Maybe someday soon, I’ll find the courage to tell him.
For now, another number is blocked, and I hope the silence holds until morning.
Chapter 10 - Alexey
Fadir’s counter-move is predictable, desperate, and poorly executed.
It makes me laugh.
The report comes in just after midnight. Two of my clubs, only mid-tier operations on the east side, have been hit by a handful of hired thugs. Broken bottles, smashed furniture, a couple of bouncers roughed up, but nothing fatal.
No shots fired. The message is obvious.
Fadir is trying to look strong, to show he can still bite back even as his suppliers pull away and his public image starts to fray. He thinks a little noise and property damage will make him appear dangerous again.
It only makes him look sloppy.
I sit at the marble island in the penthouse, laptop open, reviewing the security footage on a split screen while the gas fireplace casts a low, steady glow across the room. The city lights glitter beyond the windows, indifferent to the small war playing out in the shadows. I don’t raise my voice. I don’t call for immediate retaliation. That isn’t how this is done.
Instead, I begin precise cuts.
First, the financial pressure. I freeze three of his key accounts through backdoor access we’d established weeks ago, including one legitimate import business and two shell companies. Not enough to trigger alarms with the banks, just enough to make payrolls stutter and suppliers start asking questions.
Then the leaks: carefully chosen intel dropped into the right ears among his own people. Whispers that Fadir is losingcontrol, and how his “strong move” on the clubs is nothing but amateur theater.
I turn his suppliers against him, one by one, with anonymous tips about delayed payments, quality issues, and the growing risk of federal scrutiny.
Nothing dramatic. Just enough friction to make them hesitate, then withdraw.
The goal remains the same. It’s all about slow and painful erosion. Making him look weak and unreliable in front of the very men he needs to survive. Let his empire crumble brick by brick while he watches, powerless.
I am halfway through drafting the next leak when soft footsteps sound from the hallway.
Anja appears in the living area, still wearing the oversized t-shirt and a pair of jogging shorts she’d changed into after the art auction earlier that evening. Her hair is loose now, falling over one shoulder as she pads barefoot toward the island. She carries two mugs of tea into the quiet room.
“You’re still working,” she says, setting one mug beside my laptop. Not a question. Her eyes flick to the screen, taking in the footage and the open ledgers without hesitation.
“Fadir made a move tonight. Weak. Predictable. We respond precisely.” I accept the tea with a nod.
She slides onto the stool across from me, pulling the second laptop closer. That’s the one loaded with the archive of emails she’d secretly copied from Fadir’s devices during their last tense weeks together. “Show me.”
Reaching across the island, I opened a bottle of Vodka and poured some into my tea.
We work side by side for the next two hours. The penthouse is silent except for the faint click of keys and the occasional sip of tea. Anja leans over the laptop, auburn-streaked strands slipping forward as she scrolls through the increasingly sloppy, desperate messages Fadir had sent in the months before everything unraveled.
Her insights come sharp and unfiltered.
“Look at the wording here,” she says, tapping the screen. “Three weeks ago, he was still cockywith ’secured new routes, and suppliers locked in.’ Now the language is shifting. Shorter sentences. More repetition of ‘handle it’ and ‘don’t question me.’ He’s panicking. See how he keeps mentioning Katya indirectly? He’s grasping, trying to make the personal angle work because the business side is slipping. And this one...” she highlights a paragraph ”...he uses the same phrase he used on me when he was gaslighting: ‘You’re overreacting.’ He’s losing control of the narrative even with his own people.”
Her fire is addictive in a cutthroat sort of way. I can appreciate it.
She isn’t just reading emails; she is dissecting the man, pulling apart the patterns of a predator who has once tried to cage her. Every observation tightens the noose another notch. I listen, committing the details to memory, already calculating how to weaponize the panic she has identified.
“Good eye,” I say simply, keeping my tone professional. No extra warmth. No lingering eye contact that could blur lines. “The repetition of control language confirms he’s feeling the pressure. We amplify it by leaking one of these phrases through a supposed insider. Make his own crew start questioning whether he’s still capable of leading.”
She nods, a small spark of satisfaction in her green eyes, before she banks it. We continue decoding, cross-referencing dates with the courier patterns she’d spotted on the surveillance drive. Her long hair falls over one shoulder again as she leans closer to the screen, and for a moment, I register how naturally she fits into these late-night strategy sessions.
The quiet rhythm of two minds working toward the same goal. The way the penthouse feels less empty with her presence across the island. The subtle shift in her posture is less guarded and more engaged.
