Chapter 28 #2
“I call it business. Aurora was leverage. She was never the target.” He sets down the glass and studies me across the desk.
“Adrian, the recordings are still in play. I have copies your people haven’t found, and they go public if anything happens to me.
Dominic’s archive is backed up and secure.
I have full files and along with digital fragments, including the file from the private room at the club.
” He smiles. “You and the girl, that night. Everything.”
“You’re bluffing and have nothing.” I hold his stare. “The clean-up crew seized the last copies. What remained is in Ludo’s laptop, which is now in my possession. The archive will be parsed, stripped, and destroyed as needed.”
He stops smiling and hardens, leaning forward. “Sergei’s boy is a smart one, yet you still came yourself. That means I matter more than you want to admit.”
I sneer. “You matter enough to finish. That’s all.”
“This didn’t have to end this way.” He drifts one hand toward the edge of the desk, and I track the movement without reacting.
The pistol is eight inches from his fingers.
“We could work together, or you could sell me the interests I hear you’re shedding.
They align nicely with my own financial pursuits. ”
I’d laugh if the idea weren’t so distasteful. “I could never trust you enough to let you live, let alone work with you. You kidnapped Aurora. This is exactly how it had to end.”
Karpov lunges for the pistol, and I spin the gun, firing before he reaches his without even fully lifting it from the desk first. The recoil from my bad grip is painful, but the shot is clean.
Arseny and Maxim enter the room immediately after and begin the cleanup protocol while I holster my weapon and walk to the window.
The marina is dark except for dock lights and the distant glow of a fishing boat near the reef.
“It’s done,” I tell Viktor.
He nods and holsters his own weapon. “Grigor is scrubbing the security footage. The cooperating witnesses from the storage facility will confirm Karpov disappeared. His remaining crews will scatter within days. Most already are.”
“Let them scatter. Anyone who comes back gets a choice of legitimate work or severance.”
Viktor raises an eyebrow. “You’re offering Karpov’s men jobs?”
“I’m offering them an alternative to the life that got their employer killed. Whether they take it is their choice. As long as they don’t consider me the bad guy in this, they won’t come after me. I’ll do anything or pay any amount for peace for my family.”
He nods. “I’ll put Fedor in charge of that. He’s eager for something to do, but Dr. Zarlova still wants him resting for a few days to let his ribs and concussion heal.”
“Perfect.” I take a step away from him. Not looking back at Karpov’s office, where his body belongs firmly in my past, I say, “Let’s go home.”
We land near the safe house at four in the morning and take a waiting car the last two miles from the landing pad.
Aurora is asleep in the bedroom, and Irina is asleep on the couch with a blanket pulled over her shoulders.
I stand in the hallway between them and relish the silence of completion rather than the silence of waiting for the next attack.
Nothing out of the ordinary is coming to disturb this peace.
It’s over. Eric and Karpov are dead, the archive is destroyed, and the investigation will close as a dirty cop’s arms deal gone wrong.
Aurora’s name won’t appear anywhere near it.
The restructuring will accelerate, the criminal infrastructure will be dismantled within the year, and the organization my father built will become something he’d barely recognize. I’m counting on that.
I wash my hands in the kitchen sink. The water runs clear because the operation was clean, but I wash them anyway, slowly and thoroughly, because I’m about to climb into bed with a woman who deserves better than gun powder residue on hands that did what they had to.
She needs the man who was given a second chance after pulling the trigger in the marina office, not any vestiges of the man I was in those moments before.
I dry my hands, undress in the bathroom, and slide into bed beside Aurora. She stirs without waking and reaches for me in her sleep, pulling my arm across her waist. I hold her and press my face against the back of her neck to breathe her in.
When she wakes two hours later, the first thing she sees is me. She looks at me for a long moment, and I let her because I have nothing left to hide.
“It’s done.”
She searches my face. “Karpov?”
“Gone. It’s all over. Viktor’s team made sure of it.”
She nods slowly. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I believe you.” She turns fully toward me. “I believe it’s over, and you’re going to build what you said you’d build. We’re going to raise these babies in a life that doesn’t require shelf brackets as weapons.”
I almost laugh, and the sound surprises me because I don’t remember the last time I laughed before she was taken. “Aurora.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t have a ring yet. I’ll get one. I’ll get whatever you want, or I’ll let you pick it out, or we’ll go together. I could ask Marisol to help because she’ll know what you’d like. I want you to be happy with every part of our life.” I take her hand. “Marry me.”
She looks at me for a long time. The morning light is coming through the window, highlighting the bruises on her arm, rope burns on her wrists, and she’s looking at me with love and anticipation.
“Yes.” She says it immediately, without conditions or the careful weighing she usually does before making decisions. “Yes, Adrian. Of course, yes.”
She laughs, and the sound is startled and full of joy. I pull her toward me and hold her as the future stops feeling like something I have to control. Instead, it’s something I get to choose.