“Everything she said. It’s true. He’s been kidnapping kids. Selling them. U.S., Europe—whoever’s paying. It’s all here.”
Sashko stared like it might explode.
“You sure it’s her?”
“You think I wouldn’t know my own blood?”
We sat in silence, the fridge humming in the background, the ashtray overflowing, our shot glasses empty again.
Then he poured two more shots. We didn’t clink glasses. Just drank.
“There’s a limit even for me,” he muttered, quieter now. “This is that limit. I’m standing with you—no question.”
“You serious?”
“Dead fucking serious. And guess what? We’re not alone. Plenty of guys under Pakhan, they got kids. They still got scraps of conscience buried somewhere. If they see this? They’ll turn.”
He leaned in like we were planning a heist.
“We’ll build something. A real fucking army.”
I gave him a look. “An army of drunks.”
“Exactly. Dangerous as fuck. Belligerent, broke, and high on vengeance. No one’s scarier than pissed-off men with nothing left to lose.”
We laughed again—the kind of laughter that hurt your ribs and made your eyes water. It spilled out in ragged bursts, bitter and wild and laced with something close to madness.
“We’re gonna end him,” I said. “One way or another.”
“I’ll stand behind you,” he said, tapping the table like a sacred oath. “You’re cold as fuck, Reaper, but people will follow you. Even if it’s straight to hell.”
“You’re fucked in the head,” I muttered.
“And you’re my fucking brother,” he shot back, grabbing the back of my neck again and knocking our heads together with a solid thud. “You hear me? You and me. Till the end.”
“Jesus, you’re dramatic when you’re drunk.”
“Drunk? This is clarity, suka.”
And we poured another round.
The morning hit slow and bitter, like poison settling in the blood. My mouth tasted like smoke and regret, dry as ash. My head throbbed as if something industrial had taken up residence inside it—a slow, merciless pounding that reminded me I was still alive. Sashko was passed out on the couch, snoring like a war crime. His limbs sprawled across the cushions, mouth open, one foot still wearing a shoe like he’d lost the battle with gravity halfway through taking it off. Empty glasses littered the table between us, surrounded by the graveyard of cigarette buttsin an overflowing ashtray. Burn marks dotted the wood. The air reeked of stale liquor and something else—something heavier.
I sat in the living room, elbows on my knees, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers. The folder was back in my lap. I hadn’t even realized I’d picked it up again. My eyes burned as I stared down at it—creased pages, smeared ink, fingerprints like bruises. The same fucking list.
All those children.
A six-year-old from Odesa. An eight-year-old from Lviv. Tiny photos were attached to a few, but most didn’t even have that. Just sterile data, printed in tight, impersonal columns. Sold like livestock. Tracked like shipments.
Pakhan didn’t just approve of this. He built it. Designed it. This wasn’t one rotten deal he’d looked the other way on. This was infrastructure. Organized. Catalogued. Monetized. He probably laughed while counting the cash, drinking something aged and imported, toasting to another fucking milestone.
I dragged from the cigarette again, ash tumbling onto my thigh. My jaw still ached from how hard I’d clenched it last night. I’d nearly walked into that mansion like an executioner without a plan. Gun in hand, eyes blind with rage. If Sashko hadn’t stopped me, I might’ve done something irreversible.
I knew I’d acted recklessly—stupidly—and had come close to getting myself killed. But the second I saw her name, printed on that page like any other, something inside me fractured. The part of me that calculated, that survived by shutting off everything human—it just stopped working. All that was left was fire.
I stared at the folder again. The paper trembled between my fingers, my pulse hadn’t slowed since last night.
But this couldn’t be about emotion. Not anymore.
