“What was in the warehouse?” I questioned. Mila’s voice echoed in my memory—her questions about shipping routes and inventory management, asked with genuine curiosity over breakfast just yesterday.
“Mostly legitimate goods,” Dimitri answered. “Electronics, some luxury items waiting for customs clearance. But—”
“But?” I prompted.
“There were three containers in the back. The ones from Rotterdam that we redirected after Ruslan attempted to skim still haven’t been fully processed.”
My eyes narrowed. “And what’s in them?”
“According to the manifest, industrial parts. But in—”
“They’re weapons,” I finished the sentence, my mind already calculating losses and implications. Those containers held a shipment of modified firearms destined for contacts in Eastern Europe—untraceable, highly profitable, and highly illegal. “Moretti knew.”
“Seems that way,” Dimitri agreed. Kirill nodded in affirmation.
Which meant we had a leak. Someone under me had given Enzo specific intelligence about which warehouse to hit and when. The rage that spiked through me was clean and sharp, surgical in its precision. Not the hot, wild fury of impulse, but the cold calculation of a man who understood exactly how to make someone pay.
“Find the leak,” I said quietly. “I don’t care how long it takes. Find them, and bring them to me alive.”
Dimitri nodded once, already pulling out his phone to start the hunt.
I turned my attention back to the burning warehouse, watching millions of rubles and irreplaceable inventory turn to ash. The loss stung, but losses could be recouped. What mattered more was the message Moretti was sending:I can touch you. I can hurt you. And I’m just getting started.
I spent the next three hours on-site, coordinating with fire officials, arranging for the body to be taken down and examined, and issuing orders with a practiced calm that I could feel terrified everyone around me. The colder I got, the more dangerous everyone knew I was. It was one of my most usefulweapons—the ability to strip away all emotion and become pure calculation.
Men feared the rage of hotheads. But they were absolutely terrified of a man who smiled while deciding how you’d die.
By the time the fire was contained—the warehouse a smoking ruin, the body bagged and sent for autopsy, the guards’ statements recorded—dawn was beginning to break over the city. I was giving final instructions to Roman about increasing security at their other facilities when my phone rang.
Anya.
My sister had no reason to call me at dawn. Unless something was wrong.
“What is it?” I didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“It’s Mila,” she answered, her voice laced with worry.
Everything came to a halt.
“She fainted. We’ve called the doctor, but Alexei, I don’t… I don’t know—”
“I’m on my way.” I was already moving before I clicked on the red icon.
The image of a lifeless Mila made my chest tighten. For the first time in years, something cut through the steel of my composure.
Is this what fear feels like?
Pure, primal fear that had nothing to do with business or empires or blood debts, and everything to do with a woman with hazel eyes who’d somehow become the center of my entire world without me realizing it was happening.
The drive back to the estate took twenty-three minutes. I knew because I fucking counted every single one.
I found Mila in our bedroom, pale as death and drenched in sweat, with Anya sitting beside her and holding her hand like a lifeline. Dr. Volkov—one of the Lobanov family’s personalphysicians—was taking her pulse, his weathered face creased with concentration.
I crossed the room in three strides, my hand immediately going to Mila’s face. Her skin was clammy and cool, her breathing shallow. But her eyes opened at my touch, unfocused and glassy.
“Alexei?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“I’m here.” I looked up at Volkov, and the edge in my voice could have cut steel as I asked him, “What’s wrong with her?”
