I remember all the days Rolan came home and lay down with me in the bedroom, how I woke up that one morning with him stroking my hair but pretended to be asleep so he would never stop.
I think about the little girl who trusts me, who doesn’t have a mom to take care of her, who must be so scared right now.
I think about how I’m not there to protect her.
An unexpected sob tears from my throat.
My face is wet, and my hand is still on the latch. I’m standing at the edge of a life I’ve been trying to escape for months, and the question that arrives is not,Can I leave?Not even,Do I want to?
The question is,Shit. Am I in love?
Love. The word hits my chest with a heavy, irrevocable impact. Not a small word. Not a manageable one. I’ve been not-saying it for so long that saying it now, even only internally, is breaking me open.
I love him. The certainty of it is nauseating and total. I love Rolan Belov, a murderer and a mafia boss. A man who called me a mistake.
But it’s not just him. I love Anya, too. I love that little, impossibly smart girl.
And — for the first time since I was nineteen and my father called to say he sold me out — I want a family.
I wantthemto be my family.
My hand lowers, and I prepare to turn, to flee back to the fate my heart aches for… when someone’s arm closes around my throat from behind.
Before I can scream, a canvas bag is shoved over my head. The world disappears as a familiar voice fills my ear.
“Miss me, sweetheart?”
I don’t get the chance to answer. The sting at my neck is brief and precise.
The darkness that follows is absolute.
34
ROLAN
“What do you mean, she’s gone?”
My voice fractures the silence of the office, sharp enough to split marble.
Mikhail stands behind the desk with his hands clasped. Two other men flank him: Savin, rigid as a pillar, and the guard personally assigned to the bunker. The one whose sole purpose on this earth, whose singular directive for as long as he keeps breathing, is to remain posted at that steel door.
He has no business standing in this room. His presence alone carves through my patience.
The words refuse to settle. They ricochet inside my skull, colliding with every instinct, every calculation I failed to make tonight. I grip the edge of the desk and feel the wood groan under my fingers.
Two hours ago, Alexei’s intel placed Dushku at the southeastern docks — Pier Fourteen, the receiving warehouse we’d flagged for weeks. The report was clean: product on site, armed personnel, minimal resistance anticipated. Alexei swore the bastard would be there. I wanted him to be right. I needed him to be right.
I drove there myself, a hundred and ten on the expressway, knuckles blanched against the steering wheel, the hunger for confrontation pulsing in my temples. And I arrived to find what the intelligence promised — product, men, a warehouse ripe for the taking. Zero resistance worth mentioning. A gift wrapped in a perfect ribbon.
Too perfect.
I realized within four minutes that Dushku wasn’t coming. His fingerprints were absent. No encrypted radios, no reinforced exits, no contingency measures. The warehouse had been staged — dressed to receive me and designed to keep me occupied. But even knowing that, I stayed. I killed every man I could reach, as if the violence itself might fill the gap widening in my chest.
Then Mikhail’s call shattered what remained of the illusion.
“Rolan, the house.”
Two words. I didn’t answer. I didn’t ask for details. I dropped the phone, crossed the warehouse floor with blood still drying on my forearms, and seized the nearest vehicle — a black sedan with the keys already in the ignition. I pulled out before the engine had fully turned over.
