He smirks. “And yet somehow, I walked your house for months. Interesting lesson model.”
I step closer. My gun stays on him. “It ends today,” I say. “On your feet or on the floor. That part’s still open.”
He studies my face. “You won’t shoot me yet,” he says. “You have questions. You want to know how far the rot goes. Who else I turned. Where the rest of the toys are.”
“I already know enough,” I say. “I know which accounts you touched. I know which properties you used. I know which of my men took your money and how they died. You’re what’s left.”
He tilts his head. “You think that’s all?” he asks. “You really think this game is just us and a handful of greedy boys from the block?”
Kirill shifts beside me, weight on the balls of his feet. “He’s stalling,” he mutters.
“I know,” I say.
Still, I ask one thing. “Why Nadia?” I ask quietly. “You had your chance to cut me before I ever had a child. You waited. You watched. You chose to hit there. Why?”
Something ugly crosses his face. “Because you don’t bleed for money,” he says. “You never did. You walked through numbers like they were dust. I watched you lose a warehouse and shrug. Lose a route and smile. Lose two men and pour a drink. You never cracked.”
His eyes sharpen.
“But when you held Raina, everything changed,” he says. “I saw the look on your face when she was around you. You weren’t on my bingo card as someone who could ever fall in love, but here you were, looking human.” He smirks. “Disgusting as that was, it was also new. That meant you finally had something that hurt.”
The room goes very still.
He smiles again, small and cold. “I couldn’t attack you where you were stone,” he says. “So I waited for flesh.”
Every piece of me wants to put a bullet between his eyes. But if I do it now, I prove his read right. I let him script my reaction. I refuse that.
“You’re done talking,” I say.
I nod at Oleg. He steps forward with a pair of cuffs. “On your knees,” he tells Ilya.
Ilya doesn’t move.
“I said on your knees,” Oleg repeats, low and hard.
Ilya sighs. “All right,” he says. He starts to lower himself.
Halfway down, his right hand flashes.
He slaps his palm flat on the small square device on the table. The two dead lights on its front go bright red.
Kirill lunges and grabs his wrist, wrenching it back. Oleg hits him from the side and shoves him down fully, driving a knee into his spine. The rest of us shift aim, fingers tight on triggers.
The device starts to beep.
Short, sharp pulses. Fast.
“Don’t touch it!” Kirill snaps when one of the men reaches.
“Bomb?” I ask, though I already know.
“Yes,” he says. His eyes cut to the corner of the room, then to the ceiling. He’s mapping blast lines in his head.
Ilya laughs into the floor. “You thought I’d come here naked?” he chokes out. “You taught me better than that.”
I step in and slam my boot into his ribs. The laugh breaks off into a grunt, but the smile stays.
The beeps speed up.
