Looking at it now, it’s like someone has hit pause on the whole investigation. Or worse, pulled the plug completely.
Maksim’s reach, no doubt.
Bribery has to be one hell of a powerful tool when you’re a part of the Russian fucking Mob. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the emptiness around this part of the city feels… eerie.
I circle around to the back.
The alley behind the cafe is narrow and grimy, the pavement littered with flattened cardboard, a few discarded boxes and broken crates shoved against the brick wall. There’s a sour, musky rot in the air, like something spilled here a week ago and never got cleaned up.
I stop at the rear service door, staring at the rust-edged metal for a few long seconds while trying to work up the courage to actually reach out and grab it. My fingers twitch once at my side before I finally do it and test the handle, miraculously finding it unlocked.
Seriously?
That’s alarming. And beyond sloppy. Does securing crime scenes not matter when you’re a Mob front? Did no one think to bolt the place shut after an actual shootout? Either they’re too confident no one would dare come back snooping, or they just don’t care what got left behind in the aftermath.
Neither possibility makes me feel better.
I hesitate, palm still resting on the handle. My ears tune outward, straining past the hammering of my pulse. Both ends of the alley are still empty. Distant traffic hums along the main street, muted by the brick walls boxing me in.
It’s quiet back here. Completely abandoned.
And yet, every instinct is screaming at me to turn around. To leave it. To not step over that threshold and bind myself to whatever comes next.
Stupidly, my hand tightens and then I push the door open and slip inside. The door creaks shut behind me with a final, metallic click, muffling the city outside, leaving me stranded in the suffocating silence within. I feel like I’ve crossed a line I can’t undo, putting myself back in this dangerous situation with barely a plan pulled together.
The kitchen is a war zone and completely decimated like someone’s flipped the entire place upside down and then walked away without a second thought. Shelves lie overturned, flour scattered like ash, glass peppered across the tile in a glittering mosaic. The silence presses down, thick and unnatural.
No hum of refrigeration, no drip of a leaky faucet. Just the hollow echo of my breath in my ears.
Just beyond the chaos, near the swinging half-door that leads to the cafe, is a long, smeared trail.
Blood.
Dried now, rust-dark, its edges cracked where the streak dragged across the stile. I follow it, letting it lead me out of the kitchen and into the actual cafe. The pattern of the blood is messy, streaked in places and then coagulating in others. Almost like someone was struggling to drag the body across the floor as it was spilling out, leaving the grotesque memory of their final moments behind with every drag mark.
My eyes dart over to where the trail ends, finding a large slumped over lump covered with a thin sheet of blue plastic. I cover my mouth with the back of my hand, swallowing down the bile clawing at my throat.
Is that…?
Oh my God.
What the hell am I doing here?
Seriously, what did I think I was going to find? A friendly barista hiding in the pantry, hands raised, ready to confess to every illegal deal that’s ever passed through these walls? A stray bullet stamped with a monogrammed message pointing directly at Maksim and Sergei like some kind of smoking gun?
I must be out of my goddamn mind to think this was ever a good idea. Nearly hyperventilating, I spin on my heel to head back for the door I came through, every nerve buzzing with regret, already cursing myself for being stupid enough to walk into this graveyard of chaos?—
And slam hard into something solid. Something warm and breathing.
Someone.
The impact jolts through me. I freeze, my hand splayed instinctively against the broad plane of a chest that’s far too steady for being in a place like this surrounded by evidence of a fight ending in the worst way. Slowly—because any sudden move feels like a death wish—I tilt my head up.
Straight into Maksim’s eyes.
“You really have a habit of being where you shouldn’t be,Milaya,” he says calmly.
Oh my God, I’m so dead.
