Page 41 of Crystal Veil

“I will,” I promise.

The line goes dead, and I'm alone again with information that feels like a bomb in my hands.

I find Renat on the upper terrace, pacing, phone pressed to his ear. When he sees me, his entire demeanor shifts. The hard lines of his face soften, and he ends the call without ceremony.

“What is it?” he asks, eyes narrowing.

I tell him everything about Celine's behavior at the gallery, about my suspicions, about Nick's research. I watch his expression grow darker with each word, watch his jaw clench tighter as the full scope of what we're dealing with becomes clear.

When I finish, he pulls me close and brushes a kiss across my forehead. The gesture is heartbreakingly tender, a jarring shift from the violence I can feel coiled beneath his skin.

“Six men,” he murmurs against my hair.

“Maybe more. Nick only found the ones he could verify.”

Renat's arms tighten around me, and I can feel the tension in his body. “She came after you.” His teeth grind together. “She's still out there. Still dangerous.”

He pulls back to look at me, his hazel eyes dark with rage. “You can't go after her alone, Elena. Promise me.”

“I won't.”

He studies my face as if trying to memorize every detail. “This changes everything. Bennato isn't just our enemy. He's got a killer working for him who's been perfecting her craft for years.”

“What do we do?”

Then he murmurs, “Now we kill them both.”

The words are simple and terrifying in their finality. And the world, once again, shifts beneath my feet.

“Renat—”

“No.” His voice is steel. “She tried to take you from me. There's no negotiation here, no middle ground. She dies.”

The certainty in his voice should frighten me. It should make me pull away and remind me that I'm in love with a man who solves problems with violence. But instead, I feel a strange sense of relief. For the first time since all this started, I feel protected.

My rational mind wants to argue, wants to insist that there has to be another way. But looking at him, seeing the deadly resolve in his eyes, I realize that some problems can't be solved with articles and investigations. Some problems require a different kind of solution.

“How?” I ask quietly.

“Leave that to me.”

“I want to help.”

“No.” His voice is firm. “You've done enough. You’ve uncovered the truth. Now let me handle the rest.”

I lean into him, feeling the solid warmth of his body against mine. Outside, the skyline glitters in the growing dusk, beautiful, corrupt, and dangerous. Just like everything else in this world I've stumbled into.

18

RENAT

The warehouse smells of salt and steel, the scent mingling with the acrid tang of rust and decay that permeates every corner of this forgotten place. I stand in the shadows of the Port of Miami, the humid air curling around me like the breath of ghosts. This place used to move weapons, art, and bodies without names, a monument to everything I've built from nothing, and every calculated risk and bloody sacrifice that brought me to this moment. Tonight, it becomes a grave.

The concrete beneath my feet is cold and unforgiving. Each step I've taken over the past few weeks has been deliberate and methodical, building toward this inevitable conclusion. Bennato and Celine crossed a line when they targeted Elena, put her in danger, and threatened my child. Some transgressions cannot be forgiven, cannot be negotiated away with money, territory, or promises of future cooperation.

Nikolai stands to my left, his eyes scanning the monitors wired into the back of the black van. The screens show multiple angles of the warehouse floor. Viktor and Roman are in position, their forms silhouetted in the shadows where they wait for my signal.Artur waits on the roof with his sniper rifle pointed toward the dock where the trap is already baited, his scope trained on the entrance where our guests will soon arrive. My other men hold their ground along the perimeter, their laser rifles steady.

The plan is simple yet elegant. Bennato believes he's coming to inspect a shipment of high-grade military equipment that he has been promised by one of his contacts. What he doesn't know is that contact works for me, has been feeding him information for weeks, and building trust and credibility until this moment when that trust becomes the noose around his neck.