The message is clear: my life is not my own. I think, briefly, about refusing. About making a scene, tearing the schedule in half, demanding the freedom I was promised.
I’m tired. So tired. The exhaustion settles into my bones, rooting me to the spot. Fighting feels pointless when every battle ends the same way.
I nod, force a brittle smile, and escape to my rooms before anyone can see the tears brimming in my eyes.
I try to lose myself in the routine, changing into something soft and expensive, washing my face, sitting on the edge of the bed with the folder open on my lap. But the day stretches long and empty, and nothing fills the space where my old life used to be.
Dinner comes, inevitable and looming. The table is so long it could seat twenty, but Leon sits next to me, close enough to touch.
The air between us is heavy, thick with things unsaid. He asks about my day in that low, careful voice, as if he’s playing at normal, as if we could ever be ordinary.
I answer in clipped syllables, barely tasting the food. He asks if I found anything interesting in the house. I shrug, not trusting myself to speak, not wanting to let him see how much it rattles me—the photographs, the locked doors, the constant sense of being watched.
He notices, of course. Leon always notices. I can feel his gaze on me, searching, weighing, waiting for me to break or lash out. The urge to snap is a living thing inside me—sharp and mean. I want to throw my glass at the wall, to scream, to demand that he tell me what I am to him now.
Am I a wife, a hostage, a bargaining chip, a victory? I want to ask what he expects from me. Pride keeps me silent. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me hurt.
The dinner drags on. Every shared silence is its own kind of violence, charged with all the questions neither of us is brave enough to ask. When Leon finally stands, brushing a kiss against my temple, I stiffen, refusing to let myself soften. He leaves first, and I wait until I’m sure he’s gone before I let myself breathe.
That night, alone in my room, I stare at my reflection in the gilded mirror above the dresser. I look every inch the part: flawless makeup, hair swept back, a dress that fits like it was made for me.
I look like a queen, but I feel like a prisoner. My world has been reduced to a single, beautiful cage. I hate Leon for keeping me here, for making me want him, for knowing me better than anyone else ever tried to.
Chapter Sixteen - Leon
Maps are spread across my desk, scarred and curling at the corners, littered with notes, printouts, and a half-empty mug of black coffee.
The sun is barely up, but my mind has been grinding since before dawn, following every rumor, every shadow, every name that might lead me to Vadim.
I trace the blueprints—lines of warehouses, utility tunnels, service roads long forgotten by anyone but men like us. Boris stands at my shoulder, stiff with anticipation, waiting for the command he knows is coming.
At last, the call comes through: a surveillance team confirms movement at an old industrial site on the city’s edge, a tangle of rusted steel and broken windows made into a fortress. Armed guards at the loading dock. Spotters on the roof. Tripwires, fallback rooms, exits marked for escape.
It has Vadim’s fingerprints all over it—paranoid, ruthless, never trusting any wall to hold unless he’s built it himself.
“Gear up,” I order, my voice cold and final. “No warning, no negotiation. He’s mine.”
My men move with quiet precision, checking magazines, calibrating comms, suiting up in black. We leave the house at speed—SUVs roaring through empty streets, tires biting at wet concrete.
I barely glance back at the Sharov house, the world behind those walls receding into smoke. For now, there’s only the mission. Only the hunt.
We surround the warehouse before sunrise, a black ring in the blue gloom. The plan is surgical, the execution ruthless. I give the signal. My team fans out, cutting through the night—boots pounding over broken ground, the crunch of glass underfoot, breath steaming in the cold.
The first guard falls before he even knows we’re there—Boris’s silencer a cough in the dark. The second fires wild, a shotgun blast ricocheting off steel. I step into the open, return fire, see him drop, his shout echoing through the labyrinthine corridors.
Alarms wail, lights flare. The air tastes like cordite and adrenaline.
We breach the main door, shields up. Gunfire explodes in the gloom—pistols, automatics, the bone-shaking boom of a homemade grenade tossed from the stairs above.
My men are good. They move as a single, practiced fist, covering each other, advancing through the maze of crates and concrete pillars. There’s no room for hesitation. I catch a glimpse of a face I recognize—Vadim’s lieutenant, a man I once shared a drink with. He doesn’t hesitate, either. He fires and misses.
I put two in his chest. Regret has no place here.
The battle rages through stairwells and broken offices, bullets punching holes in plaster, shouts turning to screams. The memory of betrayal is a living thing, hot in my veins. I kick open a door and a man lunges at me, blade flashing.
We grapple, boots slipping in blood, my elbow smashing into his jaw. He goes down hard, and I move on, mind already hunting for the one face that matters.
Finally, I reach the top floor, the old office that once housed foremen and paymasters. Now it’s a bunker, windows boarded, a desk turned into a barricade. Vadim is waiting, pistol in hand, eyes wild, sweat slick on his brow.
