"No." I walked toward him, my weapon steady. "We can't."
"You don't understand. The Petrovics—they'll come for you. They'll come for all of you. You think killing me solves anything?"
"It solves one thing."
He scrambled backward, knocking over bottles that crashed to the floor. The smell of whiskey filled the air, mixing with the copper tang of blood.
"I have money. Resources. I can give you information—"
"I don't want your money." I stepped around the bar, closing the distance between us. "I don't want your information."
"Then what do you want?" His voice cracked on the question, desperation bleeding through. "Just tell me what you want."
I thought about Keira. About the fear in her eyes when she talked about her childhood. About the mother who'd been beaten to death while this man stood by and did nothing. About the girl who'd been sold to traffickers by her own blood.
I thought about the baby growing inside her. The future we were building together. The life she'd fought so hard to create, only to have men like Cormac try to drag her back into the darkness.
"Justice," I said.
And I pulled the trigger.
The shot echoed in the sudden silence.
Cormac slumped against the back wall, a neat hole in his forehead, his eyes still open in an expression of permanent surprise. Blood trickled down his face, pooling beneath him on the floor.
I stood there for a moment, looking at the body of the man who'd haunted Keira's entire life. Her uncle. Her father's brother. The last living connection to a family that had never deserved her.
I felt nothing. No satisfaction, no relief, no triumph. Just the cold clarity of a job completed.
"Sir." Yegor appeared at my elbow, his voice low. "We need to move. Police will be here soon."
I holstered my weapon and turned away from the body. "Casualties?"
"Two wounded on our side, nothing serious. All hostiles down."
"Make sure nothing leads back to us."
"Already handled. Cleanup crew is en route."
We moved out through the back, stepping over bodies, leaving the bar to its ghosts. The night air was cold against my face, sharp with the smell of rain that hadn't fallen yet. I breathed deep, letting it clear the smoke from my lungs.
It was done. Cormac O'Shea was dead. The man who'd tried to sell my wife to traffickers, who'd followed her to New York, who'd spent weeks plotting to drag her back into a world she'd escaped—he would never threaten her again.
I should have felt relieved. Should have felt something.
Instead, I felt only the need to get home. To see Keira. To hold her and tell her it was over.
"Car's ready," Yegor said.
I was halfway to the vehicle when my phone rang.
The number on the screen made my stomach drop. Not Yegor's team, not Demyan, not Kirill. The penthouse. The secure line I'd set up specifically for emergencies.
I answered. "What is it?"
The voice on the other end wasn't Keira's. It was one of the security team I'd left behind—Dimitri, a solid man I'd trusted with her safety.
"Sir." His voice was strained, wrong in ways I couldn't immediately identify. "We have a situation."
