Chapter 24 – Danil
The drive back to the estate felt never-ending. Every second dragged on, thick and suffocating, like smoke I couldn’t clear from my lungs. My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. My thoughts kept circling Katria.
I had left her at the safe house—a fortress of my own design, buried behind walls of steel and men I trusted with my life.
It was the only move left for me. I couldn’t gamble with her safety, not on a hunch, not on strategy.
My purpose had narrowed into a single burning point: Keep her alive. Whatever it costs. Whatever it takes.
Feliks would not touch her again. Not while I was still breathing.
By the time the gate of the main estate lines up, rain had stopped, but the air still carried the call of it, damp and heavy, like the earth itself was holding its breath.
The mansion looked like a mausoleum. Too slim. Too quiet, waiting.
Men stood everywhere—by the doors, the windows, the halls. Inside and out, every corner was covered. If Feliks thought he could slip past, he was already a dead man.
I stepped inside. Luka and Konstantin were waiting in the main hall, arms crossed. Luka’s sharp eyes met mine. “Danil,” he said, voice flat, but there was a question hidden inside it.
“He’s not getting in,” I said. My tone left no room for argument. “This meeting—it’s a diversion. He won’t face me. Not directly.”
Konstantin’s hand curled around the hilt of his weapon. “Then what’s the move?”
“We wait,” I said. My words echoed in the hall, heavier than stone. “We wait for him to show his hand. If he comes here, he dies here.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Luka asked. His eyes flickered toward the double doors, the silence behind them. “If he’s just trying to make us dance?”
I smiled without warmth, all teeth and ice. “Then we let him think he’s won. When he’s comfortable, when he thinks we’re broken—then we strike. He thinks he’s clever. He thinks he holds the cards. But I’ve got the papers. I’ve got the leverage. He’s doing a dead hand.”
A sudden knock at the door caused three of us to react instantly.
Not a loud pounding. Not an arrogant hammer of a man demanding entrance. Just a quiet, tentative knock.
My hand went to the gun at my hip, and Luka and Konstantin moved in unison, weapons raised.
The heavy door swung open.
A single figure stood framed in the archway, dark hair plastered with rain.
“Irene,” Konstantin spat, venom lacing his tone. His body shifted instinctively, stepping between her and me. “I’ll handle her, Danil. She doesn’t belong here.”
“Wait,” my voice cut the air, soft but sharp as glass.
I studied her face. No fear there. Just exhaustion. The kind that lived deep in the bones, carved by years of running. She wasn’t here to fight. She was here because she had no other move left.
“Let her in,” I said. My gaze didn’t leave hers. “I have questions.”
She walked past Konstantin without flinching, her gaze locked on mine. Her steps carried no hesitation.
Before I could speak, she pulled a small bundle from her jacket—papers, flash drives, devices—and set them on the long oak table. The sound echoed in the hall.
“I have a flash drive,” she said, her voice steady. She pointed. “Two ledgers. An encrypted recording.” Her eyes met mine with a silent challenge. “You don’t need to interrogate me, Danil. I’ll give you everything.”
She took a breath and began to speak. Words poured from her like water breaking through a dam.
“The flash drive holds encrypted emails. Feliks and foreign brokers. The ledgers—Sivella Holdings. Every transaction, every dirty deal, every dollar that passed through his hands. But you were wrong about one thing.”
My jaw tightened. “What?”
“He didn’t need the money,” Irene said. Her eyes flicked to the papers. “He already siphoned off most of it. Sivella Holdings was compromised beyond saving. The only way he could cover it was through a legal transfer. Public. Clean. On paper.”
She slid one of the ledgers toward me. My fingers clenched against it.
“These”—she turned the page—“are promotion orders. First for Katria’s father. Then for Katria. Feliks used her signature, Danil. He made it look legitimate. A clean transfer of power, a failing company handed down. But it was never about saving it.”
Her words lit like a blade sliding between my ribs.
The marriage. The inheritance. Not about money. About cover.
And Katria—my Katria—had been a pawn in his game from the very start.
Irene’s hand reached into her jacket again. She pulled out a folded typed note. She set it beside the others.
“This,” she whispered, “proves it. The meeting was planned so that Katria received ownership. The company was already dead. But her signature made the transfer legal. Without it, he couldn’t vanish clean. With it? He walks free with everything he already stole.”
The world tilted for a heartbeat. My pulse thundered in my ears.
She finally looked at me, her eyes hollow with fatigue. “I tried to warn her. To warn you. Notes. Hints. The handkerchief. Little things he wouldn’t notice. But he had one under surveillance. One wrong step, and he’d know. I couldn’t risk it. Not until now.”
I stood there, ledgers and flash drives in my hands, feeling the weight of my own blindness.
Feliks hadn’t been chasing money. He had already gulled the accounts. The marriage, the inheritance—it was all for signatures. Katria’s name had been the final key.
My teeth ground together, fury burning cold in my chest.
I remembered Katria telling me recently that Irene was the one dropping the clues for her.
For us. But I had been so sure Irene just claimed that to soften Katria toward her or something.
I didn’t let myself pause to think she could really know about her dad’s dark dealings, let alone want to expose him.
“You’ve been helping her,” I said, voice low.
“I was trying to,” Irene answered. Her voice was a whisper, but steady. “Piece by piece. Quietly. If I dumped everything at once, Feliks would know.”
My eyes narrowed. “And yet here you are now. Why? Why come when I ordered Katria moved? You needed to know where she was first? Needed her location before you showed up here with your story?”
Her chin lifted. She didn’t back down. “I’m not a fool.
I’ve been in this life long enough to know how you work, Danil.
I needed proof that you’d protect her before putting my life in your hands.
If you’d had her here as bait, I wouldn’t have come.
But you didn’t. You sent her away. That told me what I needed. ”
My grip on her shoulder tightened. “And where’s Feliks? Where is he hiding?”
Her frustration was real, raw. “I don’t know. But he’s not here. He won’t come. He sent me to keep you waiting…to distract you.”
My stomach turned to ice.
“Distract me?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Keep you looking at the wrong place.”
“When did he send the order for this meeting?”
“A week ago,” she answered, eyes wide at my intensity. “He set this in motion last week.”
The realization slammed into me like fire.
A week. Not tonight. Not now. This wasn’t about the estate at all.
The thud outside the walls confirmed it.
Distant. Heavy. Familiar.
I froze. Luka’s head jerked up. Konstantin swore.
“It’s not a diversion for this place,” I whispered, my voice breaking. Then I roared, “It’s a diversion for the safe house!”
Luka’s face was drained of color. Konstantin bolted for the door.
“He knew!” I bellowed, fury ripping from my chest. “He knew I’d move her! He knew I’d empty the estate to guard this place! Katria—” My voice cracked. “He’s gone after her.”
“Cars!” Konstantin barked, yanking the door open.
“To the safe house—move!” Luka shouted.
I spun back to Irene. Her face was pale with horror.
“You stay here,” I ordered, my voice thundering. “You’re a liability.”
“No.” Her voice shook but held steady. “You don’t know what a trap is. I do. You need me.”
I hesitated. Despite the confirmation that she’d been helping, I didn’t trust her. Not fully. But the fire in her eyes wasn’t a lie. She hated him. Maybe almost as much as I did.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Then move.”
We ran. Boots thundered across marble, echoing through the dead halls.
I climbed into the armored car, engine roaring alive, Luka and Konstantin in the convoy behind me. My food slammed down. Tires screamed against the wet pavement as we tore through the night.
The city blurred last in streaks of gray and yellow. My hands clenched the wheel, but my mind was burning with only one image: Katria, alone in the house.
“How long?” I shouted into the comms.
Static crackled, then Luka’s voice, sharp with fury: “We don’t know, Danil. We don’t know.”
I pressed harder on the gas, engine howling.
Feliks had used my love against me. Turned it into the perfect weapon.
But he’d made one mistake.
He’d given me something worth burning the world for.
Hold on, Katria, I swore in the silence of my chest. I’m coming. I’ll tear apart every man he sends. Just hold on.