Chapter one
Rafail
The phone rings at four-forty-five in the morning—that dead hour when Moscow wakes and Boston staggers toward sleep. Viktor’s timing is always calculated. A call at this hour, over an encrypted line, means something has gone wrong enough that spoken words are a liability.
Sleep is a casualty the moment my hand finds the phone. My voice is gravel, edged with the irritation of a man who doesn’t tolerate interruptions to the careful order of his life.
“What the hell is it?”
Viktor’s response carries none of the deference my tone demands, which is why he’s one of three people on this earth I trust. “Check your inbox.” His voice is steady—the calm he uses when delivering news that will ignite my temper. A steady hand on a gun, even when it’s pointed at his own head.
The command tightens my gut. The instinct that’s kept me alive through four decades of blood and steel, recognizing danger before my mind catches up. He won’t say it over our secure line, which means whatever sits in my inbox is inflammatory enough to require deniability.
“Why can’t you just tell me? It’s too early for reading.” The grumble dies on my tongue as I swing my legs out of bed, kicking free of the tangled sheets. The cold wood floor shocks me fully awake, a reminder that even my own home keeps me sharp.
I cross to the desk without bothering with lights. My cock hangs heavy, morning hardness not yet faded.I grab yesterday’s boxers from the floor and step into them, cradling the phone against my shoulder.
“How’s Daniil?” The question is automatic, buying time while my laptop boots, my mind racing through possibilities.
Viktor’s sigh is impatient. “Time is money, cousin.”
The screen flickers to life, bathing my face in a blue-white light that deepens the shadows in my office. My inbox loads, and the top message makes my pulse kick—an encrypted folder marked with Viktor’s personal code, timestamped twenty minutes ago.
The folder opens to a catalog of faces. Girls, mostly, though all technically legal according to the documentation Viktor has meticulously compiled. Pretty, posed, packaged for sale. Blondes, brunettes, all between nineteen and twenty-three. Every single file includes medical proof of their virginity.
Rage burns behind my ribs. The words come out as a low growl. “What the fuck, Viktor? Did you wake me up to fix my love life? What is this shit?”
His laugh is dry, humorless. “Your love life’s not fixable. If you haven’t found the one in forty-two years, you probably took her out in a killing spree decades ago.”
I should be offended. Instead, I scroll past the faces—each one smiling, posed, trying to look appealing to the kind of men who bid on them. The cheerleader with her ponytail and wholesome grin. An honors student whose glasses scream innocence. The medical student with dreams in her bio.
“I’m glad you have jokes. Now tell me what I’m looking at.”
“A virgin auction.”
The words steal whatever warmth the laptop provided. An auction. Selling women like assets.
“I figured that out.” My voice drops, cold as steel. “What the hell does it have to do with me?”
“Check the place and time.”
I scroll to the event details. A cold fury washes through me, sharpening everything to a single point of focus. The Onyx Room. My fucking club. He’s put this filth in it.
“I will murder him,” I say, the words conversational, matter-of-fact. “I will skin him alive and lay his carcass out like a rug in front of my fireplace so I can wipe my feet on him every night.”
I force myself to scroll through the images again, slower. They’re all so young, smiling with varying degrees of enthusiasm for the monsters who would buy them.
Then my thumb stops.
My breath catches. Every muscle in my body locks. The world narrows to her face.
She’s not smiling.
Jana Spears.
Where the others pose with arched backs and parted lips, she stands straight in jeans and a sweater. Her darker skin has a glow that even the unflattering photo lighting can’t diminish. Her hair is loose around her shoulders—the only concession to attracting a bidder—but her body language screams refusal. She’s not selling. She’s enduring.
And her eyes. Those marble-brown eyes stare directly at the camera with a wary intelligence that sees too much. She knows exactly what kind of monster would bid on her.
