34
Lev
By the time Polina walks out of the garage, I know exactly what has to happen next.
I stand there for another few seconds with Boris shouting for bandages behind me and a half-dozen injured men moving through the room, but none of it reaches me the way it should. My father sent men onto Kozlov land to get to me. Polina is carrying my child. Those two facts slam together and wipe out every other priority I had left.
I leave the triage station before Boris can hand me another task. My boots hit concrete, then gravel, then the front steps of the main house. Men move around me with rifles and radios, setting watches, checking the perimeter, and hauling crates toward the east side. The whole compound is on alert. None of that matters as much as the one thing now pounding through my skull.
Vadim Morozov does not get near my child.
Dmitri’s guards step in front of his office when they see me coming.
“He isn’t seeing anyone,” one of them says.
“I need five minutes.”
The man on the left gives me a look that says I’m the reason nobody in this house is having a peaceful morning.
The door opens behind them before either can answer. Dmitri stands there with a phone in one hand and murder sitting just under his skin.
“You’ve got two,” he states.
I step inside, and he shuts the door behind me before he points at the chair across from his desk.
I stay standing.
He tosses his phone onto the desk. “Say what you came to say.”
I don’t bother circling it. “I want to lead the assault on my father’s compound.”
Dmitri stares at me. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t speak. He just looks at me like I’ve found a new way to make his day worse.
Then he lets out one short laugh, shaking his head. “No.”
“He’ll be waiting for a Kozlov strike, but he won’t be expecting me to tag along. That will give us an opening.”
Dmitri crosses his arms over his chest. “This is about her.”
I drag a finger over the fresh dressing above my eyebrow. “She told me.”
Dmitri draws his brows together. “Told you what?”
“She’s…pregnant.”
For the first time since I walked in, his composure slips. Only for a second, but I see it. Then the pakhan returns, colder than before.
He steps around the desk and stops in front of me. “Do not use her pregnancy as leverage with me.”
“I’m not.” I keep my voice level because if I lose control now, he’ll throw me out before I finish. “I’m not asking for trust. I’m not asking you to forgive what I did. I’m telling you my father is striking at this compound because I crossed him, and I’m not giving him another chance to get close to my child.”
Dmitri says nothing, so I continue.
“You want Vadim’s compound broken? You want his records, his money, his men, and his escape routes? I know that place better than anyone you have. I know which walls hide storage rooms. I know which tunnel he’ll use if he thinks the front gate is done.”
“You could also walk us into a trap.”
“If I wanted to do that, I’d have done it already.”
