Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Sergei
It was nearly one in the morning by the time I finished handling the backup situation and returned to the penthouse.
Most of the lights in the apartment were off. Bogdan's men were stationed outside in the hallway. I'd changed the security code, added a double lock, and repositioned the camera coverage—every blind spot where Ella might appear, I'd filled them all in.
I'd arranged all this when I brought Ella back.
But it wasn't enough.
I stopped outside the master bedroom door. Didn't go in.
I turned and walked to the guest room, pressed my ear against it for a moment. No sound inside. I pushed the door open a crack. The lights were off, curtains drawn tight, just a sliver of moonlight leaking through the gap, falling across the edge of the bed.
She was curled up on that bed, her back to the door, blanket pulled to her waist. A pale stretch of neck exposed, auburn hair scattered across the pillow, messy. She hadn't brushed it.
Must've collapsed the second she hit the mattress.
I stood there. Didn't go in, didn't close the door. Just watched.
Manhattan's night still glowed below. Car sounds drifted up from the distance, then faded. The apartment was quiet—so quiet I could hear her breathing. A little shallow, not deep sleep, but steadier than when she'd been crying in my arms tonight.
I remembered the moment she'd thrown herself at me.
Her whole body shaking, fingers gripping the lapels of my coat, desperate, like if she let go, she'd fall, so she had to hold on.
I could still feel that pressure.
I raised my hand and looked at my palm. No marks, but I stared at it for a long time anyway.
Then I pulled the door gently closed, went back to the living room, sat on the couch, and called Bogdan.
"Results in?"
"Yes." Bogdan's voice was low. I could hear what he was holding back. "Three men. All professional muscle, on record, done similar jobs before—intimidation work, not actual hits." He paused. "They're Karlov's."
Karlov.
Viktor's man.
I set the phone on my knee, leaned back against the couch, and stared at the ceiling.
"Objective."
"Grab her, not hurt her," Bogdan said. "Karlov's orders were to take the woman, but no casualties. They didn't succeed tonight—heard your car and pulled out."
Didn't succeed.
I repeated it, turned those words over in my head.
If I'd been ten minutes later, she wouldn't have just been scared.
That knowledge spread through my chest like plunging your hand into ice water in winter—bit by bit, from fingertips upward, creeping to the heart, squeezing it tight.
I took a deep breath, tried to stay clearheaded.
"The words on the wall."
"One of them sprayed it," Bogdan said. His tone was flat, but he'd been in this business twenty years—I could hear what he was suppressing. "All confirmed. Paint bought from a local hardware store, cash transaction, no surveillance—very careful."
Very careful.
Viktor had moved earlier than I'd expected, and he'd been watching her for a while.
Tonight wasn't a probe. It was a warning—telling me he'd already found something he could use.
I sat in the darkness for a long time.
These twelve years, I'd killed people, betrayed people, been betrayed. I'd kept the whole business of feelings clean, never made exceptions—exceptions were weaknesses, and in this line of work, weakness was a death sentence.
I'd always believed that.
But tonight in that parking lot when I watched her—barefoot, chasing my car, hair soaked with snow—the moment she threw herself in front of the hood, I slammed the brakes, watched her brace against it, gasping, and my heart stopped for two full seconds.
Not because I'd almost hit her.
Because I realized—
Fuck.
I pressed my knuckles to my lips, sat in the dark for a long time.
Wrong time.
This wasn't the time to think about any of this.
Viktor had found her and was using her to threaten me, which meant he'd already traced this thread. No matter how I tried to sever it, he'd follow it. So the only question now wasn't what I felt about her—it was whether I could keep her safe.
That question had a much clearer answer than the other one.
I stood, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, lit a cigarette, and looked down at Manhattan.
The city still blazed in the deep night, sleepless and relentless, lights packed dense like a net stretched forever taut, catching everything, holding nothing.
Bogdan's voice came through the phone. "Boss, how do you want to handle those three?"
"Hold them," I said. "I want to know what else Karlov's planning. They're a thread—don't cut it yet. Also—" I stopped. "Tomorrow morning, go through Viktor's accounts for the last three months again. I want to know where he's moving funds, how much."
"Understood."
"And Dmitri." The name tasted like rust. "Watch him closely. Who he's been meeting, where he's been—don't miss a thing."
"Yes."
I hung up and set the phone on the coffee table. Smoke curled in the darkness, drifted, vanished.
I remembered the report Bogdan had shown me a day ago—no private contact between her and Dmitri.
I'd buried that report under everything else, told myself it wasn't the time—Viktor was moving, people in the family were watching, Dmitri had come back from Europe, all of it piling up. I didn't have the time or energy to deal with something else.
But that wasn't the truth.
The truth was, the second I saw her standing with him, that uncontrollable chill shot up my spine, and when I turned and walked into the elevator, what I was actually thinking wasn't about Viktor or the family—it was whether she'd looked back.
Fuck.
I crushed out the cigarette, walked back to the guest room door, and stopped again.
Quiet inside.
I pushed it open, went in. Didn't turn on the light. By the thin glow leaking through the curtain gap, I walked to the bed and pulled up the blanket that had slipped off her feet, tucked it back around her.
She shifted, made a muffled sound, then curled tighter inward, like she was searching for something.
I crouched by the bed and looked at her face.
Tear tracks still on her lashes, a faint red mark on her cheek, almost faded—where the guy had covered her mouth. I reached out, my fingertip barely touching the spot.
She didn't wake, but her brow furrowed, then smoothed.
I pulled my hand back.
I sat beside her for a while. Didn't think about anything. Just sat.
Then she moved.
Her hand came out from under the blanket and grabbed my wrist.
Light pressure, but steady.
"Don't go." She said it through sleep, voice blurred. "Don't go. Please..."
I looked at her hand.
Even in dreams, her brow was creased, lashes trembling, lips moving once, then she went still again, breathing evening out. But she didn't let go.
I didn't move.
Just sat there, let her hold my wrist, listened to the occasional car sounds from Manhattan outside, the faint hum of the heating pipes, her breathing gradually slowing, deepening, finally sinking into real sleep.
When her hand went completely slack, I carefully slipped my wrist free.
I stood, looked at her one last time in the darkness, then left the room and closed the door.
The hallway light was dim. I leaned against the wall, pressed the back of my head to the cold surface, tilted my face up, and closed my eyes.
I knew what I was doing.
And I knew once I admitted this, there was no going back.
Everything I'd built over forty years—the rules, the distance, the ability to treat people as chess pieces, the ability to keep my heart locked down tight—all of it was about telling myself that in this business, no one could get close, no one was worth it, and no one could survive the cost of getting close to me.
Misha was the exception, because dogs don't betray.
But the woman sleeping in that guest room right now—
She'd stood in that parking lot, barefoot, snow falling on her, staring at me with those blue-green eyes, cupping my face, saying word by word: You're worth being scared for once.
What was she worth to me?
I stood in that hallway for a long time, until the carpet under my feet warmed from the pressure, before I pushed the door open again, walked back into the guest room, and sat on the couch beside her bed.
Not to watch over her.
Just—
Forget it.
I leaned back against the couch in the darkness and closed my eyes.
Someday, I'd find a way to shield her, between Viktor and Dmitri, between all the filthy business of this family.
I wouldn't let her be hurt again.
Outside the window, Manhattan began to lighten. Not daybreak—that color the city lights turn in the deepest part of night, shifting from blue-gray to pale white, signaling dawn's approach.
Bogdan sent me a message: Investigation results compiled by morning, awaiting your review.
I glanced at it, put the phone down.
Sounds from the guest room—her turning over, the rustle of sheets, then quiet again.
I rested my head against the couch back and closed my eyes.
The CEO of Volkov Group, Pakhan of the mafia, on a Christmas night in the small hours, watching over a sleeping girl, thinking about how to get her to eat two more bites of breakfast tomorrow.
If my father could see this, he'd probably chew me out, say I'd shamed the family.
But my father was dead. Had been for years.
And she was still here.
That was enough.