I walked out of the bedroom, my steps silent on the cool marble floor.
I took a deep breath and then, without looking back at the sleeping menace, I got to work.
CHAPTER 4
Dmitri Markov
There were very few things in this world that surprised me anymore.
Men lied, money corrupted, and power always came with a body count, but when Roman’s name showed up on my phone at four in the morning—preceded by the words‘Incident Report: Dubai’—I felt the beginnings of the kind of headache that promised to ruin my week.
I leaned back in my chair, the skyline of Dubai glinting cold through the floor-to-ceiling glass behind me. The message header was short, clinical, and written by one of our security officers stationed here in the city.
Subject: Roman Markov.
Condition: Alive. Unharmed.Mostly.
Circumstances: Found nude outside a hotel in the marina district. Mild narcotic influence. No memory of events.
I reread the rest of the details twice, then dropped the phone onto the desk and pressed my fingers against my temple.
“Buck ass naked,” I muttered. “In the middle of Dubai.”
I didn’t bother to censor myself. The only person in the room was Anton Sidorov, my closest advisor, and the only man who’d seen me shoot a rival in the knee without blinking. In another life, he would have been called my consigliere, but that was an Italian word. We didn’t use Italian words.
Anton stood by the bar, stirring sugar into his espresso with the focus of a man who’d already accepted that the morning was going to be long. He wore his usual uniform: dark suit, darker eyes, and a smirk that didn’t quite reach them.
“He wasnaked, boss,” Anton said, confirming the worst of it as if repetition might soften the absurdity. “In the middle of the Marina Walk. Security footage shows him wandering out of the hotel around three fifty-five a.m. No shoes, no wallet, and entirely no sense of shame.”
“Christ.”
“One more thing.”
“Of course there is.”
Anton hesitated, clearly enjoying himself. “He was… well, let’s just say he was not entirelyat ease.The medics described the condition as?—”
I held up a hand. “Spare me the poetry.”
“—throbbingly erect,” Anton finished anyway, grinning over his cup of coffee.
I stared at him. “You find this amusing?”
“I find it human, boss.”
I dragged a hand down my face. “And he claims not to remember?”
“So he says. Blames the drink. Possibly a woman.” Anton set the cup down and folded his hands behind his back. “Though not one who’s come forward yet.”
I let out a slow breath and turned my chair toward the window. From here, the city looked orderly, silent, obedient. It was an illusion, of course. Beneath the glass and concrete, the world was always rotting. The trick was to make the decay look like design.
Roman’s stunt, however accidental, wasnotby design.
Our family’s business depended on precision, quiet transactions, and invisible alliances. We sold what governments pretended not to need: advanced AI chips, drone prototypes, untraceable logistics networks. Not to back-alley militias or petty warlords. No, our clients wore suits and attended summits. They toasted us with champagne and paid in billions. Discretion was our only religion.
A scandal in Dubai, especially one involving a naked Markov, could light fires in all the wrong places.
“There’s something else you’re going to want to know, boss,” Anton said after a beat.
