20. Rowan #2
The hallway is narrow, lined with scuffed doors and faded carpeting that muffles our footsteps.
She stops in front of the unit number with one digit missing.
A cracked plastic three hangs crooked beside an empty nail hole where the second number should be.
The door itself is brown, scratched near the handle, the paint chipped around the frame.
I stand slightly behind her, keeping my shoulders squared and my hand hovering near my weapon.
When she knocks, all that greets her is silence.
She frowns, tilting her head back slightly to look at me. “He was supposed to be here…”
My suspicion spikes immediately. “How were you both communicating?”
“Through email, mostly. I…” She hesitates, her eyes darting back to the door. “He mentioned when I saw him last that there were people after him. He wouldn’t tell me who.”
That instantly puts me on edge.
I tug her back from the door and move in front of her, using myself as a physical shield. The old lock gives way instantly when my boot meets the side of the door, pieces of it splintering as it flies open and slams against the wall.
I rip the gun out of its holster and bring it up in front of me.
“Stay in the hallway,” I murmur back to her quietly.
She makes a soft noise of protest but stays right where she is.
Good girl, I nearly say.
The place is dimly lit with only one light that burns a weak, yellow glow from what I can only assume is the kitchen area, given the layout of the apartment.
The living room is cluttered, a narrow sofa against the farthest wall from the door, a blanket messily bunched up on the cushions.
There are half empty mugs and cups sitting on the coffee table, a dark ring around the bottom of a few of them.
Newspapers are stacked near the radiator which clicks softly in the quiet.
I move slowly, sweeping the room with the barrel of my gun, senses stretched taut.
Left corner, clear.
Sofa, clear.
Behind the door, clear.
A mirror on the wall shows a warped slice of the hallway behind me. Sofia remains where I told her to, barely visible at the edge of reflection, with one hand pressed against the doorframe and her face drawn tight.
A sound from the kitchen catches my attention—the scrape of a chair leg dragging against worn linoleum. I pivot toward it immediately, keeping my weapon raised as I move down the short hallway. The single light bulb over the kitchen table throws long shadows across the room.
As I round the corner, what I find on the other side of the wall causes me to freeze for half a second as my brain processes the scene all at once.
There is a man in the center of the kitchen, his wrists bound tightly behind the chair he’s sitting on.
His face is red and swollen, one eye nearly shut.
Dried blood streaks down his temple on one side, disappearing into graying hair.
His shirt is torn at the collar, the fabric stained in several places that tell me the beating was from a moment of passionate rage.
Someone took time with him. Not enough to kill, but enough to make him understand how badly he may soon want it.
“What the hell?” I mumble.
The man makes a strained noise when I step into view, muffled by the gag. His eyes are wide and frantic, darting from me to the gun in my hand and back again.
“What is it?” Sofia calls from the doorway.
I lift a hand back toward her without tearing my eyes away from the man, silently telling her to stay back. My finger flexes over the trigger out of habit, taking the man in again.
Time has worn him down, hollowed out his cheeks and threaded gray through dark hair that might once have been the same rich shade visible in old photographs. But the eyes are unmistakable, even swollen and terrified. That same vivid blue as Sofia’s.
Dmitri Orlov.
Footsteps come up from behind me.
Of course…
“Get back,” I snap.
My warning falls on deaf ears. She rounds the corner before I can block her, slipping under the arm I throw out to keep her from stepping into the kitchen.
She gasps when she sees him. “Dad!”
I sigh out loud.
I catch her around the waist before she gets more than two steps past me, hauling her back against my chest with one arm while keeping the gun trained on the rest of the kitchen. She fights me instantly, nails digging into my forearm as her body goes rigid with furious panic.
“Let me go!”
“No,” I growl in her ear.
I turn us just enough to drop her back onto her feet outside the kitchen. Dmitri makes another muffled noise from behind us, thrashing weakly against the restraints, the chair under him scraping against the floor louder than before.
“Stay,” I tell her. “For once in your life, understand that sometimes it’s best if you are left out of things.”
She glares at me with that familiar fire in her eyes, already gathering herself to argue with me. If this were any other situation, I would find it endearingly amusing. This woman would argue with a firing squad about its stance before the bullets started flying if she had the chance to.
I turn, already stepping forward back into the kitchen before she can argue with me further.
Dmitri’s eyes stay fixed on me as I approach.
He makes another frantic noise through the gag.
I lower my gun slightly, and move toward the chair to ungag him.
It isn’t until my hand is lifting in the air that I feel it.
The unmistakable pressure of a gun pressing against the side of my head.
I go perfectly still as instinct clicks into place. Every part of me locks as the world narrows instantly to the small sliver of darkness hiding just behind the shape of the fridge. An arm protrudes out of it, tall enough that the barrel sits level with my head without strain.
Behind me, Sofia has gone silent.
A voice speaks quietly beside me. It’s calm, almost conversational. “Easy now. Drop the weapon and kick it away.”
I don’t hesitate.
My gun hits the floor with a dull clatter before I nudge it across the tile with my boot. Slowly, I raise both hands in the air on either side of my head.
The man holding the gun chuckles.
“I have to say.” The voice is amused, its light tone a complete contradiction against the intensity of the situation. “The rumors about your being an obedient lapdog are incredibly accurate. Tell me, are you like this with all Pakhans or normally just yours?”
My blood turns cold. Not because of the insult, it's because of the voice’s cadence. Its lazy cruelty, the theatrical edge hiding dark calculation beneath easy charm. The voice of a man who enjoys watching others realize they are trapped inside a snare of his design with no way out.
I turn my head just enough to see the man standing to the right of me. The sight of him sends a tight spike of confusion through my body.
Aleksandr Volkov.
Volkov stands close enough that the barrel remains pressed near my temple, but not so close that I could disarm him without risking Sofia catching a bullet during the movement.
He wears a dark coat, rain speckled across the shoulders.
The collar is open like he wandered in from a late dinner that turned steamy rather than positioning himself at the helm of a trap.
A faint smile rests on his mouth, too careless to be harmless.
“Were you sent here by your Pakhan?” he asks.
I shake my head silently.
My mind works to understand what we’re just stumbled into.
What in the hell is he, of all people, doing here?
Aleksandr Volkov does not cohabit backwater apartments in forgotten parts of Moscow without reason.
Volkov is too calculated to befriend a disgraced former relative of Ivan’s just for the fun of it.
If he is here, then there is something going on behind the scenes neither I, nor Ivan, have been aware of.
My fingers twitch as I fight the urge to flex them.
I want to turn and grab Sofia and push her farther back down the hallway toward the door before Volkov can think to use her against me.
Or Ivan. Every instinct in me is screaming to move her, shield her, remove her from the sightline of that amused, wolfish gaze.
She is too exposed where she stands behind me, close enough to become collateral damage if Volkov decided to let his trigger finger pull back.
His eyes search my face with lazy interest, as if this is a card game and he has just realized my hand is more entertaining than expected.
There is always something insulting about his ease.
He wears danger like an expensive coat, thrown over one shoulder with deliberate carelessness.
Men mistake that for arrogance and forget that a man like Volkov is usually far more dangerous than his decorative charm portrays him to be.
The real wolf is always sitting just underneath that facade, patient enough to enjoy the build up before finally striking.
Finally, the barrel dips away from my temple.
My arms drop slowly back down to my sides, though not at all relaxed. I know better than to let my guard down around a member of the Iron Pact.
Especially this one.
I finally speak. “You’re a long way from your own territory.”
“And you are a long way from Ivan’s leash.” His eyes flick over to Sofia with open amusement. “Though apparently, not far enough.”
“What the hell is going on?” she croaks.
He sweeps an arm across the kitchen. The gesture is theatrical and almost elegant. “Curious situation, isn’t it? Malyshko requested that I keep an eye on your Pakhan for a while. Just to make sure he hasn’t been up to anything… shall we say, nefarious.”
I feel tension coil through me.