"I'm moving you and Katya to the compound. It's secure, isolated. No one outside my inner circle knows about it." I brush a strand of red hair from her face. "You'll be safe there."
"And you?"
"I'm going to end this." I lean forward and kiss her forehead, breathing in her scent. "Once and for all."
She grips my hand tighter. "Be careful. Please."
"Always."
Within the hour, Alina and Katya are in an armored SUV heading to the compound with six of my best men. I watch the taillights disappear into the night, my chest tight with emotion and the desperate need to protect what's mine.
Back in my study, I gather my team. Alexei, Borge, and three others I trust with my life. "We're setting a trap," I tell them. "The informant is going to feed Ivan false information about Alina's location. When the contractor shows up, we take him alive."
"And then?" Borge asks.
"Then he tells us where to find Ivan."
The plan unfolds with military precision. Through the informant, we leak that Alina is staying at a safe house on the east side of the city. We set up surveillance, position snipers, and wait.
The contractor arrives at three in the morning. He's good, I'll give him that. Professional. Careful. But not careful enough. My men move in like shadows, and within minutes, he's zip-tied and bleeding from a broken nose in the back of our van.
I climb in beside him. He's American, maybe forty, with the cold eyes of a man who's killed before. "You have one chance to walk away from this alive," I tell him in English. "Tell me where Ivan Volkov is."
He spits blood. "Go to hell."
I nod to Alexei, who produces a pair of pliers. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice."
It takes fifteen minutes. The contractor is tough, but everyone breaks eventually. He gives us an address—a luxury apartment building near the airport. Top floor. Ivan's planning to leave on a private jet at dawn.
We leave the contractor zip-tied in the van for the police to find later. Let him explain to the authorities why he was breaking into a house with a sniper rifle.
The apartment building is modern glass and steel, the kind of place where people pay not to ask questions. We bypass security with ease. Money and fear open most doors in this city.
Ivan's apartment is exactly what I expected, expensive and sterile with packed suitcases by the door. He's standing by thewindow when we enter, a glass of vodka in his hand. He doesn't even look surprised.
"Dimitri." He turns, and I see the defeat in his eyes. "I wondered when you'd find me."
"You hired someone to kill my wife." My voice is flat, emotionless. "Mypregnantwife."
"Business." He shrugs. "Nothing personal."
I cross the room in three strides and slam him against the window. The glass cracks but doesn't break. "Everything about this is personal."
He tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. "So kill me. Prove you're still the monster everyone says you are."
I want to. God, I want to. I want to put a bullet in his brain and watch him fall.
"I'm giving you a choice," I say, releasing him. "Leave the country tonight. Never come back. If I ever see you again, if I ever hear your name in connection with my family, I'll kill everyone you've ever loved before I kill you. Understand?"
Ivan straightens his suit, his hands shaking. "And if I refuse?"
I pull my gun and press it to his forehead. "Then you die here. Now. Your choice."
He looks into my eyes and sees the truth. I'm not bluffing. "South America," he says quietly. "I have contacts there."
"Alexei will escort you to the airport. You get on that plane, and this ends."
Two hours later, I watch from the tarmac as Ivan's private jet takes off into the pre-dawn sky. It's not the ending I wanted. Justice would have been a bullet. But this is the ending that keeps the peace, that protects my family, that lets me go home to Alina with clean hands.
