I sign off on the next phase—disrupting their shipping contracts in Estonia, applying pressure through compromised officials. The decision is unemotional, efficient. Purely business.
Walter Lawrence betrayed the Bratva. Cooperated with authorities. Helped take down men I knew, men who died because of his testimony. This isn’t revenge. It’s inevitability. His empire will collapse and I’ll absorb what’s valuable, destroy what isn’t.
Elena Lawrence is irrelevant to the larger operation. Collateral damage, nothing more.
I close the file and move to the next meeting.
***
The charity gala starts at six. I arrive at seven, fashionably late. The venue is a restored palace, all marble and champagne fountains. Politicians and businessmen, oligarchs and their mistresses, everyone performing legitimacy while making deals in shadowed corners.
I hate these events. But they’re necessary. Power requires visibility, alliances built on handshakes and donations.
I move through the crowd with practiced ease, exchanging pleasantries that mean nothing. A deputy minister comments on the weather. An oil executive mentions golf. A banker’s wife laughs too loud at something that isn’t funny.
I’m in the middle of a conversation with a real estate developer when I see her.
Dark hair pulled back. Black dress. Moving through the crowd with that same controlled grace I remember from the auction.
My chest tightens.
Elena Lawrence is here in Moscow.
I excuse myself mid-sentence. My focus narrows to her figure, tracking her movement through the crowd. She’s alone, no security visible. She turns down a hallway leading toward the private rooms, and I follow without thinking about why.
The corridor is quieter, away from the main event. My footsteps are silent on the carpet. When I’m close enough, I reach out.
My hand closes around her wrist. She spins, eyes wide with surprise—
Wrong eyes. Wrong face.
She’s not Elena Lawrence. Just some woman with similar hair and similar build and absolutely nothing else in common.
“Forgive me,” I say, releasing her immediately. “I thought you were someone else.”
She laughs, nervous and flattered. “That’s okay. I’m—”
I’m already walking away, irritation burning through my chest. Disappointment, which is worse.
I thought… what did I think? That Elena Lawrence would be here, in Moscow, at an event full of Russian elites? That I’d get another chance to watch her lose something?
Ridiculous.
I return to the gala and force myself to focus. More handshakes. More meaningless conversation. A donation to whatever charity this is—children’s hospital or cancer research.
My mind keeps drifting back to the auction. To the way Elena raised her paddle with such certainty. To the moment she realized she couldn’t win, the devastation she tried to hide behind composure.
To the defiance that refused to die even in defeat.
Details I shouldn’t remember. Details that are irrelevant to anything that matters.
I leave the gala at nine, earlier than expected. Viktor raises an eyebrow when I text him to bring the car around, but he doesn’t ask questions.
Back at headquarters, the building is quieter. Night shift only, skeleton crew handling overnight operations. I take the elevator to my office and stand at the window, looking out at Moscow’s lights spreading across the darkness.
My phone buzzes. Another update on the Lawrence situation.
The squeeze is working. Within weeks, Walter Lawrence will be desperate enough to sell at whatever price I offer. Within months, the Lawrence name will be nothing but a memory.
