My wife’s blood.
I wasn’t just looking at evidence. I was memorizing it. I was braiding it into my DNA so that when I found the men who did this, my body would recognize the debt it was owed.
My rage wasn’t a scream. It wasn’t red-veined madness or explosive temper. Mine was a cold thing. It was a liquid nitrogen freeze that turned my heart into a precision instrument. Surgical. Absolute. Every breath I pulled into my lungs was a silent vow, a rhythmic promise of the slaughter to come.
“Alexei.”
I didn’t turn. I knew Viktor’s voice.
Behind him, the room was buzzing. Roman and Damian were already on their comms, their voices harsh and jagged as they barked orders to the outer perimeter.
“I want every exit from Manhattan corked!” Roman shouted into his headset, his pacing agitated, like a wolf in a cage too small for his ego. “Check the tunnels. Check the marinas. If a rat breathes in the Bronx, I want to know about it!”
“He’s right,” Damian added, his voice a low growl. “We sweep block by block. We burn the city down if we have to.”
Viktor stepped closer to me, his footsteps heavy. “Alexei, we need to be smart. We don’t know the players yet. If we move too fast, we might push them to do something… irreversible. We wait for the tech teams to pull the street feeds. We wait for intel.”
I stood up slowly. I didn’t wipe the blood from my fingers. I wanted it there. I wanted the weight of it.
“I’m not waiting,” I said. My voice was quiet, but the room went dead silent. Even Roman stopped mid-sentence. I looked at Viktor, “Every second she is with them is a second I’m failing to be the man I promised her I would be. We move now.”
“Move where, Alexei?” Viktor asked. “We have no direction.”
The door to the library creaked open, and Sylvester, my head of security and technical assets, walked in. His face was pale, his tablet clutched tight in his hand. He looked at the blood on the floor, then at me.
“I have the forensic sweep from the gate cameras,” Sylvester said. “And the casings found in the driveway.”
“And?” I demanded.
“The Italians were the primary shooters. Moretti’s men. We recognized the tactical formation,” Sylvester informed, hesitating. “But they weren’t alone. One of the vehicles—the lead SUV—had a modification on the bumper. And we found a discarded sigil near the fountain. It’s the Volkov crest.”
A silence heavier than the snow outside descended on the room.
Volkov.
Mila’s own blood. Her brother, the one she never knew about. The one we’d discovered had disappeared long before their father did.
I felt a twitch at the corner of my mouth. A laugh, low and dark, bubbled up in my chest.
“He’s signing his death warrant. He thinks the family will protect him from what I’m going to do? He thinks he can use her as a pawn in a game of territories?”
“He’s ambitious, Alexei,” Viktor warned. “Ambitious men are dangerous when they’re desperate.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a private line—one very few people had. I pulled it out. The number was blocked, encrypted through a dozen proxy servers. I answered it, my grip nearly cracking the glass.
“Speak,” I commanded.
“She’s at the old foundry in Red Hook,” a voice rasped.
It was a voice I hadn’t heard in person for years, but one that was etched into the darker parts of my memory. It was rough, weathered by Scotch and a lifetime of regrets.
“Petrov?” I uttered.
Mila’s father. The man who had vanished into the shadows when the heat from the Italians became too much to bear.
“They have her at the old warehouse there,” Lev Petrov continued, his voice shaking slightly. “The Italians are there to ensure you don’t make it through the door.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my eyes narrowing. “You’ve spent your life looking out for no one but yourself.”
