I plugged it into my phone's charging port, praying it would work. A generic file manager opened, showing folderswith names in English, thank God. Financial Records. Routes. Personnel. Contracts.
I opened Financial Records first. Spreadsheets filled with numbers that made my head spin. Transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions. Account numbers at banks I'd never heard of. Shell companies with generic names like BlueSky Holdings and Atlas Unlimited.
Routes was exactly what it sounded like—addresses across the city with dates and times. Delivery schedules, maybe, or... I recognized some of the addresses. NYPD First Precinct. The Eighth. The Midtown North. Police stations, all of them.
My throat went dry.
Personnel was password protected, but Contracts wasn't. I opened it to find scanned documents, some in Russian, some in English. One caught my eye: Agreement for Services between Chenkov Imports and someone whose name was blacked out, but the letterhead was visible. City of New York, Department of—
My phone died.
The darkness was absolute. Not even a sliver of light from under the door. Just me, a starving puppy, and evidence of what looked like massive police corruption sitting useless in my dead phone.
The puppy whimpered, sensing my fear. I pulled it back against my chest, feeling its tiny heart racing against mine. "It's okay," I lied. "We're okay."
But we weren't. I'd stolen evidence of something huge, hidden in a storage unit that clearly belonged to a another criminal gang. Maybe the same gang? Chenkov knew what I looked like, knew I had his USB. It was only a matter of time before they tracked me here, whether through cameras, witnesses, or pure systematic searching.
The darkness pressed in, making the unit feel smaller. Somewhere in those military cases might be weapons. Somewhere in these boxes was enough stolen merchandise to put someone away for years. And somewhere out there, Chenkov's men were hunting for a girl with mismatched eyes who'd taken the wrong wallet at the wrong time.
The puppy's breathing evened out—sleeping or unconscious, I couldn't tell in the dark. I stroked its matted fur, feeling the bones underneath, the fever from the infection. We were both dying in our own ways. Maybe it was fitting we'd die together, two pieces of breathing trash that nobody would miss.
But first, I needed to rest. Just for a few minutes. Just until I could think straight, figure out my next move. The corner with the moving blankets was still there, muscle memory guiding me in the dark. I built a nest, tucking the puppy against my chest, wrapping us both in dusty fabric that smelled like other people's abandoned lives.
My eyes closed despite the danger. Exhaustion was another kind of darkness, and I sank into it gratefully. The last thing I heard was the puppy's labored breathing, and somewhere far away, the sound of car engines getting closer.
Chapter 2
Dmitry
Theprivategarageentranceused a different keycode than the main doors—one that didn't log entry times in Ivan's meticulous security database. I punched it with my wrapped knuckles, the fresh gauze already spotted with blood that had seeped through despite the industrial tape. Tony Castellano's dental work had been better than expected. One of his molars had actually embedded itself in my middle knuckle when he'd tried to bite through my hand like a trapped animal.
The garage smelled like motor oil and concrete dust, a scent so familiar it was like my cologne. Three identical black SUVs sat in formation, each one bulletproofed and ready. The service bathroom was tucked behind the mechanical room, installed specifically for moments like this—when showing up to a family meeting covered in someone else's blood would raise questions I didn't feel like answering.
Tony had thought the Volkovs were going soft. "Legitimate business ventures" translated to "weakness" in his simple mind.He'd skipped three protection payments, probably bragging to his crew about how he'd stood up to the Russians. I'd found him in his restaurant's walk-in freezer, counting produce like nothing had changed. The fear in his eyes when he saw me had been beautiful—that moment of recognition when prey realizes the predator isn't gone, that it’s been watching from the shadows all along.
"Three payments, three fingers," I'd explained, my voice calm as I selected his left hand. Tony was right-handed; I wasn't trying to destroy his livelihood, just make a point. The first finger broke clean—pointer, right at the second joint. His scream echoed off the frozen meat hanging around us. The second took more effort. Tony had started thrashing, trying to bite, trying to run. That's when his molar met my knuckle, when I'd had to hold his jaw shut with my other hand while finishing the job.
The third finger I'd broken slowly, letting him feel every fracture. "Legitimate business requires legitimate payments," I'd told him. "The construction company needs cash flow. Your protection ensures that cash flows uninterrupted. This equation hasn't changed just because we file different paperwork now."
I stripped off my shirt in the bathroom, examining the damage under fluorescent lights that turned everything corpse-pale. My knuckles were split in four places, the skin peeled back like fruit rind. Tony's tooth had gone deep. Nothing that wouldn't heal. I'd had worse from my father's lessons, back when learning to take a punch was considered essential education.
The industrial soap burned like acid on raw flesh. I scrubbed methodically, watching pink water swirl down the drain. Each finger got individual attention, checking for hidden damage, fragments that might fester. My grandmother used to do this for me when I was eight, nine, ten—cleaning my hands after schoolyard fights with the same methodical care she used on hermusic boxes. "Hands are tools," she'd say in Russian. "Maintain them properly, or they'll fail when you need them most."
Fresh gauze from the medical kit, wrapped tight but not too tight. White athletic tape over that, creating a flexible cast that would hold through whatever came next. My shirt was ruined—blood and saliva and what might have been tears. I pulled a spare from the supply closet, black henley that stretched across my shoulders. Alexei kept suits here. Ivan kept entire changes of clothes, organized by season. I kept basic shit that could hide blood.
The security monitor above the sink showed twelve feeds from around the compound. My eyes found Alexei's office immediately—second floor, corner window, the one with bulletproof glass that could stop a .50 caliber round. Three figures inside: Alexei behind his desk, Ivan with his eternal tablet, and Clara.
She wore a beautiful dress—cream colored, elegant, the kind of thing worn to charity lunches where rich people pretended to care about the poor. But above the neckline, just visible when she turned her head, was the collar. Soft leather, burgundy like old blood, with a silver ring that caught the light. Alexei's mark of ownership, subtle enough for public, obvious enough for anyone who understood what they were looking at.
My jaw tightened. Not in disapproval—Alexei could do whatever he wanted with his pet politician's daughter. But seeing it, seeing how easily she wore it, how naturally she moved in her cage . . . it reminded me of everything I couldn't have.
Clara had chosen this. Whatever arrangement they had, whatever dynamics played out behind closed doors, she'd walked into it with open eyes. She helped maintain the life that confined her, made it beautiful, made it bearable. There was trust there. The kind of trust that let you put your throat in someone's hands and believe they wouldn't squeeze too hard.
I could never trust anyone that much. Trust meant vulnerability, and vulnerability meant death. I'd learned that at eighteen when my first girlfriend sold information about my father's routes to the Kozlovs. Learned it again at twenty when a business partner I'd considered a friend set me up for an ambush. Learned it so many times that the lesson was carved into my bones: everyone was temporary, everyone was dangerous, everyone would betray you if the price was right.
The monitor showed Clara laughing at something Ivan said, her head tilted back, the collar shifting against her skin. Alexei's hand moved to her shoulder, possessive and protective in equal measure. She leaned into the touch like a cat accepting ownership.
I wanted that. Fuck, I wanted someone who would wear my mark and mean it. Someone who would choose the cage because I was the one holding the key. But wanting and having were different countries, and I didn't have a passport to cross the border. My hands were made for breaking things, not holding them gently. My version of care came with bruises and blood, and nobody chose that.
