But down here, the world was quieter, cleaner, and less complicated. And for the first time, I wasn’t just the object they were fighting over. I was an instrument.
I thought of Lucia Rossi with her ink-stained fingers and pastries wrapped in napkins. I wondered if she slept soundly in whatever villa or penthouse the Rossis called home. I wondered if she had any idea her family dealt with refrigerated containers and crates that screamed when they were loaded.
Dmitry must have read my thoughts rushing across my face. “The Rossis don’t involve themselves unless the margins are exceptional,” he said, checking the vents and the heater as if he’d done it a hundred times.
“If Lucia knows,” I murmured, “she’d never say it out loud.” But I refused to believe she knew or approved of that.
“And if she doesn’t know,” he replied, switching off the overhead light so only the low lamp glowed, “she’ll learn.” A simple truth but a brutal one. In our world, innocence wasn’t preserved. It was delayed, used, and then destroyed.
He moved toward the door, but his eyes lingered on me before he opened it. Something crossed his face. “Get warm,” he said, voice lower now. “You’ll need your strength for what’s coming.”
The door didn’t slam. It didn’t even fully close at first. It lingered for a breath, as if he were waiting to see if I’d break or shatter or beg. When I did none of those things, I was sealed inside.
The heater hummed, and the room smelled faintly of detergent and cedar. I curled onto the bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking of all the things I thought I knew but realizing nothing had been true. My life had been a lie.
But my eyes were open now. I was done being afraid of the unknown. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel small.
I felt dangerous.
Chapter 10
Dmitry
Ilocked the bunker door once Zoya settled beneath the blanket, the propane heater humming beside the cot. She didn’t resist being put down there. She was smart enough to understand it wasn’t punishment. It was security. And I found that I didn’t see her compliance as weakness as I normally would have.
It was survival disguised as obedience.
The slaughterhouse swallowed the sound of my boots as I crossed the processing floor. Rusted hooks hung from overhead rails like ghosts of animals long bled out. Snow rattled through the broken panes, turning the building into a wind tunnel.
St. Petersburg at this hour wasn’t a city. It was a carcass stripped by men who did their best work while the honest slept.
I drove out through industrial routes where frozen cameras glitched and streetlights died in patches. After twenty minutes, I cut down toward the canal, parking behind the abandoned textile mill. It sagged against the water like a corpse that forgot to drown.
I keyed a six-digit code into a lock on the steel door. Hydraulic bolts released. The burner phone vibrated against my thigh before I could push the door open.
Viktor.
I answered on the second buzz. Men like him didn’t tolerate waiting. Not in business. Not in war.
“Dima,” Viktor said, voice like a rusted hinge. “It’s been days.”
Days since the gala. Days since the contract should have closed. Days since I took Andrey Ivanov’s daughter instead of sending back his ring in a velvet box.
“You’ll get your corpse,” I said, stepping into the stale dark.
“I paid for immediacy,” Viktor replied. “Instead, I hear rumors you’ve taken a hostage.”
Of course he’d heard. Secrets traveled faster than bullets in this city.
“I have a plan.”
“Andrey was supposed to die not negotiate with you.”
“He’ll die,” I said. “But I need something from him first.”
I flipped the breaker, a dim halogen strip humming to life. Stacked crates and sealed metal trunks emerged from the dark. The air tasted like dust and old ambition.
“What the hell could you need from a man like him?” Viktor asked.
