There have been rumors circulating for the last six months or so…rumors I put no weight in until my watch went missing at the Masquerade.
The ghost thief. A thief who disappears into crowds at Bratva parties and leaves men lighter than they were when they arrived. Whispers and suspicions about who it could be circulated in the weeks that followed. Maksim Vasiliev was furious but Roman found it hilarious. Every family denied any involvement. I heard the stories, and I dismissed them as drunken bravado.
Until it happened to me.
Honestly, my ego was bruised. I don’t care about the loss of the watch as much as the fact that someone managed to take it from my wrist without me noticing until after the fact. I’d assumed that it had been a man, but quickly realized it had to be a woman…weeks of research and digging and trying to get Maksim to part with his guest list, and I finally landed on a name that made something blow at the base of my skull.
Now I’m watching her on a monitor and it’s difficult to imagine she is the same woman from the masquerade. She wore gold that night. The kind of dress that looks as though it was poured onto her while it was still molten metal. Her mask was black. Her uncle introduced us in a way that made my skin crawl. But she smiled and nodded, and moved on.
With my watch.
Now Victoria steps inside the vault with the quiet confidence of someone who has been planning this betrayal for a long time.Not a crime. A liberation. I can see it in the way she holds herself. In the way her shoulders don’t curl inward, even here, even now, even under the weight of what she is about to do. She doesn’t look over her shoulder or stretch her neck to look around corners.
She is not afraid of the vault. But she is afraid of the man who built it.
Boris Andreev.
I tap my finger once on the desk. That’s all it takes to summon one of my men.
Bogdan appears soundlessly, tall and composed in his charcoal suit cut to conceal a devastating number of weapons. His eyes flick to the screens and then to me.
“She’s inside already,” he says quietly.
“I can see.”
His gaze lingers on Victoria’s image. She crosses the vault floor like she has a map carved into her bones. Straight past the boxes. Straight to the pedestal.
I watch her hands. They’re steady. This is pure, perfectly honed skill.
“She’s not improvising,” Bogdan murmurs.
“No.”
A thrill slides down my spine, sharp and clean. Fascination and want tangle together in a way I haven’t experienced before.Interesting.
Because despite suspecting someone from Boris’ estate was responsible for the thefts, she was the last person I thought capable of this. Capable of stealing from her own uncle.
Boris keeps his niece close, like a possession, not a person. A pretty piece of family branding, dragged out at events to remindeveryone that bloodlines matter. I have seen her from across rooms, a quiet, little thing in expensive dresses, her eyes always lowered, her smile carefully practiced but never quite reaching her eyes.
I try not to feel awe and respect towards her, because if she can’t get out of this, it would be reckless stupidity that drove her tonight. And for some reason, I need her not to be recklessly stupid. I need to know what I’m seeing is more than a spoiled brat throwing a temper tantrum and trying to hit her uncle where it’ll hurt him most.
Victoria opens the pedestal’s control panel and works it like she was born with lockpicks in her fingers. Her focus is absolute.
When the shield retracts, she exhales like the world has finally cracked open just for her.
Then she lifts the case.
Diamonds. Enough to finance a war. Enough to buy a small country. Boris is greedy, but he is also sentimental. He hoards pretty things the way he hoards people. I know because I’ve seen his taste for ownership up close, and if my suspicions are right, those aren’t actuallyhisdiamonds.
The moment she slides the case into her bag, I feel something settle in my chest.
Mine.
Not the diamonds. Her.
Bogdan watches me with that still, careful expression he reserves for moments when I am about to do something violent or stupid or both.
“You’re letting her take them,” he says.
