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Bitterness flooded my mouth. I opened our chat for the hundredth time, his name sitting there like a void, sucking me in. My fingers hovered, itching to type something, but fear kept me frozen. I just gripped the phone, waiting for him to break the quiet, to flip my world upside down again.
A week dragged by. Nothing. Gennady and Anya—gone, like they had dropped off the face of the earth. Panic crept in, drowning out the anger and hurt. If he was pissed at me or done with me, fine. But Anya? She hadn't shown up to school. That sweet little girl—where was she? My brain spun with dark thoughts. Kidnapping? Revenge? Something worse?
The hole he had left behind filled with dread, heavy, suffocating, crushing my chest until I could barely breathe.
"Principal, Anya hasn't been to class in a week. I'm really worried," I said, bursting into Mr. Willson's office, my voice tight with panic.
He frowned, flipping through a thick record book. "That is odd. We tried contacting Mr. Sokolov, but his phone went unanswered, and emails bounced back."
Unanswered. No response.
The words gutted me, shredding my last bit of hope. Had something happened to him? To Anya?
Anger, pain, worry, and something else—something I hated admitting—twisted together, sparking a reckless need to act. I needed answers. I needed to know they were safe.
Sokolov Industries. A cold, gleaming skyscraper in downtown Chicago, all glass and steel, like a fortress.
"Sorry, ma'am. No appointment, no entry," the security guard said, his voice flat, robotic, but his eyes sharp like a predator's. He was built like a tank, blocking the way.
"I'm Anya Sokolov's teacher! She hasn't been to school in a week, and I'm worried about her!" My voice spiked, desperate, hoping her safety might crack his icy front.
"Rules are rules. No appointment, no entry." His tone was final, like a fucking machine.
Frustration and fear rooted me to the spot. I paced the slick lobby, scanning every polished face hurrying by—none of them his. Out of options, I headed for the shadows—the underground parking garage. Maybe I'd find something there, some hint.
The elevator hummed down, the steel walls reflecting my pale, anxious face.
Level B2. The doors slid open, and the air was thick, dead. Then—BANG! BANG! BANG!
Gunshots.
Time stopped. My blood froze, limbs locked, heart hammering so hard it might have cracked my ribs. My mind blanked, screaming with raw terror.
Dad! Dad!
Memories flooded in, dragging me back to that night when I was seven. The same gunshots, the same choking smoke, my father's body crumpling in a pool of blood. Those warm eyes, the ones that read me bedtime stories, gone forever, leaving me and Mom alone in a cold, cruel world.
No! No!
I was paralyzed, drowning in fear, the gunshots and my racing pulse the only sounds. Another shot exploded, the echo bouncing off the concrete walls. Then I saw him—Gennady.
He was in a tailored black suit, moving like a shadow in the dim garage light, gripping a glinting pistol, not a pen. The man who had kissed my forehead, who had held me close, was now a cold, lethal killer.
It hit like a thunderbolt: He's not a businessman. Never was.
His precise stance, his ease in the chaos, his unflinching calm facing death—these weren't the skills of a CEO.
He was a mobster.
The truth coiled around my heart, cold and venomous. Gennady Sokolov—the man who had whispered soft words, sent me roses, kissed me like I was his everything—was one of them. The same kind of monster who killed my father.
Fear crashed over me, not just from the gunfire but from my own choices. I had fallen for a mobster. I had let a man who'd probably killed dozens touch me, claim me, mark my body as his.
How could I have been so fucking blind? The lavish gifts, the commanding presence, the dangerous edge—I had ignored every warning sign, caught up in his charm, his intensity, the way he made me feel alive, out of control.
The world blurred, like I was underwater, the stench of gunpowder and blood choking me, mixing reality and memory.
His eyes flashed in my mind—those deep emerald pools, burning with possession when he had touched me. Then they shifted, fading to the warm brown of my father's eyes, the ones that had loved me, protected me, read me stories.
