I drag her toward the black SUV idling a few feet away, engine humming low. She stumbles once but keeps pace, her chin lifted like she refuses to give me the satisfaction of seeing her fall.
“My car is here,” she says, her dark eyes finding mine. “I need to grab—”
“One more word,” I cut her off, shoving the door open. “And tape’s going over your mouth.”
She snaps her mouth shut instantly, fury burning across her face. I almost smile. She slides to the far end of the seat, spine stiff, gaze fixed out the window like she can will herself free.
I climb in beside her and shut the door. My driver—a silent, broad-shouldered man—glances at me through the rearview mirror.
“Drive,” I say.
The SUV lurches forward, tires biting into the wet asphalt as the museum disappears in the rearview mirror, swallowed by the dark.
The night has just turned out better than I expected. I’d gone in to track the shipments, maybe intercept a few crates and extract intel, but instead, I walked out with the manifests I’d been hunting and David Chang’s daughter in my backseat.
Absolutely incredible.
For years, I’ve had Chang under watch. His name’s been floating around the Bratva’s radar like a mosquito that won’t die—annoying, small, but persistent enough to warrant attention. We let him slide for a long time, let him play with his black-market art schemes and money laundering as long as he stayed out of our way.
But lately, he’s gotten bold. His shipments have begun crossing into Bratva territory, and his clients—some of whom used to be ours—have begun switching allegiance.
David Chang thinks he’s powerful. He thinks his name, his money, and his foreign investors make him untouchable.
He doesn’t realize he’s nothing but a cockroach compared to the Rusnaks.
And now, his only daughter is sitting three feet away from me, arms tied, glaring out the window like she’d stab me if she could.
A slow grin creeps across my face.
This just got personal.
There’s no better time to have leverage against David Chang than tonight.
He’s currently hosting a dinner that’s already buzzing through the underworld; rumor has it the night will end with an auction that will cement his power with foreign buyers. Intel on the event is scarce, which only confirms what my gut says: Whatever they’re selling is high value. Look at the men in the room, and there’s no doubt. They aren’t collectors. They’re high-value buyers who traffic in things that don’t belong on public walls.
That’s why I chose tonight to follow the shipment. I wanted to see the route, the players, the way they move, the little signatures of a laundering operation. I wanted proof. I wanted to know which ports Chang uses, which couriers he trusts, which men take the crates the moment the manifests go quiet.
Instead, the trail led me to her. Elara Chang—sharp, stubborn, dangerous in her refusal to be small—got caught in my operation like a live wire. She isn’t only a piece of paper with forged destinations; she’s a connector. She’s blood and memory and bargaining power all wrapped in a single person.
Now she’s mine. That changes the map. With her pressed against the Rusnak ledger, I can force David’s hand without firing the first shot. I can make him sweat for answers—where the crates disappear, which shell companies collect the payments, who in his network is expendable. I can pull threads and watch the whole tapestry start to unravel. And because he thinks he’s untouchable while he parades his trophies at dinner, he’ll be careless. He’ll speak. He’ll let his guard down.
After all, Elara is his heir. His only child. His legacy.
None of this is neat. Holding a person is messy, and leveraging family ties is uglier than any gunfight. But it’s effective. I feel the old calm settle in the space behind my ribs—the part of me that plans, that counts, that converts chaos into inevitable outcomes. Tonight, I don’t just want answers. I want a confession, a concession, a rupture in Chang’s little empire. Elara is the key. How I use her will decide whether this becomes a chess move that ends his reach or the spark that lights everything on fire.
Chapter 3 – Elara
The car smells of leather and gun oil. I sit rigid, wrists bound with a zip tie, my coat pulled tight around me. Outside the window, New York unspools in neon and wet pavement, faces and headlights blurring into smears of color. The man beside me is all controlled violence; his hazel eyes catch every flicker of the city and return it cool and unreadable.
I want to scream. I want to demand answers. But instinct tells me this is not a man who responds to weakness. So I say nothing.
Still, I watch him. Not because he’s handsome—though he is, impossibly so—but because a shape of recognition nudges at the edge of my memory. I’m bad with faces; I never remember details. But there’s a familiarity to the way he moves, and the features on his face. My skin prickles. Could he be one of my father’s men? Is he taking me back to the townhouse to finish whatever transaction they planned for me? The thought makes my chest tighten.
Earlier, he said I was in deep shit. The words weren’t a threat so much as a verdict, delivered as if he were stating the weather. The violence in his gaze is practical rather than theatrical; it doesn’t scream menace so much as normalcy. It terrifies me in a new way—like being catalogued for a fate someone else has already priced.
And still my traitor brain notices him: the suit cut to a devastating width across his shoulders, the way his shirt collar sits like armor against his neck, the faint scar that bisects his left knuckle. His skin is olive and flawless under the car light; his mouth is full in a way that makes my jaw clench. I tell myself I’ll stab him the moment he turns his back. I rehearse themovement in my head, the snap of a wrist, the press of a heel. It soothes me—imagining control where there is none.
The car slows. He doesn’t speak, but his hand finds a small earpiece at his collar and taps once. Through the glass, I see the dark line of a gate rise. My throat is dry. I try to imagine what comes next: an interrogation, a bargain, a salvageable escape. Every scenario tastes bitter. But at least this isn’t the Chang’s townhouse.
