I shouldn’t have liked seeing them there. But I did. Hell, I did.
It was the part of myself I’d stopped trying to hide—from her, from anyone. The possessive, territorial animal that wanted to mark her, claim her, make sure every person who looked at her knew exactly who she belonged to.
She was mine. That truth had rooted too deep to tear out now, had wound itself around my ribs and squeezed until breathing without her felt impossible.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I grabbed it before the sound could wake her, already knowing what I’d find.
Third warehouse. One hour. —K
Konstantin.
Which meant something had developed overnight, something that couldn’t wait. I typed back a confirmation and slipped from the bed, careful not to disturb her. She murmuredsomething in her sleep, reaching for the space I’d left, and I had to force myself not to climb back in beside her.
**********
The warehouse district was gray and frozen, abandoned buildings squatting like tombstones in the dawn light. I’d owned this particular warehouse for three years—used it for storage, for meetings, and for things that needed to happen away from prying eyes.
Konstantin was waiting inside, along with Dimitri and a half-dozen of our best men. A laptop sat open on a metal table, displaying intercepted communications that made my jaw tighten.
“Show me,” I said.
Konstantin hit play. Radio chatter filled the space, and Italian accents and code words we’d already broken rang out. We listened to our enemies' plan like they were reading us their diaries.
“The river docks,” Konstantin translated unnecessarily. “They’re moving something tonight. Something big.”
“Weapons?” Dimitri asked.
“No.” I studied the transcripts, the timing, and the personnel mentioned. “Money. They’re funneling cash through the docks, probably washing it through one of the shipping companies. They think we’re distracted.”
“Are we?” Konstantin’s eyebrow lifted.
I smiled without humor. “Not anymore.”
The truth was, I’d been distracted. By Mila, by the complications she’d brought into my carefully ordered world, by the way she’d cracked open something in my chest I’d thought dead and buried. But this—this was familiar territory. This was the violence and strategy I understood.
“I’ll lead the raid,” I said.
“Alexei, you don’t need to—”
“I know.” I cut Konstantin off, already planning the approach in my head. “But I want to.”
Because violence calmed me. It reminded me of who I was beneath the softness Mila had somehow carved into me. It centered me in a way nothing else could—the weight of a gun in my hand, the clarity of immediate danger, the simple mathematics of survival.
Kill or be killed. Protect what’s yours. Show no mercy.
These were rules I understood.
**********
We hit the docks at 11:15, just as the Italians were moving their cargo from the warehouse to waiting trucks. Six vehicles, a dozen men, enough money to fund a small war.
The ambush was clean and brutal.
We came from three sides—Dimitri’s team blocking the exit, my team from the front, and Konstantin’s from the water. The Italians were good, I knew that. They didn’t panic, didn’t scatter. They took cover and returned fire with professional efficiency. But we were better.
I moved through the chaos like I’d been born to it, each shot precise, each decision automatic. One of their men tried to flank us from behind a shipping container. I put two rounds in his chest before he’d finished raising his weapon. Another went for the trucks—probably planning to ram through our blockade. Dimitri took him out with a headshot that painted the inside of the windshield red.
Their lieutenant was the last one standing, cornered near the water with nowhere to run. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with the kind of expensive haircut that said he was somebody’s nephew, somebody’s favorite. His hand shook as he aimed at me.
