"Nothing I won't return tenfold." I move deeper into the apartment, cataloging everything with the paranoia that's kept me alive. One exit. Windows face north. Good sightlines. "You alone?"
"Yeah. Always." He's still watching me like I might disappear. "Maksim, where have you been? What happened? How the fuck are you here? We buried you. We mourned you. You have a fucking headstone!"
The memories try to surface—the warehouse, the ambush, the bag over my head, the first taste of what would become six years of systematic brutality. I shove them down. Later. First, I need to know what I'm walking into.
"Georgia," I say flatly. "A private prison outside Tbilisi. Very exclusive clientele. Very creative interrogation methods." I pull off my coat, and Semyon's face goes white at the scars visible through my thin shirt. "But we can discuss my travel itinerary later. Right now, I need information."
"Information." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You've been gone for six years, and you want—Christ, sit down. You look like you're about to collapse."
He's not wrong. The adrenaline that got me across the border is fading, and exhaustion is crashing over me in waves. But I can't afford weakness. Not yet.
"Food first," I say. "Then we talk."
Semyon moves to the kitchen without argument. Smart man. He's always been smart—one of the few people in my father's organization who understood that loyalty meant more than fear.
I sink into the chair at his kitchen table and watch him work. He pulls out bread, cheese, some kind of soup that smells like heaven after six years of prison gruel. My stomach growls so loudly he hears it from across the room.
"When did you last eat?" he asks."Yesterday. Maybe the day before." Time gets slippery when you're running on pure hatred and determination.
He sets a bowl in front of me. I have to force myself not to fall on it like an animal. The first spoonful nearly makes me groan—real food, prepared with actual care, still warm. I eat slowly, methodically, while Semyon sits across from me and processes the fact that I'm alive."They told us you were dead," he says finally. "Your uncle Roman came back from identifying the body himself. Said it was bad. That whoever killed you wanted to make a point."
Roman.The man who stepped into my father's shoes when grief supposedly killed him six months after my disappearance.
That tidbit of information was a surprise. I only learned about his death six months ago. All that time, I kept waiting for him to find me. I believed he was searching for me.
When I found out he was dead, I knew I had to save myself.
And now Roman runs the Barinov bratva with an iron fist.
"There was no body," I say. "Because I wasn't dead. Someone sold me to the Georgians—sold information about my location, my security, everything they needed to grab me clean." I look up from my soup. "Someone in my own organization betrayed me."
Semyon's jaw tightens. "Who?"
"That's what I'm going to find out." I push the empty bowl away. "But first, tell me about Moscow. Tell me what I've missed."
For the next hour, Semyon talks, and I listen. He tells me about the power vacuum after my disappearance. My father's death—heart attack, they said, brought on by grief. Roman's ascension to power. The investigation into my ‘murder’ that led straight to the Markov family.
“Kira.”
He shakes his head. "Kira didn't know. Or if she did, she's the best liar I've ever seen. She was devastated, Maksim. For months, she was a ghost. Then something changed. She pushed her father out, took over their organization, and spent the next six years building it into something that actually matters."
"The Ice Queen," I say. The name tastes like poison.
"That's what they call her now." He meets my eyes. "She's not the girl you knew."
"Good." I lean back in my chair. "Because I'm not the man she knew either."
Semyon studies me. "What are you planning?"
"Revenge." The word comes out simple. "Against everyone who betrayed me. Starting with the woman who sold me out."
"Maksim—"
"She knew." I cut him off, and my voice could freeze blood. "Her family was in debt. They needed money and power. Getting rid of me cleared the way for them to—"
"To what?" Semyon interrupts. "Think about this logically. What did she gain from your death? She was going to be your wife—the future queen of the Barinov bratva. Why would she throw that away?"
Only Semyon and a few other people knew about my relationship with Kira. Our families were at war, but we believed we could bring them together. I know now that was never going to be allowed.
