Every move I make deeper into their world is a move toward my goal.
The problem is, each time I slip further inside, it feels harder to crawl back out.
I shove the thought down and keep walking. The burner is gone. The intel is out. My handler has what they need.
***
The night is thick with smoke and laughter. The Bratva has gathered in one of their gilded dining rooms—dark wood walls, chandeliers dripping with crystal, a table so long it looks built for kings. Vodka flows like water, the men drinking deep and loud. Women drift between the tables, pouring, laughing, slipping smiles like silk ribbons around necks already tied.
I sit near the far end, not too close to Alexei but not so far that it looks like distance. My glass remains mostly untouched, though I raise it when others do, smile when I’mexpected to. The room hums with that peculiar kind of tension: too much power, too much liquor, too many men who trust only themselves.
The conversation turns sharp after the third toast. One of the younger captains jokes about a shipment delayed at the docks, mutters something about “leaks in the business.” The laughter that follows is sharp, cutting, a ripple of amusement with teeth.
I feel my body stiffen before I can stop it. My grip on the glass tightens, the sound of my pulse too loud in my ears.
I force a laugh, careful and measured, as though I found the joke amusing too. My lips curve, my eyes sparkle with practiced ease, but my insides coil tight.
When I glance up, one of the older guards is watching me. Not casually, not in passing, but with a kind of narrowed focus that makes my skin prickle. His face is weathered, lined from years of violence. His eyes linger just a second too long, and in that second I feel seen.
I tip my head slightly, feigning nonchalance, before turning back to the conversation. The guard looks away, distracted by a refill of his glass.
I tell myself it was nothing. Just nerves. Just me projecting my own paranoia onto someone whose only crime was looking too hard. Still, the feeling lingers like a splinter under the skin.
When the gathering finally winds down and I’m free to leave, my composure holds until I reach my apartment.
The door shuts behind me, the lock sliding into place. Silence swallows the space. My coat slips from my shoulders onto the chair, my heels clattering onto the floor. I pace, restlessenergy snapping through my limbs, unable to sit, unable to breathe evenly.
The thrill is still there, humming beneath my skin. The same high I felt in the warehouse, the same rush that came from beating the clock, from walking out unseen with evidence clutched to my chest. It’s addictive. Too addictive.
So is the weight of what could go wrong.
One mistake, one flicker too sharp on my face, one camera I forget to disable, one careless step. That’s all it would take.
I replay my moves step by step. The warehouse. The files. The device under the desk. Each second stretched out in my mind, inspected, measured. I look for cracks, for loose ends, for something I missed. The sequence holds clean. No mistakes. No slips. Still, I pace.
The city outside is restless, cars sweeping past, sirens wailing faint in the distance. I press my palms against the glass, staring out at the blur of lights, wondering how many others are awake at this hour with blood pounding in their ears.
When I finally lie down, the sheets feel foreign against my skin. My eyes shut, but sleep doesn’t come. The laughter from earlier replays in my head, the wordleaksechoing like a taunt. The guard’s stare burns against the back of my eyelids, sharper than it should be.
I flip onto my side, then my back, then curl into myself. Minutes drag into hours, each one heavier than the last. My mind won’t stop circling, replaying, rehearsing.
By the time the horizon starts to pale with the first hint of dawn, I’m already up again, hair tied back, coffee cooling untouched on the counter.
I spread papers across the table, the intel I’ve already gathered mapped into lines and clusters. Files here, recordings there, photos stacked neat. The bigger picture is starting to take shape. Routes, names, codes. The operation isn’t impenetrable. It’s close to cracking.
Close enough that I can almost feel it.
My fingers trace over Alexei’s name, circled in red ink at the center of it all. He’s the axis everything spins on. If he falls, the rest follows.
The thought steadies me, sharpens me.
This isn’t betrayal. This is justice.
I repeat it until my pulse finds its rhythm again.
I want to be the one holding the match when it burns. Not the Bureau, not another faceless agent who has never set foot in these rooms, who doesn’t know the weight of the men I’ve sat across from, the blood that coats their laughter. Me.
This ismyfight.
