"The servants’ passage," I reply. "Behind the back wall of the dining room. The third panel from the left opens if you press the top right corner."
He nods once. A man moves immediately.
My father roars. My mother screams Sergei's name like a desperate plea.
The shot rings out before I can process it. Deafening against the silence that only exists in these early morning hours.
My mother collapses forward onto the floor, shrieking as she curls into the fetal position. My father drops back onto his haunches, fury and horror twisting across his face before turning to devastation.
I don’t look toward the sound. I don’t take my eyes from Gennady. We both know he is my only way out. If he leaves me here, I’ll be tortured and left to rot.
That’s the price for betrayal. And I just betrayed my family in the worst possible way.
Gennady closes a firm, unyielding hand around my arm as he lifts me to standing.
"Looks like you’re with me," he says, as he pulls me toward the door.
My family’s voices rise behind us. Rage, grief, betrayal, tearing through the house that once defined everything about me.
The front door slams shut behind us.
Gennady
The night air bites as soon as we step outside.
She stumbles once on the gravel drive, barefoot, shock finally catching up with her body. I don’t slow. One of my men opens the rear door of the car and I guide her inside with a hand at her elbow. She folds into the seat like someone who hasn’t yet decided whether she’s allowed to take up space.
Only when the door shuts and the engine turns over do I really look at her.
Matilda Lazovski smells faintly of bergamot and fear. Her hair is loose, dark and tangled from sleep, her skin is pale from the events of the night, and she’s shaking. The kind of shiver that comes from being dragged out of your life and dropped somewhere unfamiliar.
I reach into the front seat and take my jacket, draping it over her shoulders without comment.
She startles, eyes flicking to me, then down to the heavy wool settling around her like a shield. She pulls it closed with both hands. The movement draws my attention to the nightdress she’s wearing.
Cotton. Thin. An old-fashioned style with a frill at the neckline that’s torn just enough to make it indecent. It clings to her curves in a way that feels unintentional, almost accidental, like she never expected to be seen in it by anyone other than herself.
It suits her.
I force myself to look away.
The car pulls off the drive, tyres crunching over gravel, the Lazovski house shrinking in the rear window. I don’t watch it disappear. I’ve burned down enough homes, literal and otherwise, to know better than to linger.
Instead, I think.
Matilda negotiated with me.
There was no begging or pleading or lying, like her parents. She negotiated. In front of her family. In front of my men. She offered me information in exchange for extraction, knowing full well I might kill her brother and leave her there anyway.
Knowing full well I might kill her too.
Most women raised Bratva know the rules. They cling to them. Hide behind fathers and brothers and the illusion of protection. They don’t choose a stranger who is willing to pull a trigger over the devil they already know.
That tells me more about Matilda Lazovski than anything she said.
It tells me she’s been pushed too far by the men who were supposed to protect her.
The car hums as we move onto the main road. Streetlights wash her pale face in amber, then shadow. Her lashes are dark crescents against skin drained of colour. Shock, adrenaline, cold. She looks breakable.
