I set down the vodka with deliberate care, fighting the rage that threatens to cloud my judgment. Someone isn't just destroying my reputation - they're destroying hers. Methodically,professionally, with the kind of precision that suggests this isn't random violence.
This is a trap. A beautifully constructed web designed to catch both the phantom everyone fears and the agent who's been hunting him.
"Boris," I say, and my voice has gone cold. Arctic. The tone that makes grown men step aside when I walk through their territory. "Find out everything about who had access to Orlov's safe house location. Every federal agent, every U.S. Marshal, every prosecutor involved in his protection detail."
"Already working on it. But Mikhail?" His voice carries a warning I've learned to take seriously over fifteen years of partnership. "This feels bigger than one corrupt agent. The timing, the precision - someone's been planning this for months. Maybe years."
Years.Long enough to study my methods, learn my patterns, perfect an imitation detailed enough to fool federal investigators. Long enough to identify Mariana as both a threat and an opportunity.
"Keep digging," I tell him. "And Boris? Put surveillance on Agent Castillo. Discreet but thorough. If someone's framing us both, she's probably not safe."
I end the call and move to the floor-to-ceiling windows that face south toward Queens. Somewhere out there, the warehouse is still smoldering. The crime scene is crawling with federal agentsand NYPD detectives, all looking for evidence that will lead them nowhere.
Because whoever killed Viktor Orlov is smart enough to leave just enough Ghost signature to be convincing, but not enough real evidence to be traceable.
Professional.
The word echoes in my mind as I review what I know. Orlov was a mid-level enforcer, not important enough to justify Ghost's attention under normal circumstances. But he was also a federal witness, which makes his death a message. To the FBI, to other potential turncoats, to anyone thinking about cooperation with law enforcement.
We can reach you anywhere. Even in federal protection. Even when the legendary Ghost is supposedly on your side.
Except I've never been on anyone's side but the reformed families. For fifteen years, since I emerged from the black ops world that swallowed me after Chernobyl, I've had one mission: eliminate threats to legitimate operations.
Clean up problems before they become disasters. Remove obstacles before they become roadblocks.
I've killed several dozen in those fifteen years, including five men after moving to the US. Each one a calculated decision, a surgical strike against someone who threatened the families trying to go straight. Never random violence. Never witnessesunless they were already compromised. Never the kind of sloppy, obvious kills that scream for federal attention.
Someone has been studying me for a very long time.
My phone buzzes again. This time it's not Boris - it's a text from an unknown number, but I recognize the pattern. Encrypted, routed through multiple servers, designed to be untraceable.
The little wolf bites when cornered. Interesting choice, saving her. Hope you're ready for the consequences. – A friend
I stare at the message until the screen goes dark, then set the phone aside with movements that betray none of the fury building in my chest.
A friend.
Someone was watching the warehouse. Watching me. Watching Mariana. Someone who knew I would be there, knew she would be trapped, knew I would choose to save her rather than maintain my cover. Someone who knows I’m alive.
Someone who's been playing a much longer game than I realized.
The vodka burns like liquid fire as I finish it, but it doesn't touch the cold rage settling in my bones. Fifteen years of careful work, of building a reputation precise enough to prevent wars beforethey start. Fifteen years of being Ghost - the phantom who appears when negotiation fails and disappears before anyone can prove he was ever there.
All of it compromised by someone who knows me well enough to imitate me and predict my choices.
I walk to my private office - the room within a room where I keep the files too sensitive for electronic storage. Physical documents, handwritten notes, photographs that could destroy governments if they fell into the wrong hands.
Including a file I haven't opened in three years. A file marked with a name that still makes my jaw clench with residual anger.
Pavel Volkov.
Roman's cousin, the man who survived the multiple shots and explosion three years ago. What everyone thought was Pavel's death in that basement confrontation turned out to be just the beginning of his transformation.
But what if Pavel didn't just survive? What if he spent three years rebuilding, planning, studying his enemies with the same methodical precision they once used against him?
The file contains everything I gathered about the Volkov family during the war three years ago. Financial records, personnel files, operational details. But more importantly, it contains intelligence I gathered independently - evidence suggesting the Volkovs had federal contacts. Judges, prosecutors, FBIagents who fed them information in exchange for money and protection.
Information that no one else knows about because everyone believed Mikhail Kozlov died at Chernobyl.
