Smart woman.
Foolish woman.
I pull the red mask from inside my jacket, I picked it up on instinct, the same instinct that made me watch her from the moment she entered the ballroom an hour ago. It settles it over my face perfectly. The familiar weight centers me, sharpens my focus.
The Hunt is my favorite part of these nights. Not for the same reasons as the other men who participate. They like the chase because it ends with soft skin and willing mouths. They like being predators in a world that usually demands they play civilized.
I like it because it's honest.
No pretense. No games. Just pursuit and capture, hunter and prey, with rules that everyone understands.
But she's different.
She didn't come here for The Hunt. She came here with poison and purpose, wearing vengeance like perfume. When I saw her slip something into that glass, so quick, so practiced, I should have been irritated. Another complication on what was supposed to be a simple evening.
Instead, I was fascinated.
Who tries to kill Artur Troskoy at a Bratva masquerade? Who has the audacity, the calculation, the sheer balls to attempt murder in a room full of Russia's most dangerous men?
This woman, apparently. This woman with her midnight blue gown and her careful composure and her eyes that burned with something too fierce to be simple hatred.
I cross the ballroom toward the northern entrance, aware of the other hunters doing the same. Dmitri. Anatoly. Men I know, men I've hunted alongside before. They nod at me, their red masks identical to mine.
But I make sure they understand: number four is mine.
I don't have to say it out loud. They can see it in the way I move, the way I position myself. Konstantin Grinevsky doesn't share. Konstantin Grinevsky doesn't back down.
Konstantin Grinevsky always catches his prey.
The northern entrance is already filling with people. The ten women wearing numbered masks stand in a line by the door, some giggling nervously, others with the confident posture of those who've done this before. My mystery woman is third from the left, her red hair, I'd guess natural, from the way it catches the light, falls in waves down her back.
She's not giggling. She's not confident. She's calculating.
She has removed her heels.
I can see her scanning the grounds beyond the door, marking exits and obstacles. The Hotel grounds sprawl across forty acresof manicured gardens and wild forest. Plenty of places to hide. Plenty of places to disappear.
But not from me.
Mikhail Vasiliev steps forward, his own mask, gold and elaborate, catching the chandelier light. "Ladies. Gentlemen" His voice carries the authority of a man who owns everything he surveys. "You know the rules. First horn, the prey runs. Second horn, hunters follow. Two hours until the bell tolls and signals the end of the game. Winning mask gets their wish."
He pauses, his gaze sweeping across the women. "And remember, what happens in The Hunt stays in The Hunt. Consent is implied by participation. Capture means surrender."
A few of the women shiver. One smiles.
My woman's jaw tightens.
She really doesn't know what she's volunteered for.
The first horn sounds. A low, primal note that seems to vibrate in my chest.
The women scatter like birds.
Most head for the gardens, where the manicured hedges and decorative fountains offer quick hiding spots. A few brave souls run for the tree line, where the forest begins.
Number four sprints straight for the darkness.
Fast. Faster than I expected in that dress. After three strides she gathers her skirt in both hands, and runs like something is chasing her.
