Efficient. Clean. Purely business.
Elena Lawrence is irrelevant to the larger operation. She’ll be collateral damage, nothing more.
I should feel satisfaction. The plan is working. Victory is inevitable.
Instead, I’m thinking about her face when the gavel fell. The way her hands shook when she stood to leave. The pride that wouldn’t let her run even though she wanted to.
I pull up the file my intelligence team compiled. Elena Lawrence, twenty-two, youngest daughter of Walter Lawrence. Educated at Cambridge, degree in international business. Minimal public presence, no significant role in family operations.
The bastard daughter, according to the notes. Born from an affair, barely acknowledged by the legitimate family. Unwanted. Trying to prove herself worthy of a name that never truly claimed her.
That knowledge should mean nothing.
Except I remember the desperation behind her bidding. The way she pushed past any reasonable ceiling because losing that ring meant more than money. It meant failing to prove she belonged.
I close the file and open the next report. Another strategic move against Lawrence holdings in Estonia. I approve it with a single signature.
My mind drifts again, uninvited, to Elena Lawrence.
I wonder if she knows yet. If she’s figured out who’s behind her family’s collapse. If she’s connected the auction to everything that came after.
I wonder if she’s angry. If that defiance has turned into rage, into the kind of fury that makes people do stupid things.
The thought bothers me more than it should.
She’s nothing. Enemy blood. Collateral damage in a war her father started. I’ll destroy her family, and she’ll disappear back into obscurity. That’s how this ends.
So why does the victory feel hollow before it’s even complete?
I shake my head, dismissing the thought. Distraction. I have territories to manage, rivals to crush, an empire to expand. Elena Lawrence is just another loose end that will resolve itself.
When I finally leave the office at two in the morning, her face returns.
Brown eyes full of fury. Chin lifted in defiance. Hands shaking with emotion she refused to show.
The ring sits in my safe, still in its auction case. I haven’t looked at it since bringing it home. I took it because she wanted it. Because watching her lose was more satisfying than the object itself.
Now I can’t stop thinking about what else I could take from her.
The thought should disgust me. Should trigger the control I’ve spent years perfecting.
Instead, it excites me. Which is dangerous. Which means I need to end this fixation before it becomes a problem.
I’ll destroy the Lawrence family as planned. Quickly, efficiently. Elena Lawrence will disappear into whatever life comes after.
I’ll forget about her eyes, her defiance, the way she refused to break.
The plan is solid. Logical. The only rational choice.
Chapter Five - Elena
I spend three days planning before I make a single move.
Three days of careful research, discreet phone calls to contacts I haven’t spoken to in years, small payments to people who know people who know things they shouldn’t. The kind of information gathering that leaves no obvious trail but costs more than money—it costs favors, trust, the careful erosion of boundaries I swore I’d never cross.
Desperation makes liars of us all.
The target reveals itself slowly, piece by piece. A logistics firm operating out of an industrial complex in east Moscow, registered under a shell company that traces back through three layers of corporate ownership to a holding group with known Bratva ties.
