Sergei
My fingers tap against my thigh. Waiting. I hate fucking waiting.
And then Kirill’s phone vibrates in his hand.
“Is it done?” Kirill answers on speaker.
“Done. That bitch is burning to the ground.”
Kirill looks at me. “Sofia’s going to be pissed you keep burning down her warehouses.”
“She’ll understand,” I say dryly.
“How many got out?” I ask.
“Three, plus him. We could have taken them out.”
“No. I want him to see me coming.”
Kirill ends the call. “Think they’ll pop up again?”
“Of course, but it won’t be in my fucking city.”
“There will always be customers.”
“They can get their fucking kidneys, hearts and whatever else they’re plucking out of people somewhere else. I can’t cure the world, but I can clean up New York. If it rises, we shut it down again. We won’t miss it twice.”
“And the other families understand the rules,” Kirill adds.
I watch from across the street as Yuri enters the rundown two-story in Brighton Beach. Three guards with him, all armed. The house is a shithole—peeling paint, bars on the windows, exactly the kind of place you hide when you’re running out of options.
“That’s him,” Kirill confirms beside me, lowering his binoculars. “Positive ID.”
I check my watch. We’ve been sitting here for four hours waiting for this moment. The patience required for surveillance work used to be something I excelled at. Now every second feels like an eternity knowing Sofia is waiting for me to come home.
“How many inside?” I ask.
“Best estimate? Eight to ten. Plus the three that just went in.” Kirill pulls up the thermal imaging on his tablet. “Two on the ground floor, three upstairs. Could be more in the basement.”
I study the screen, mapping the layout in my head. Front entrance, back door, side window that leads to what looks like a kitchen. The thermal shows heat signatures clustered in what I assume is a living room.
We brought everything. Nothing being left to chance.
“We go in hard,” I say. “No warnings. No negotiations. I want everyone down except Yuri. He’s mine.”
Kirill nods once and starts texting the team. We’ve got twelve men positioned around the perimeter. All armed. All loyal. All waiting for my signal.
I check my weapon—Glock 19, full mag, one in the chamber. I have two backup mags in my jacket and a knife strapped to my ankle. It’s more than I need, but I’m not taking chances. Not tonight.
“Ready?” Kirill asks.
I am so fucking ready.
I key the radio. “All teams, prepare to move on my mark.” I wait five seconds, letting them get into position. “Three. Two. One. Go.”
The front door explodes inward as one of my guys kicks it open. I’m moving before the wood stops splintering, gun up, scanning for targets.
The first guard appears from the living room doorway. He gets his weapon halfway up before I put two rounds in his chest. He drops.
Gunfire erupts throughout the house. Shouts in Russian. The sound of wood splintering and glass breaking. Someone screaming.
I move through the chaos with Kirill at my back. Another guard comes at me from the left. I pivot and fire. He goes down clutching his throat.
“Upstairs!” Kirill shouts.
I’m already moving, taking the stairs three at a time. More gunfire from above. One of my men is engaged with two others.
I reach the top just as a guard emerges from a bedroom. He sees me and raises his weapon. I’m faster. I put a bullet between his eyes before he can pull the trigger. His body crumples backward into the room.
“Clear!” someone shouts from down the hall.
The sulfur scent mingles with the coppery smell of spilled blood. Familiar.
“Not clear,” I correct, moving toward the only closed door. “He’s in here.”
I don’t bother with subtlety. I kick the door hard enough that it slams open, the lock tearing from the frame.
Yuri is standing by the window, gun in hand, looking like he’s considering whether he can make the jump to the neighboring roof.
“Don’t,” I say, my weapon trained on his center mass.
He turns slowly, that smug smile still on his face even though he knows he’s fucked. “Sokolov. I should have known you’d come yourself.”
“Drop the gun.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” He laughs. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“True. But I can make it quick or I can make it hurt. Your choice.”
He considers this for a moment, then tosses the gun onto the bed. “Fine. Let’s talk like civilized men.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I move into the room, keeping my distance. Kirill enters behind me, covering the doorway.
“You think this ends with me?” Yuri’s smile widens. “You’re a fool, Sokolov. I have brothers in Russia. All waiting for my call.”
I already know about the brothers. Kirill found them in his research. All connected to the Moscow operations. All dangerous.
“They’re not getting a call,” I say.
“They don’t need one.” Yuri spreads his hands. “The moment I stop checking in, they’ll know. And they’ll come for her. They’ll come for your precious wife, and they’ll beat her just like they did to Elena. She’ll suffer.”
Rage floods through me. White-hot and consuming. I want to empty my entire magazine into his face.
But I force myself to stay controlled. To think.
“You’re lying,” I say.
“Am I? Bitches that betray the men in my family don’t die easy or quickly.”
I pull the trigger.
The bullet catches him in the right shoulder, spinning him around. He hits the wall hard, gasping.
“That was for Elena,” I say.
He slides down the wall, leaving a smear of blood on the faded wallpaper. His hand goes to the wound, but he’s still smiling through the pain.
“My brothers will finish what I started,” he pants. “The Baranov empire will be theirs. And that bitch you married? She’ll die screaming.”
"Mikhail knew what she was." His voice is ragged now, bleeding out but still trying to win. "A consolation prize in a black dress. You're the only fool who looked at her and saw a queen. She was never going to hold that seat. I would have been doing her a kindness."
I cross the room in three strides and grab him by the throat, lifting him off the ground. His feet kick uselessly. His hands claw at my wrist.
“Her name,” I say quietly, “is Sofia. And no one touches her.”
I squeeze harder. His face turns red, then purple. His eyes bulge. But even as he’s dying, he’s still trying to smile. Still trying to win.
I drop him. He collapses to the floor with a loud thud, gasping and choking.
“Kirill,” I say without taking my eyes off Yuri. “Get me a knife.” I won’t dirty mine on this pathetic man.
I hear Kirill move behind me. Hear the sound of a blade being unsheathed. He presses it into my palm.
I crouch down beside Yuri. He’s still struggling to breathe, one hand on his throat, the other on his bleeding shoulder.
“I want you to understand something,” I say. “You came into my city. You threatened my wife. You tried to take what belongs to her.” I press the tip of the knife against his chest, right over his heart. “That was a mistake.”
“Fuck you,” he rasps.
I drive the knife in slowly. Watching his face. Watching the realization hit that this is really happening. That he’s really dying.
His mouth opens in a silent scream. Blood bubbles at his lips.
“For Sofia,” I whisper.
I twist the knife.
His body jerks once, then goes still. The light fades from his eyes. He’s gone.
I stand, leaving the knife buried in his chest. My hands are covered in blood.
I nod. “Burn it. I want nothing left.”
“What about the brothers?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? Three more Baranovs waiting in Russia. Three more threats to Sofia’s life.
“We handle them,” I say. “One at a time if we have to. But they don’t get near her.”
I walk out of the room, stepping over bodies on my way down the stairs. The house is a bloodbath. My men are already moving through, checking for survivors.
There are none.
Outside, the night air hits my face. I breathe it in, trying to clear the smell of gunpowder and death from my lungs.
I climb into the SUV. Kirill slides in beside me.
“You good?” he asks.
“No.” I lean my head back against the seat. “But I will be.”
I feel the stickiness on my hands.
I killed a man tonight. Drove a knife into his heart and watched him die.
I would do it again without hesitation.
That's what love is.
Love is blood on your hands. The certainty that you'd do it again.
I love Sofia Sokolov.
I have spent eight years making sure she survives. I am not stopping now.