“Check the bodies,” I order, my voice rougher than usual. “I want to know everything.”
Matvey’s already kneeling beside the nearest corpse, going through their pockets, patting them down.
“No ID,” he reports, standing. “No phones or wallets. All their gear was professional, with serial numbers filed off the rifles. These are mercenaries. Hired guns.”
“The Ghost,” I say flatly.
Matvey nods, grim. “Has to be. Someone paid serious money for this kind of attack in broad daylight.”
Dem examines the bodies Dinara took down, his expression shifting from disbelief to grudging respect. “Your wife did this?”
“She saved my life.” I look at Dinara, who’s watching the exchange with careful eyes.
He meets my gaze. “We need to talk.”
I nod. Later. When we’re not standing in the middle of a massacre in Rosa’s restaurant.
Dinara slips away toward the kitchen to check on Rosa and Carlos, giving us space to work.
“This changes everything,” Matvey says quietly. “The Ghost just came after you directly. In broad daylight.”
“I know.” The weight of it settles over me like a shroud. “They’re escalating.”
We cover the bodies and call for a cleanup crew.
Dinara emerges from the kitchen with Rosa and Carlos. Rosa’s face is streaked with tears but she’s walking on her own. Carlos has his arm around her, but he looks pale and shaky as expected.
I turn to two of our men. “Take Rosa and Carlos home. Full security detail, round the clock. Get contractors here to board up the windows tonight. I want this place fixed within two days. Bulletproof glass in every window. Hidden panic buttons behind the counter and in the kitchen. And I want it to look exactly the way it did before.”
I cross to Rosa, taking her weathered hands in mine.
“I’m so sorry. This is my fault. But I promise, I’ll make it right. You’ll be safe. Your nephew will be safe. And this restaurant will be better than ever.”
She nods, unable to speak. I pull her into my arms, her small form trembling against me, guilt like a physical weight in my gut. This woman fed me when I was a kid, gave me a safe place away from home. And I brought violence to her doorstep.
“Take care of them,” I tell my men. “Treat them like family.”
As they escort Rosa and Carlos out, I turn back to Dinara. She’s standing perfectly still, watching my brothers examine the bodies, her face carefully blank.
But the adrenaline is starting to fade from her system, the shallow, jagged breathing that happens when the high of a fight wears off. The reality of the attack setting in. How close we were to death.
I take her hand, threading my fingers through hers. Blood and all.
“Let’s go home.”
The penthouse is quiet when we get back. Dinara heads straight for the shower without a word, and I let her go. She needs space to process what just happened, and honestly, so do I.
I pour myself a whiskey and stand at the windows, watching the city lights blur and sharpen as I replay the attack in my mind. The spray of glass. The bullets punching through the booth. Dinara appearing with two knives and a look in her eyes I’ll never forget.
She could have died because of me. Rosa and Carlos could have died because of me. Because apparently, the Ghost isn’t happy to stand around anymore. The Ghost wants me dead.
My hand tightens around the glass until my knuckles go white. I keep seeing her face when she drove that knife up under the man’s ribs. And all I could think, standing there in that blood-soaked restaurant, was that if she’d been a second slower, if one of those bullets had found her instead of the booth, I would have burned this city to ash.
My phone rings. My shoulders tense when my father’s name fills the screen. Amazing how quickly word spreads in a city of eight million.
“Privet,” I answer, too tired to bother with pretense.
“I heard about the attack,” Ruslan says, cutting right to the point.
