35. Chapter 35
Sasha
The warehouse smelled of salt and diesel, with a faint hint of rusted steel. Pallets stacked high cast long shadows across the concrete floor. Sunlight slipped through the corrugated skylights, pooling in thin, dusty beams.
Usually, the scent of salt and machinery would ground me. Today, however, it felt like a cage.
I tapped the screen of my phone and Nikolai’s face appeared instantly, his eyes sharp and his features hard. The pakhan didn’t bother with small talk.
“Sasha,” he said, his voice clipped and precise. “Status?”
I leaned back in the creaking chair, the metal frame groaning beneath me. “Shipments are delayed again. Whoever’s doing this knows our rhythms, and it’s not random.”
Nikolai’s jaw tightened. “The local familia?”
“They’ve been probing us,” I said. “Testing weaknesses, delaying deliveries.”
He exhaled sharply. “I warned them not to provoke us. And yet, here we are.”
I didn’t argue. “Direct confrontation would be reckless. There are too many variables. We’d lose ground before we even started.”
“Then what?” he asked. “Tell me your plan.”
“We tighten security on the incoming routes. We’ll use secondary containers disguised as unimportant shipments. Rotate drivers. Monitor communications and leverage local contacts. Isolate their interference points without revealing ourselves.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “Risk?”
I swayed my head from side to side. “I’d consider it moderate. The crew and drivers are loyal and we’ve vetted the hand-offs twice. If there are any slip-ups, we’ll adapt.”
Silence stretched. Then he spoke, his voice cold and clipped. “Good. You’ve earned this trust. This territory must remain ours. You need to make it permanent. And Sasha … Do not underestimate them. They will lie and they will test every boundary.”
“I know.”
Another pause, then a curt nod. “Execute. Report only deviations. This is your chance to solidify control. Do not fail.”
The line went dead. I exhaled and ran a hand through my hair as the echoes of forklift motors and dock boots faded around me.
The call came in while Kyrill was still discussing dock access as if it were a chess problem rather than the kind of territorial fault line historically resulting in bodies floating face down in the water.
My best friend paced slowly across the office as he talked, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. One hand sketched invisible maps in the air as he talked through shipping routes and leverage points with the focused patience of a man who genuinely enjoyed strategy.
To him, the entire situation was an intellectual puzzle involving supply lines, choke points and pressure tactics, rather than the simmering conflict it actually was.
The marina dispute had been circling us for days, with both sides posturing and probing. Each side was pretending to be patient while secretly calculating how much blood they were willing to spill over a stretch of docks and water neither side could afford to appear weak about.
I was only half-listening while scanning messages on my phone when Misha called. Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored it until Kyrill had finished speaking. The security team rarely interrupted unless something required immediate attention.
Something about the timing made my instincts prick up and made me swipe across the screen to answer.
“Yes?”
There was shouting on the other end of the line. It was a far cry from the controlled communication I was used to when dealing with my men. My back went ramrod straight, an ugly mixture of dread and anxiety swirling in the pit of my stomach.
“Boss—” His voice was strained and he was breathing hard. “The villa … The villa has been hit.”
For a split second, the words didn’t register. It simply couldn’t be true.
Kyrill was still talking about dock storage capacity behind me, explaining how rerouting shipments through the western pier would reduce exposure if negotiations collapsed.
Then my mind finally caught up and my body unfroze.
“What?!”
“They came at us fast,” Misha said. “Vehicles. Six … fuck, maybe even more. It was chaos.”
My hand tightened slowly around the phone, and I sucked in a sharp breath before asking the most important question — the only question that mattered.
“Where is she?”
There was a pause and I closed my eyes as the severity of the situation settled in my gut like a block of ice.
“Gone,” Misha choked out.
Gone.
The word sliced through my chest like a blade.
“Secure the perimeter,” I barked through gritted teeth. “And then alert everyone. NOW!”
“Already on it.”
Then the line went dead.
I sat completely still for a moment. Across the room, Kyrill had stopped talking.
He was watching me now, with the sharp awareness of someone who knew me well enough to recognise the precise moment when the atmosphere in the room changed.
“What happened?”
The calculating edge to his gaze told me he had probably already pieced it together but needed confirmation.
I was consumed by red-hot anger with nothing but violent thoughts and plans for murder on my mind. I would get her back; I needed to get her back.
Staring unseeingly at the polished wooden surface of the desk, I said tonelessly, “They hit the villa.”
His posture straightened instantly. “When?”
“Just now.”
“And Addy?”
The question hit me like a blow to the sternum. I opened my mouth, trying to force the words out but then the rage and uncertainty boiled over. My hands were already gripping the edge of the table, my knuckles white. With a roar of fury, I flipped the table over, sending papers flying everywhere.
Because I didn’t know, and not knowing was worse than anything else.
“We’re heading out.”
Kyrill was already stuffing his gun in the waistband of his jeans.
The drive back felt unbearably long. Every turn felt too slow and my mind was racing, replaying the situation with brutal clarity.
The false emergency call that had pulled us away, the timing of it all and how legitimate it had seemed.
By the time we reached the gates, the silence in the car had become oppressive. The guards who had been posted outside had disappeared, and one of the iron gates was hanging half open with the lock twisted and broken.
Kyrill swore quietly under his breath. “Motherfucker.”
The courtyard resembled a battlefield, with the stone walls riddled with bullet holes and shards of glass from broken windows scattered across the ground.
Two of my men were lying near the entrance steps, still alive but barely conscious. Ivan was slumped against the wall, blood seeping through his shirt sleeve.
I felt a cold sensation settle in my chest as I stepped out of the car before the engine had even fully shut off.
“Boss,” Ivan croaked when he caught sight of me.
I crossed the courtyard quickly.
“Report.”
“Ambush,” he explained hoarsely. “They came fast — hit the front and side entrances at the same time with two different groups.”
“How many?”
“Six. Maybe eight, but only half of them were properly trained.”
“And … her?” The question came out quieter. I couldn’t even bring myself to say her name.
The guard swallowed audibly, his face pale. “They took her.”
Kyrill let out a quiet breath beside me, his expression mirroring mine.
“The ones who took her seemed … inexperienced,” Ivan added. “Almost disorganized.”
Fuck. Inexperience could make the situation even more dangerous. Precision was predictable, but chaos could be deadly if things went wrong. My hands slowly curled into fists.
“Did they hurt her?”
“No.”
Relief rushed through me, but I refused to let it take hold. I wouldn’t rest until she was in my arms again. “You’re sure?”
“Not that I could see. They wanted her alive.”
Alive.
The word should have been comforting but instead it sharpened everything. Kyrill was already studying the scene, eyes moving across the courtyard, the vehicles, the angles of impact.
“This wasn’t random,” he observed quietly. “They knew you’d be gone.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “They did.”
Which meant someone had wanted this to happen.
Someone who knew exactly where to strike.
I looked toward the villa, with its front doors hanging open and a tray of her muffins sitting on the counter.
The image of her standing in the kitchen earlier, laughing at Misha’s antics and arguing with Kyrill about something trivial, flashed vividly through my mind.
Now she was fucking gone. Taken from our home.
Kyrill stepped closer. “You need to think. This was planned. They want leverage.”
“Well … seems like they fucking have it,” I snarled.
“If you rush into this—”
“This is about her,” I barked. “There is nothing more important than her.”
He studied my face for a moment; he had an odd expression, as if he knew something I didn’t. “I understand this is hard, bratan, but you’re making this personal.”
I turned toward him slowly. “Of course I’m taking it fucking personally. My woman was taken from our own goddamn house.”
The realization slammed into me with the weight of a freight train, and my knees actually went weak.
Kyrill watched me for another long second. “You love her.”
It wasn’t a question, and I made no attempt to deny it.
“Yes.”
Kyrill exhaled slowly. “Well.”
“What?” I snapped.
“This is extremely inconvenient timing.” He sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“Why?”
Was he trying to piss me off with his cryptic shit?
“Because,” he said dryly, “you’re about to become irrational … and this is usually my job.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“We need to find her. Right the fuck now.”
My phone was buzzing non-stop as word spread through the organization. Every single man was mobilized and we tapped into every source of information moving through every contact we had across the island.
Running a hand through my hair, I stepped back toward the car, with Kyrill following in my wake.
“We about to shed some blood?”
“Yes.”
“Try to wait until we find out who did it.” Kyrill sighed and slid into the passenger seat as the engine started. “You realize this might destroy any progress we’ve made.”
“Yup. Don’t fucking care.” I pulled out onto the road. “They took the woman I love from my home.”
He leaned his head back against the seat.
“Well,” he muttered. “Can’t say I blame you.”
“Tell me you wouldn’t do the same fucking thing if that was your woman.”
Rolling down the window, he put a cigarette between his lips and lit it. “Nah. I guess not.”
“Glad we got that cleared up,” I deadpanned. “Now let’s go hunt.”
The city blurred slightly as I pressed my foot down harder on the accelerator. My little devil was somewhere out there with the men who took her.
I would find her. There was simply no other option.
And if they’d frightened her — if they’d touched her — I’d make sure they’d regret it for the rest of their very short lives.