Inside, the alarm panel glowed softly on the wall. I stepped in first, pulling Zoya with me, and keyed the disarm code on the touchscreen… another thumbprint, another six digits. The system chimed once. Green.
The door shut behind us with a solid thunk, and the silence settled thick, intentional. Zoya looked around the entryway.There weren’t any windows at ground level. Minimalist design, built for comfort, but mainly safety.
“A fortress,” she breathed.
“Has to be,” I answered. “Hell isn’t below us. We are living in it.” I squeezed her hand once and led her deeper inside.
I didn’t soften the truth when we sat down in the main room. The house was quiet from the thick walls, and the low hum of the security system and Zoya’s heavy thoughts and unanswered questions filled my head.
She sat across from me on the leather couch, legs tucked under her, still in that oversized sweatshirt, hair loose and messy in a beautiful way. Zoya looked small against the dark furniture, but her eyes were steady. Waiting. Like she already knew this conversation would change everything.
I’d told her things already, and she put shit together. But I wanted her to be on the same level and mindset I was, and understand if she really wanted to go through with this.
“Human trafficking isn’t chaos, Zoya. It’s logistics. Clean, organized, and profitable. Routes disguised as medical transfers with private ambulances, fake patient manifests, and hospitals that look the other way. Shell companies move people the same way they move inventory with invoices, manifests, and offshore accounts. No mess. No traces.”
She didn’t interrupt, just watched me, absorbing every word.
“Snuff distribution?” I continued, keeping my tone flat, factual. “It doesn’t live in basements and back alleys anymore. That’s old-school. Now it hides behind encrypted platforms, paid subscriptions, dark web sites with tiered access. Men pay thousands forexclusive content. They think anonymity makes them untouchable. Firewalls, VPNs, crypto payments. They’re wrong. Everything leaves a trail if you know where to look.”
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the sweatshirt hem, knuckles whitening for a second before she exhaled slowlythrough her nose. Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t look away. She held my gaze as if she were forcing herself to see every ugly detail without flinching.
“Andrey made sure others did worse so he could use it against them and absolve himself,” I said, keeping my voice low and even. “That’s how men like him stay clean on paper. They outsource the violence. After he killed my mother, though, something shifted. He got smarter about it… colder. He realized getting his own hands bloody left traces no amount of money could fully erase. So he changed the playbook. No more direct involvement. No more witnesses who could point back to him. He started using middlemen, hired muscle, and disposable people who took the fall if things went sideways. He drew up the plans, funded the jobs, collected the profits, but never touched the knife himself again. That way, when the bodies dropped, his name stayed off the reports. Clean and untouchable. Or so he thought.”
She nodded once, as if she locked that piece of information into a place with everything else I’d told her.
“He thought he could stay above it all,” she whispered. “But he couldn’t. Not forever.”
“No,” I agreed. “No one can. Not when someone like me is looking.”
She was quiet for a long beat after that, her thoughts clearly weighing heavily. Then she looked back at me, voice soft but direct. “How do you do it, Dmitry? How can you be part of the same organization as him—as these men—and still do the things you do? The bad things. The blood. The deals. How is that different from what he is?”
I let the question sit between us for a second because it deserved that. “I’m no different in most ways, but I don’t fucking kill or hurt the innocent,” I said finally, low and flat. “I’ve killed for money, and on orders. The mafia isn’t a club with a code; it’sa machine. And I’ve been one of the gears turning it for a long time.”
Her brow creased, not in judgment, just trying to understand.
“The difference,” I continued, leaning closer so she could see every line on my face, “is I don’t pretend it’s clean. I don’t hide behindbusinessorfamilyor any of that bullshit. I know what I am. And I’ve spent years waiting for the moment I could turn the machine against itself. Destroy the parts that deserve to burn. Starting with men like Andrey and all the other branches on that rotting tree.” I reached out, brushed my thumb along her jaw, slow and deliberate. “I’m not a hero, Zoya. Never will be. But I’m the weapon that’s finally pointed the right way. And if you want to stand next to me while I pull the trigger, you need to know exactly what kind of monster you’re choosing.”
She held my gaze, unflinching. “I already know.” Then she leaned in and kissed me. It was soft at first, then harder, like she was sealing something between us.
I pulled her onto my lap, hands sliding under the sweatshirt, skin warm against skin. “Then we do this together. No illusions. No mercy.”
She nodded against my mouth. “So the whole thing survives because everyone only sees their small part,” she said. “No one looks at the whole picture.”
“Exactly.”
“And the people who could stop it… they’re already complicit. They’re pulling strings or scared, paid off, or just don’t give a shit.”
“Da.”
She gave me one more kiss before settling further on my lap. I noticed her gaze became distant for a moment, as if she were replaying every memory she had of her life spent with Andrey. Then she looked at me again. Clear and focused.
“I know you think I’ll change my mind, but I’m not going to. I want to help you end it,” she said. “I don’t want to just hide from it. I want to end it and men that control and take part in hurting people and call it business.”
Something dark and vicious twisted in my chest. It was sharp and possessive, the kind of pride that comes from knowing I’d finally found something worth killing for, and it had nothing to do with revenge.
“Then we do it together,” I said, voice low and edged, the words scraping out like gravel. “But you learn first. You get strong so you stay fucking alive. Because if anyone tries to take you from me now, I’ll paint the walls with their blood before they can blink.”
Her gaze met mine, steady and unflinching. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.
