“Barbara?” His voice came through tinny and distant. “What—”
“I’m dying.” The words came out as barely a whisper. Two words. That’s all I could manage. Two words to sum up everything—the blood, the confession, the end of everything.
“What? Barbara, where are you? What’s—”
But I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t form more words. The phone slipped from my bloody fingers, hitting the concrete with a crack that might’ve been the screen breaking further or might’ve been my grip on consciousness fracturing.
The world tilted sideways. The gray sky above me faded to black at the edges, closing in like a tunnel. I tried to fight it, tried to stay awake, tried to hold on just a little longer.
But my body had other ideas.
The darkness swallowed me whole, and my last coherent thought before everything went pitch black was simple:
Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.
Then nothing.
Just absence where consciousness used to be.
Just the cold concrete beneath me and the blood still pooling around my head and the phone lying useless a few inches from my outstretched hand.
Just me, dying in an abandoned building, finally knowing the truth, but too late to do anything about it.
Too late to save myself.
Too late to save anyone.
Chapter 14 – Kirill
The control room on Timur’s second floor was a cathedral of technology.
Wall-to-wall monitors flickered with constant data streams—security camera feeds from a dozen Bratva properties, heat maps of known cartel territories, satellite imagery of Chicago’s South Side updated in real-time, surveillance footage cycling through in silent rotation. The room hummed with the low thrum of servers and cooling systems, the air sharp with the ozone smell of electronics running hot.
I stood at the edge of the tactical table, jaw tight, fingers flying across the touchscreen as I scrolled through location pins. Each red dot represented a known or suspected Los Zetas operation. Each yellow dot was a location that needed confirmation. The map was lighting up like a Christmas tree, clusters of activity spreading through neighborhoods like an infection.
Behind me, Timur stood with his arms crossed, his dark eyes reflecting the monitor glow. He looked like a general surveying a battlefield before the first shot was fired, patient, and absolutely certain of victory. The kind of man who didn’t just win wars. He ended them.
“I want every Los Zetas spot flagged,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of an order that would be obeyed without question. “Shops, bars, warehouses. Doesn’t matter if they’re fronting as laundromats or taco trucks. If they breathe Zetas’ air, Bratva listens.”
I nodded, pulling up another layer of data. Financial transactions. Shell companies. Properties purchased through intermediaries. The digital footprints people thought they’d hidden but hadn’t buried deep enough.
“I’m narrowing the spots based on money laundering activity,” I said, highlighting several clusters on the South Side. “These three locations here—” I tapped the screen, “—show consistent patterns. Cash-heavy businesses with revenues that don’t match foot traffic. Classic fronts.”
“And these?” Timur pointed to a different cluster near the docks.
“Storage facilities. Officially rented by logistics companies that don’t exist outside of paperwork. My guess? Weapons. Drugs. Maybe both.” I zoomed in on one building in particular. “This one had a spike in electrical usage last month. Someone’s running serious equipment inside.”
Andrei looked up from his tablet, his gray eyes sharp with focus. “We should wiretap a few of their key members,” he suggested, his fingers never stopping their typing. “The Sinaloa connections are using burner phones, rotating them every few days. But there’s still a chance if their lieutenants use voice channels for coordination.”
“Especially if the factions don’t trust each other,” I added, pulling up communication intercepts we’d already gathered. “Internal division means they’ll need more frequent communication. More check-ins. More opportunities to listen.”
Timur moved closer to the table, studying the map with the kind of intensity that made lesser men nervous. “How long to get surveillance on these locations?”
“Active surveillance? Two days if we move fast.” I started marking priority targets. “Passive monitoring through existing city infrastructure? I can have that running in six hours.”
“Do both.” Timur’s tone left no room for negotiation. “I want to know every breath they take. Every move they make. Every—”
My phone buzzed in my jacket.
