How long it’s going to take me until I’m on the next flight back to New York. Ivan has no idea yet, but I’m standing on the front doorstep of my last loose end.
Our deal is still fresh in my mind, breaking through the continuous loop of time.
“If you can bring me the head of every Sokolov crime family member, then I’ll give you anything you want, Kaden,” he laughed.
He had little faith that I could wipe out a whole crime empire in what little time was allotted to me.
“Done,” I accepted.
Ivan sat back in his chair and intertwined his fingers under his chin. “Good luck.”
Since then, I’ve been tearing through each of them one by one. While I’m not running drugs or killing off men who can’t return their loans with interest, I’m hunting each Sokolov member down. They’ve thinned over the last three years. Naturally.
After I blew up one of their safe houses last week, eradicating the next heir to the Sokolov empire and his men, the old Pahkan remains. Since he caught on to his crumbling empire, he’s taken to barricading himself in his home, tucked away with enforcers protecting him. He thinks he’s untouchable.
Little does he know that I lost my sanity long ago, the very moment my sister turned me out of her life. If I couldn’t live with her, then I didn’t care about living at all. That kind of drive makes you reckless. It rewired my brain, destroying any fear of death I had.
When you’ve lost it all, you don’t care about your safety, dignity, or pride. You become something entirely new.
You become a fuckingmonster.
I walk easily up to the massive double oak doors, the cameras in the corners of the frame whirring on me as I knock politely. It doesn’t take long before a big man answers. He’s clean-shaven with hulking shoulders that crowd the entryway. He scowls down at me, his tattooed knuckles gripping the corner of the door.
“Weird question,” I start before he can speak. “Is Dimitri in?”
The man’s jaw shifts. “And who are you?” He asks in heavily accented English.
My brows lift as my lips tug up into a deranged smile. “I’m the man who’s going to kill him.”
Before he can process my words, I’m on him. The knife I had pocketed is stabbed into his side, slicing through his clothes as I shove him out of my way, and he falls to the ground, his momentum sliding him along the polished marble.
My opponent is large, but I’ve spent the last six years turning myself into the machine I am today. My muscles are earned from years of hard labor and training—the kind to carry rather than just hold. As I drop to my knees over the man bleeding out onto the floor, he lifts his hands to push me away, but he’s no match as I strangle the air from his lungs with a tight grip.
Footsteps scatter around the home, but I’m entirely focused on choking the life out of the enforcer below me. “God dammit, you’re stubborn,” I sing loudly as he swats at me. “Just die already.”
His face is turning blue, his airway crushed to dust beneath my fingers, before a set of hands grabs me and yanks me off of him. I’m surrounded by three other guys, each one ready for a fight, as I hold up my hands.
“Okay,” I sigh. “I don’t like to use weapons, but this is getting annoying.”
The first guy swings at me, and I side-step him before pulling my gun out of its holster and shoving the barrel under his chin. The crack pierces the air as his head juts back unnaturally. Blood sprays, soaking my face as he crumbles to the ground in a heap.
The next two men brandish their guns, aiming at my chest as they bark at each other in Russian. I always have a failsafe in place for moments like these.
I hold my hands up in surrender, tilting my head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I have an ability that no one knows about.”
They either can’t understand me or don’t care as they argue loudly. I deadpan at them before pointing to the guy on my right. The nearest window shatters with a sniper shot, and the bullet blasts through the side of his skull, sending him to the ground in a mutilated mess.
The last man looks wildly between his very dead friend and me as if he can’t believe what just happened.
I shrug, taking advantage of his shock as I aim at his face and fire. “I tried to tell you.”
He drops before I make my rounds and shoot the man I was strangling just to put him out of his misery. My earpiece crackles to life before Saint’s voice filters through. “He’s upstairs. Want me to take him out?”
I call back in. “Nah, he’s mine. Get the car ready.”
I take the spiral staircase with quick steps, my freedom closer and closer with every movement forward. Nothing can destroy the sheer delight of this evening.
Twenty-two hours.
