“Access.”
His interest sharpened instantly. “Access to what?”
“That’s between me and Ivanov,” I said. “But if he dies before I get it, I don’t get it at all.”
Silence stretched long enough to qualify as thought.
“You’re changing the sequence,” Viktor said.
“I’m maintaining the outcome.”
“Contracts don’t give a shit about sequence,” Viktor snapped. “They care about closure.”
“He will die,” I said. “After I take what I need. Then the body can hit the floor.”
Another pause, colder this time.
“So that’s why you took the girl,” he murmured. “Insurance.”
I didn’t confirm it. I didn’t need to.
“You’re using a living piece as collateral,” Viktor said. “Makes this political.”
“You’re still getting what you paid for.”
“Just don’t let this drag on,” Viktor warned, “or I void our contract. And if I do, it’s not going to be pleasant.”
Then he hung up.
The mill breathed around me, old steel and old ghosts. The job hadn’t changed. Andrey was still a dead man, but the order of operations had been tweaked. Contract killing wasn’t romantic. Viktor didn’t negotiate over the phone, and I wasn’t stupid enough to force him to start.
I opened one of the metal trunks. Passport. Pistol. Currency belts. Burner laptop. I took what I needed and left the rest. The loading yard was buried in snow by the time I exited the mill, and the city had sunk fully into night.
By the time I reached the slaughterhouse again, the building was quiet. No cars. No watchers. No shifts in the soundscape meant no one had found us yet.
I descended into the bunker and unbolted the door. Zoya sat in front of the heater, a blanket around her shoulders, hair mussed from sleep. Her eyes tracked me, not with fear but with calculation.
She didn’t ask where I’d gone. Smart girl.
“Did you get what you needed?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
She swallowed. “And then you’ll kill him?”
“Yes,” I said. “He dies.”
Something loosened in her shoulders. It wasn’t relief or triumph. It was acceptance. Most women cried about dead fathers. Zoya didn’t. She understood men like Ivanov without needing it explained.
I leaned against the doorframe. “As long as he delivers what I asked for, I finish the contract clean. One bullet. No spectators. If he doesn’t…” I shrugged. “Then other people collect on him. Viktor reclaims the contract and makes the ending public. Buyers get dragged in. Humiliation replaces death, and men like your father would rather take a bullet than be paraded.”
“So, either way he dies,” she murmured.
“Yes,” I said. “The difference isn’t life. It’s fallout.”
Zoya took a slow breath, then said without hesitation, “Then I hope he stalls.”
That was the moment I knew she’d been raised in the dark, whether or not she realized it.
