I couldn’t kill Pakhan yet. Not until I had every detail. Every connection. Who was involved, who was buying, whowas looking the other way. The money trails. The logistics. The fucking diplomats and businessmen pretending their hands were clean.
More than anything, I needed to know where Mila was. Whether she was even alive. I doubted it; the odds were brutal. Twenty years had passed since she was taken. Yet if fate had spared her, I had to know. Needed to look her in the eye, to prove she was real. She was my sister. My blood. And if she was still out there, nothing would keep me from her.
So I would wait. I would listen. I would move through the shadows with purpose.
And when the time finally came, I would kill him.
There would be no quick death. No clean bullet while he slept, oblivious in his silk sheets. I could already picture it—what I’d do to him. I would unleash everything the Reaper had ever learned about pain. With a cruelty calibrated for every child he ever stole, every scream he ignored. And in the end, when his body was broken and his soul begging for release, the last thing he would see would be Mila’s face—her image carved into his mind—before I shut off his light for good.
I didn’t care if I had to do it alone, with no allies and no backup. Retribution wouldn’t be a fleeting strike. It would be something carved into him—bone deep and permanent. And he wouldn’t be the only one. Every man who played a part in this rot would fall. One by one.
Every bastard who signed a form, who drove a van, who looked away while a child screamed—they’d all pay. Burned out of this world like the rats they were. I’d make them understand what it meant to destroy something innocent.
I glanced over at Sashko again. Still drooling into the pillow, twitching like he was arguing with someone in a dream. Loyal bastard. Loyal enough to put his life between me and my ownrage.Idiot. Brother. The only one who saw me at my worst and didn’t run. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t as alone as I thought.
And Kira… maybe the cruelest twist of all. That I’d fall for the daughter of the man who’d engineered my destruction.Who set the fire that scorched everything good out of me. But she wasn’t him. She was everything he wasn’t. And no matter how twisted this got, I wasn’t giving her up.She didn’t know what he did to me. And I wasn’t going to bury her with his crimes.
Even thoughI didn’t know where she stood, not really.
She hated him. Of course she did. But hate alone doesn’t mean she’d let me kill him. Maybe she still hoped for some kind of love. Some final chance at redemption. Maybe, when his blood started spilling, she’d panic. Scream. Try to save him. And that scared the shit out of me—because I wouldn’t stop. Not for her. Not for anyone.
Then came the thought of Felix.Fucking snake.
I saw his eyes, the way they crawled over her like she was a gift wrapped just for him.He’ll choke on that fantasy. I’d tear his throat out before I let him breathe the same air as her.
I blew out another drag of smoke and watched it twist toward the ceiling.
War between Pakhan and Moscow had once seemed like the worst-case scenario—a bloodbath with no end, a chaos too sprawling to contain. A month ago, I’d have done anything to avoid it. I knew how fast that kind of fire spread, how deep it burned. But now, I saw it for what it could be.
An opportunity.
If I played it right—if I used the tension, the politics, the suspicion—I could burn him from both ends. Turn his enemies into my weapons. Let the fire swallow him whole.
I’d find Mila.
I’d make him suffer.
And when it was done, it wouldn’t be his legacy that lived on.
It would be mine.
By the time evening descended, I stood outside Pakhan’s estate with a fresh cigarette smoldering between my lips and a new sense of purpose thrumming beneath my skin.
He’d summoned me—claimed there was a job that needed my attention. Something I had to handle. But this time, I wasn’t just going to kiss his ring and play the obedient pit bull. This time, I had a different agenda. I was going to observe. To calculate.
I needed to see everything.
The guards. The cameras. The entry and exit points. The rhythm of the patrols. The layout I’d once known like the back of my hand, now viewed through a new lens. I hadn’t paid attention before—I’d never needed to. I used to stride into that house like I owned it, familiar with every hallway, every imported bottle on every shelf. But now, I had to relearn it. I had to look at everything as if for the first time, with eyes sharpened by the promise of war.
I dressed in black—cargo pants, a hoodie, and boots. The fabric was thick, the pockets deep. The blade went into one side, the gun into the other. I didn’t plan on blood tonight, but planning had nothing to do with how things usually ended.
When I reached the estate, the gates opened smoothly. No delays. The guards didn’t ask questions. They never did. Somefeared me more than they feared Pakhan—and they were right to.
Still, I watched them closely. Counted them. Took note of who was posted where. Spotted new faces. Looked for the nervous ones. The ones who might hesitate. The ones who might switch sides when it mattered.
Some of them might join me. Others would need to be eliminated.
I recorded every detail in my mind: the gate rotation, the camera placements, the spots where shadows pooled thick and undisturbed. The back exit by the garages had a weak chain-link and two bored guards who never once glanced over their shoulders.
