My stomach drops. He was going to marry her.
Alex — Yarina — was the currency chosen to seal the deal with the devil. Not because he knows her, not because she matters to him, simply because she serves a function. And because in our world, she was considered property, Koshkin's property, to be used as Nikita sees fit.
I stand at Pavel’s window in the dark with his contract in my hands and feel cold anger settle in my chest. Growing by the second.
All this time, he has been moving every piece toward a single outcome — replace me as Pakhan and secure his future.
I hold the folder in my hands and think about Alex in that alleyway. The way she’d said I was the most dangerous thing that had come near them in three years, and think about how little she really knew. Danger was coming for her with or without me in their lives.
The real danger to her and Evie had been sitting across from me in board meetings the entire time.
It was clear that Pavel was responsible for Mikhail’s death in more ways than one. He set him up. And I had accepted Pavel’s evidence against him — the communications, the account transfers, all of it carefully curated. But instead of acting on it like Pavel had wanted, I scheduled a board meeting to address it reasonably, which forced Pavel to make his move early.
I would have given Mikhail the floor, let him address the accusations against him. After all, he has given me nothing but his loyalty since I became Pakhan. Pavel couldn’t allow that.
Pavel didn’t shoot him because he was a traitor. He shot him to prevent himself from being revealed as the traitor.
“I got what we came for,” I tell David quietly. “Put everything back the way we found it. Leave no trace.”
I put the folder back exactly as I found it. David closes the safe and carefully replaces the painting. Once the office is put back in order, we move back through the dark house and out into the night with four minutes to spare. Neither of us speaks a word until we are outside. Even then, it was brief and quiet. David doesn’t ask, and I don’t divulge what I’ve discovered until it is relevant to the conversation.
When we got back to the car that David had carefully hidden in the alleyway behind Pavel’s place, my thoughts wandered to my older brother, Boris, as we drove away.
Four years older than me, Boris was supposed to take over. He had been prepared since childhood, while I learned everythingI could in his shadow. Ignorance in this world is a liability that I have never been willing to carry. He died when I was twenty-six, and I took on what he left behind. I spent the next seven years rebuilding something he would be proud of, something that would withstand the test of time.
I didn’t grieve properly until four years after his death, when I finally deemed the organization stable enough to afford the mental break. By year seven, everything had become functional like a well-oiled machine.
The Koshkins were among the families who attempted to take my organization by force during that process. They never accepted me as Pakhan. They accepted Boris because he was firstborn, and when he died, they saw it as the opening for a future opportunity. Pavel knows that, and he has used it to his advantage.
He grew up in this world beside us. Has sat across from me for the past seven years, called me Pakhan, shaken my hand, and watched my back. Just to betray me at the first opportunity. And he has given the Koshkins exactly what they needed: someone inside my organization willing to dismantle it from within.
The car moves through the dark city, I watch it out the window, and think of the contents of that folder, and of the woman who has spent thirty-seven months building a life outside of the one she was born into. Hiding from the same people who want me gone. I think about Evie’s hands and the scars they carry— what it would have required to put them there. The cold in my chestgrows beyond anger, shaping into fuel that will wait much longer to ignite.
I made two decisions then. The first is to organize a board meeting. Tomorrow. With every captain at hand, every allied family, and everyone who has a vote. I’ll send the call out first thing, so nobody has time to prepare to double-cross me before they walk through the door.
The second is that nobody— not Pavel, not Koshkin’s men, and certainly no one else — is going to touch Alex or Evie.
“Call everyone in,” I tell David. “Tonight. All of them.”
With the press of a few buttons, he is already dialing.
“Vsyo,” he says quietly.
I go back to looking out the window at the city, and think about what is coming. What Pavel’s face will look like when he walks through that door and understands that I know everything. The fear he will feel.
I have never been less afraid of anything in my life.
Chapter Eighteen
Alex
My phone rings at 8:12 a.m., and I’m in the kitchen making coffee. Evie is still asleep. Vera is in the living room and perks up at the sound. Glancing my way as I answer it.
“Good morning, Victor.” I say loud enough for her to hear me.
“Good morning,” he says, sounding surprised. “You’re awfully awake already.”
“I’ve been awake since five.”
