I didn’t say a word.
“You should be ashamed,” she spat. “You work for the man who takes children in broad daylight. Who pays off the police and buys men like you to keep him safe. You help monsters like Sokolov. And you killed the only one who gave a damn.”
She curled up again, rocking like she was trying to make herself disappear.
I stayed for another second. Two. My jaw clenched so tight it ached.
And then I turned and walked out.
She wasn’t my problem. It was her life. I wasn’t going to kill her—but if she wanted to throw it away, that was her choice. I wasn’t here to play savior. I’d done my job.
But her words burned like acid in my ears the whole way back to the car. Sashko and I slipped out through the back window and climbed down quietly into the dark, keeping low so the guards on the other side of the house wouldn’t notice us. We crossed the yard in silence and kept walking for about a mile before reaching the spot where we had hidden the car.
11
Gift-Wrapped for a Predator
—Maksym—
The rain had started while we were still on the highway—light at first, then turning sharp and cold. Sashko drove, his hands steady on the wheel. I sat beside him, staring out at the darkness, letting the blur of headlights and wet pavement wash over me.
Neither of us spoke at first, the hum of the engine and the rhythmic thud of the wipers filling the silence. The job had gone clean—smoother than most. There had been no alarms, no screams, no chaos left behind except what was absolutely necessary. And yet, the air between us felt heavier than it should have.
After a long stretch of silence, Sashko finally spoke, his voice low and steady. “You good?”
I gave him a single nod.
He didn’t take it at face value. “You sure?” he asked, eyes still on the road.
“I said I’m good.” My voice came out sharper than I meant it to.
He didn’t respond right away. Just sighed and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “Still,” he muttered, “would’ve been nice to know the judge had a bleeding heart. Didn’t peg him for the type.”
“He wasn’t,” I replied.
That got him to glance over, a flicker of curiosity in his expression.
“He was doing it for her,” I added, keeping my gaze fixed on the rain-slick road ahead. “That’s all.”
Another pause settled in.
“You think the story about her kid’s true?” he asked after a moment.
I didn’t answer. Because the truth was, I didn’t know. And part of me didn’t want to.
Sashko exhaled. “You know…” he said, surprising me. “I’ve seen some shit. We both have. But this?” He glanced over. “If it’s true… if Sokolov’s got his hands in that… kids?”
He shook his head. “That’s fucked. I mean… I didn’t even know something like that was on the table.”
“Christ,” he muttered. “I’ve got a kid. Little girl. She’s not even two.”
His lips flattened into a hard line. “I take this job so I can feed her. Keep a roof over her head. But if it turns out I’ve been protecting the kind of bastards who’d take someone like her—” He broke off again, knuckles whitening around the steering wheel. “I don’t know, man. That’s a line. That’s a fucking line.”
This was more than I’d ever heard him say, and it hit harder than I expected. I stayed quiet, letting his words settle in the thick air between us, because the truth was, he wasn’t wrong. And as much as I wanted to believe I’d grown numb to all of this, maybe I wasn’t as far gone as I thought.
I had done terrible things. I’d hurt people—some who deserved it, some who didn’t. But there were lines I had never crossed, and children were one of them. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Whatever else I was, I wasn’t that.
Yes, we were killers. Enforcers. Broken men trained to follow orders and silence questions. Monsters, in many ways. But now it felt like we were brushing against something even worse, something more depraved than anything I’d allowed myself to consider. And the part that chilled me most was the possibility that we might have been helping those things all along. Without even knowing.
