13
Konstantin
The whole fucking day goes by, and I do exactly what I told myself I wouldn’t.
I think about her.
Isabella fucking Marquez. My wife.
I tell myself it’s just strategy. Logistics. A calculated union to secure the title, eliminate Filipp, tie up the loose ends. She’s the pawn I need to play the final move.
And yet… I think about the shape of her mouth when she argues. The way her eyes don’t blink when she’s scared, like she’s daring fear to try her. The fact that she didn’t flinch when I laid the truth bare between us.
She hasn’t even stepped foot in this house, and already, I’m imagining her barefoot in my kitchen like she fucking owns the place.
Pathetic.
I ditch my jacket on the foyer chair, the motion sensor lights spilling warm gold across the marble floors. The house yawns open around me—vaulted ceilings, silent halls, panoramic windows that wrap the cliffside like a fortress draped in glass.
It’s not a home. It’s a perimeter.
But it’s mine.
Every room here was custom-built. From the sunken living room with charcoal linen sofas and a fireplace carved from volcanic stone, to the glass wall that folds open to the infinity pool—the one that spills out like a dark mirror into the trees and vanishes into Big Sur’s ocean fog.
Ten acres of isolation. And still, not enough space to outrun her name in my head.
I strip down in the locker alcove just off the kitchen and head underground. The hallway changes from sleek stone to raw concrete, the air colder, heavier. I punch in the code.
The dungeonwelcomes me.
It’s not a gym. It’s war prep.
A full octagon cage sits under the industrial lights, next to a weapons wall holding knives, blunt-force weapons, and enough Russian steel to stage a prison riot. The punching bags are leather. One’s torn open from last week. Blood—mine and others—stains the rubber mats beneath the weight racks.
I don’t listen to music here. Only breath. Impact. Grit grinding against bone.
Timur’s already in the cage, wrapping his wrists in black tape. He’s got an old bruise blooming under his jaw—probably from sparring with one of the recruits. Timur likes to let them think they have a shot before breaking their ribs.
“Ready to bleed?” he calls out, grinning.
“Only if you cry after,” I answer.
Arseny’s pacing near the back wall, tablet in hand, eyes scanning the flash drive I stole from Filipp’s little shell game. He doesn’t lift his head.
“What have you found?” I ask Arseny.
“Your brother’s getting sloppy. The flash drive was encrypted, but not well enough. Two laundromats. Three cash-only nightclubs. A shell company out of Paraguay. All feeding into Belov South.”
“Half-brother,” I correct automatically, the distinction important. We share a father but nothing else—certainly not loyalty. “He’s just stupid. And he thinks he has Tatiana’s protection.” I scoff at the thought.
“He’s definitely not subtle,” Arseny mutters, scrolling through the mess of financials on his tablet. He pauses, eyes narrowing. “These transfers are so sloppy they’re practically waving red flags. Either he thinks we’re idiots, or he’s trying to bait us into making a move.”
His jaw ticks once. That’s Arseny’s version of rage. If he starts actually speaking in full sentences, someone’s about to die.
I set the Sig back on its rack and move toward the steel cage in the center of The Dungeon.
“He thinks subtlety is for cowards,” I say, stepping into the cage with Timur. “He forgot what happens when the quiet men stop speaking.”
