unheard of, but it doesn’t happen often. Usually, it’s someone in the law warning me I’m about to get raided.
“Yes?” I answer.
“Sokolov.” An unfamiliar voice with a heavy Russian accent has me sitting up a little straighter. “You want to stop what’s happening at Baranov warehouse B? Midnight.”
The line goes dead before I can respond.
It could be a trap. Probably is a trap. But if there’s even a chance this is legitimate intelligence about an active operation, I can’t ignore it.
Sofia went to bed an hour ago. Or went to her room, anyway. We haven’t shared a bed since our fight three days ago. She’s been cold. Treating me like a business associate instead of her husband.
I deserve it.
And I might have encouraged it. Nelson told me she wasn’t talking to him either. But he told me she’s back to her old self. That was the goal. Yuri is not fucking around. He will come for her. I feel it. She doesn’t have to save her own life, but she needs to assist my men in keeping her ass alive.
I grab my jacket and my gun. Kirill is in the sitting room watching something on his tablet.
“I need you here,” I tell him. “Sofia doesn’t leave this house.”
He looks up, immediately alert. “Where are you going?”
“Anonymous tip.”
“That’s a trap.”
“Probably.”
“You’re not going alone.” He’s on his feet and opening the safe in the floor. “We’ve got enough security here.”
It’s hard to remember I’m the pakhan. I get killed and it isn’t just me that dies. My crew will be attacked from all sides. Innocent people will die.
“Fine, but just us. We’re only observing.”
He smirks. “Sure.”
I take my personal car, not the SUV. Less conspicuous. The drive to Greenpoint takes twenty minutes. I park two blocks away, and we approach on foot.
The warehouse looks quiet from the outside. No unusual activity. No guards posted at the entrance.
That’s the first sign something’s wrong.
“We should call back up,” Kirill says.
“We’re just taking a look.”
I pull my gun and ease the door open.
The powerful mentholated smell hits me first. And then the metallic smell of blood.
Kirill nudges me once. The smart move would be to call a team.
I shake my head once.
Male voices speaking in Russian come from inside. At least three distinct speakers.
We stay in the shadows as we move deeper into the warehouse.
What I see makes my blood run cold.
There are six hospital beds now, not two like Nelson told me about. Four of them are occupied. I can’t tell if the people are unconscious or dead. Medical equipment surrounds each bed. IV lines. Monitors. A man in surgical scrubs moves between the beds.
Two other men stand guard. They’re armed. One of them is checking his phone.
“How much longer?” the guard asks in Russian.
“Another hour for this batch,” the surgeon replies. “Then we prep the next group.”
Next group.
I scan the room and see them. A second area I didn’t notice at first. Six people in cages. Actual fucking cages. Young. Most of them look drugged. One woman is crying silently.
My jaw clenches so hard I taste blood.
This isn’t just organ trafficking. This is systematic harvesting. The donors aren’t dead—yet.
This shit has been running under my nose in my city for years.
I step into the room with my gun raised. “Nobody move.”
The guards react instantly. One reaches for his weapon. I put a bullet in his head before he can draw. He drops with a loud thud.
The second guard is smarter. He drops his weapon and raises his hands.
The surgeon freezes, scalpel still in hand.
“How many?” I ask him.
He says nothing.
I point the gun at his head. “How many people have you butchered in this warehouse?”
He swallows hard. “I just do what I’m told.”
“How. Many.”
“I don’t keep count.”
I shoot him in the leg. He collapses, howling.
“Next answer better be honest or the next bullet goes in your head.”
“Hundreds!” he gasps. “Maybe more. I don’t know. They bring them in, I do the procedure, they take them out. I don’t ask questions.”
Hundreds.
I move to the cages. Glassy eyes. The young woman sobbing stares at me. It’s clear these people are down on their luck. Drug addicts. An elderly man. Homeless. Throw aways.
“You’re safe,” I tell them in Russian, then repeat it in English. “I’m getting you out.”
I turn back to Kirill, give him a slight nod. He shoots the two men in rapid succession.
I shoot the locks off the cages. The sound is deafening in the enclosed space.
I pull out my phone and dial a number I’ve used before when I’ve interrupted a trafficking operation. She’s a former Russian prostitute that got trafficked here twenty years ago. She runs a shelter in Queens. Legitimate operation but she doesn’t ask questions when I need her not to.
“I need immediate transport,” I say when she answers. “Six people. Maybe more. Trauma cases. I’ll pay.”
“Where?”
I give her the address. “Twenty minutes. Can you do it?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Help is coming,” I say to the people. “Stay. Or go.”
None of them move.
“We need to check for more,” I tell Kirill.
We move through the warehouse. The refrigeration units Nelson told me about are humming. I don’t open them. I don’t want to see what’s inside.
There’s a clipboard with scribbled writing. Ages. Blood types. Market values.
Market values.
The people buying these organs have no idea where they’re coming from. Those are not healthy people in those cages.
There’s no one else in the warehouse which tells me this operation is not widely known within the Baranov organization.
Kirill is staring at one of the bodies. I’ve never seen him look horrified. When I stand beside him, I understand why. The chest is open. The fucking heart is gone along with what I assume are the rest of the organs.
“They took the fucking eyes,” Kirill hisses.
“Let’s go,” I tell him.
I’ve never felt such disgust.
“What about them?”
“She’ll find them.”
We leave the warehouse and walk back to my car without a word. We’ve seen and done some pretty violent shit in our lives, but that scene will haunt me. There’s something different about carving up innocent people. I’ll rip the heart from a rival any day of the week, but not that.
That’s just wrong.
“Want a cleanup?” Kirill asks, sliding into the passenger seat.
It’s not my property. There are rules.
But death isn’t enough for those monsters.
“Order it.”
I need to talk to Sofia.
But not tonight.
She’s already reeling from discovering the operation exists. If I tell her what I just witnessed—the systematic butchering, the cages, the people waiting to be harvested—it will break her. And I need her sharp right now.
I’ll tell her. Soon. Just not tonight.
Kirill and I don’t speak during the drive. There’s nothing to say. We both saw the same nightmare.
One of my guys is there to take the car. Kirill gets out without a word and walks to his car parked up the street. I watch him go, knowing he’ll drink himself to sleep tonight. I don’t blame him.
I walk into the house and immediately go to my room. My shirt is torn away. The clothes smell like death and antiseptic. I ball them up and toss them in the corner.
The shower in my bathroom runs scalding hot. I stand under the spray, scrubbing away the smell and the images. The water circles the drain. I wish I could wash away the memory as easily.
It’s past two in the morning. Sofia is asleep in the guest room on the third floor where she’s been sleeping since our fight.
I should go to my own bed. Give her space. Let her have her anger.
But I can’t.
I need to see her. Need to know she’s safe. And I need something good after witnessing so much ugliness.
I pull on a pair of sleep pants and pad barefoot up the stairs to the third floor. Her door is closed. I open it slowly and slip inside.
The room is dark with muted light coming from the streetlamp. She’s curled on her side, her dark hair spread across the pillow. She looks peaceful. Young. Nothing like the woman who walked into my office and told me she’s hiring her own security.
She hasn’t. I won’t allow it.
I move to the bed and slide in behind her, careful not to wake her.
She stirs immediately.
“Sergei?” Her voice is thick with sleep.
“Yes.”
She doesn’t tell me to leave. Doesn’t pull away. She just turns in my arms until she’s facing me.
“You smell like soap,” she murmurs.
“I showered.”
Her hand comes up to touch my face. “Where were you?”
“Working.”
She’s quiet for a moment. I can feel her studying me in the darkness.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
The question surprises me. She’s still angry with me. But she’s asking if I’m okay. She knows what this life is.
And thankfully, she’s giving me a little softness like she senses I need it.
“I will be,” I say.
Her hand slides from my face down to my chest, resting over my heart. “You’re tense.”
“I needed to see you.”
“Why?”
Because I saw hell tonight and you’re the only thing that feels real. Because I’m terrified that what I found in that warehouse will destroy you when you learn the full truth.
I don’t say any of that.
“Because you’re my wife,” I say instead.
She’s quiet again. Her fingers trace absent patterns on my chest.
“I’m still angry with you,” she says.
“I know.”
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
Her hand stills. “That’s it? Just yes?”
“You’re right. I should have told you. I made a tactical decision. I’ll make more and you’re going to have to accept that.”
She snorts. “If I don’t like a decision, I will fight you.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t trust me enough to let me make that choice. You decided for me.”
“I did.”
She shifts closer, her body pressing against mine. “Don’t do it again.”
“I will do it again if I think I need to.”
I feel her breath against my neck. Her hand slides up to cup the back of my head.
She wants me. That’s not why I came to her bed, but I won’t walk away from what she’s offering.
She’s choosing me despite all the mistakes I’ve made and will make.
I roll her onto her back and settle between her thighs. Her sleep shirt rides up. I push it higher, exposing her breasts. I take one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard enough to make her gasp.
“Sergei,” she breathes.
My hand reaches between us. I rip her panties away. Her gasp is followed by a soft moan when my fingers swipe over her wetness.
I shove my pants down just enough to free myself.
I position myself at her entrance and push inside in one hard thrust. She cries out, her nails digging into my shoulders.
“Too much?” I ask, even though I’m not stopping.
“No.”
I fuck her hard and fast, driving into her with all the pent-up rage and fear from tonight. She takes it all, her body rising to meet mine with every thrust.
I take her hard, like I need to erase everything I saw tonight.
And for a few stolen moments with her beneath me, it almost works.