"You thought you wouldn't get caught." I tilted my head, studying him. "You thought the Chernov organization was too big to notice a few hundred dollars. You thought you were clever."
"Please." The word came out mangled, barely recognizable. "I have a daughter. She's only six. Please, I'll pay it back, I'll—"
"You should have thought of her before you stole from me."
I stood, taking my time, adjusting my cufflinks. The platinum links had been a gift from my father when I assumed control of the organization—a symbol of succession, of the legacy I now carried. I wore them every day as a reminder of what that legacy demanded.
"Dmitri, finish this. Make sure word gets around." I met my enforcer's eyes, and he nodded once, understanding the full scope of the instruction. "I want every employee in every establishment to understand what happens to thieves. Everybartender, every bouncer, every cocktail waitress. By tomorrow night, Marco's fate should be common knowledge."
"And the body?"
"The usual. Weight it properly this time—I don't want another floater turning up in the Hudson."
I didn't stay to watch the conclusion. Death was a tool, not entertainment. I'd learned that distinction from my father, along with everything else that made the Chernov Bratva the most feared organization on the Eastern Seaboard. We controlled nightclubs, gambling operations, protection rackets across three boroughs. We moved weapons through the Port of Newark and laundered money through restaurants, dry cleaners, and a chain of parking garages. Our legitimate businesses—real estate, import-export, private security—generated enough clean income to satisfy the IRS while our underground empire thrived in the shadows.
My father had built this machine for over forty years. I'd been running it for five, since he'd retired to a dacha outside Moscow, content to offer advice from a distance while his sons managed the American operations.
The October air hit my face as I stepped outside, sharp and clean after the copper-tinged atmosphere of the warehouse. I took a moment to breathe it in, to let the cold burn away the lingering smell of blood and fear. Then I walked to the SUV idling at the curb.
Kirill, my driver and one of my most trusted men, already had the engine running. He'd been with me for a decade—had saved my life twice and never once questioned an order. His loyalty was absolute, which was why I trusted him with knowledge that could destroy me.
"Where to, boss?"
I checked my watch. Nearly eleven. Most nights, I would head back to the penthouse, review reports from our various operations, perhaps pour a vodka, and stand at the windows watching the city I controlled. But for the past three weeks, my nights had taken a different shape.
"West Village. The usual route."
Kirill didn't question it. He'd been driving me past Gabrielle Blanchard's apartment building every night since this strange obsession had taken root. If he had opinions about his Pakhan's peculiar new habit—this nightly pilgrimage to a quiet residential street to stare at a fourth-floor window—he was wise enough to keep them buried deep.
The SUV pulled away from the warehouse, leaving Dmitri to his grim work. I settled into the leather seat and let my mind drift where it had been drifting for weeks now.
To her.
It had started by accident. Or perhaps fate, if you believed in such things.
Three weeks ago, I'd been at Marcello's for a Tuesday dinner meeting. The restaurant was one of ours—not officially, but the owner had been paying protection to the Chernov family for fifteen years, and in exchange, we kept a private room available for sensitive conversations. The food was mediocre, the wine overpriced, but the walls were thick and the staff knew better than to eavesdrop.
I'd been discussing a weapons shipment with Viktor Morozov, one of my lieutenants who handled our imports through Newark. A container of Zastava pistols from Serbia, hidden beneath crates of machine parts—routine business, the kind of conversation I'd had a thousand times. Viktor was explaining a delay at customs, something about additionalinspections, and I was calculating how much it would cost to make the problem disappear.
Then movement outside the window caught my eye.
A woman, walking past on the sidewalk. Auburn hair loose around her shoulders, catching the amber glow of the streetlight. She had a phone pressed to her ear and was gesturing with her free hand as she talked, so absorbed in her conversation that she nearly collided with a man walking a German Shepherd. I watched her stumble, catch herself, mouth an apology to the dog walker. Then she laughed.
That laugh. Even through the glass, even over Viktor's droning voice, something about the sound reached me. It was bright and unguarded and completely genuine—the laugh of someone who didn't take herself too seriously, who could find humor in her own clumsiness. She shook her head at herself, still smiling, and continued down the street.
I'd stopped listening to Viktor entirely. My eyes followed her until she disappeared around the corner, and even then, I kept staring at the empty space where she'd been.
"Boss?" Viktor had prompted. "The customs situation—"
"Handle it. Whatever it costs." I'd turned back to him, finished the meeting, said all the right things. But some part of my attention had followed that woman down the street and around the corner, into whatever life she led beyond the boundaries of my world.
That night, I'd had Semyon pull everything he could find on her. Not through complex digital surveillance—my younger brother was a genius with computers, but I preferred simpler methods for a task like this. He'd reached out to a contact at the DMV, another at her bank, and a private investigator who askedno questions and delivered thorough reports within forty-eight hours.
The file had arrived on my desk two days later. I'd read it three times before the sun rose.
Gabrielle Blanchard. Twenty-five years old. Born in Connecticut, educated at Columbia—summa cum laude, which I'd had to look up. It meant the highest honors. She'd graduated near the top of her class and landed a job at a mid-level marketing firm, where she'd been working for three years.
No criminal record. No connections to any organization. No boyfriend, no husband, no significant romantic history that the investigator could uncover. An unremarkable life, on paper.
