Chapter 25 #2
Below it, in an elegant serif font, PRIVATE AUCTION LOT #1: MX-42 PROTOTYPE — COMPLETE SYNTHESIS BIDDING OPENS: MIDNIGHT (MSK) STARTING PRICE: €300,000,000.
“Blyad.”
Seeing it formalized, printed on expensive stock with photography that makes chemical warfare look like art, something in my chest cracks.
“When did this arrive?”
“Five minutes ago.” Her voice sounds hollow, distant. “Courier. Said it was urgent.” She laughs once. “I thought it might be supplies.”
I open the envelope.
Inside, a glossy catalog. Twenty pages. Professional photography. Each page details a different aspect of her work—chemical structure, synthesis pathway, mechanism of action, projected mortality rates, delivery methods, and military applications.
Someone took mass death and gave it a fucking marketing department.
Then I see it. Page seven. The synthesis documentation. Bottom right corner, barely visible: A.N.V.
Her initials. Her handwriting. Her notes on documents she created in good faith, believing she was helping, believing she could save lives, believing I wouldn’t use her brilliance to build the exact thing she feared most.
I did this.
I flip to the attendee page, and my stomach turns to stone.
Vadim’s name sits at the top. Below him, Dmitri Volkov of the Chechen Syndicate.
The FSB sent an anonymous representative.
Sinaloa Cartel’s arms procurement specialist. Al-Nusra Front.
Three private collectors whose identities are protected by the kind of legal architecture that only exists for people wealthy enough to buy governments.
Every fucking name on that list has resources to manufacture at scale.
Every fucking name has the willingness to use it.
“He used my notes.” Anya’s voice cracks. “Those are my files. My formatting. My—” She slams her palm against the workstation, scattering vials. “He didn’t even change my fucking headers. He just took everything and—”
Her hands shake for three more seconds. Then her jaw locks, and something shifts behind her eyes—fury.
“That mudak.” Her voice comes out low and vicious in a way I’ve never heard from her before. “I’m going to destroy him.”
“Get in line, solnyshko.”
“No.” She wheels on me, mercury eyes blazing with the kind of rage that makes my cock twitch even though this is absolutely not the time.
“I don’t want him dead. I want him ruined.
I want every buyer in that room to pay three hundred million euros for something that doesn’t fucking work.
I want Vadim to watch his empire collapse because the genius chemist he tried to sell figured out how to burn it down from the inside. ”
I catch her before she can pace away, my arm hooking around her waist and pulling her against my chest so hard she gasps. Her heart slams against my ribs—or maybe that’s mine, I can’t fucking tell anymore where she ends, and I begin.
“Be calm.” My hand fists in her hair, tilting her head back so she has to look at me.
“Then get me into that auction.” Her fingers curl into my shirt, not pushing away but pulling closer. “Get me access to the files.”
“You have a plan?”
“I have chemistry.” Her mouth curves. “I’ll mirror the compound. Reverse the molecular structure. It will look identical on paper, but in a human body? It’s inert. Salt water.” She grabs a flash drive from the workstation. “But no one will know until they try to manufacture.”
Brilliant. Fucking brilliant.
“How long do you need?”
“Five minutes with file access. Two if they’re digital.”
“You’ll have it.”
She nods once.
“What’s the dress code?” She doesn’t look up from the flash drives she’s organizing. “For watching your life’s work get sold to terrorists?”
“Black tie. Formal.” I cross to her and turn her to face me, my hands settling on her hips with the possessive grip I can’t seem to control around her anymore. “Wear the midnight blue from the gala. You’ll look like an oligarch’s wife while you’re planning their destruction.”
“Romantic.”
“We leave in two hours.”
She zips the leather case and turns to face me fully, pale but steady, jaw set with determination that makes something crack in my chest and reform into a shape I don’t recognize.
“If this doesn’t work—” she starts.
“It will.”
“But if it doesn’t.” She steps closer, close enough that I can smell peppermint and feel the heat radiating off her skin. “I need you to know something.”
I wait.
“I hate what you did. I hate that you made me a weapon. And I hate that even now, looking at this, I still want you to touch me.”
“It makes you mine.” The words escape before I can stop them. “And I don’t deserve that. I know I don’t. But if we survive tonight—”
“Don’t.” She presses her fingers against my lips. “Don’t make promises. Just get me into that vault.”
I kiss her fingers. Then her palm. Then I pull her against me and kiss her properly. This is desperate and rough.
When she pulls back, her voice is steady. “Let’s go steal my research back and make every buyer in that room regret putting their name on Vadim’s fucking list.”
Something dark and proud blooms in my chest.
This woman. This fucking woman.
“Eto moya devochka.” I pull her close and press my mouth to her forehead. “Now let’s go burn my uncle’s empire to the ground.”