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ROLAN

The call comes at three in the morning, yanking me from the restless sleep that has become my constant companion since Nikolai returned home. Viktor's voice cuts through the darkness like broken glass.

"We found Pyotr Morozov, Boss. He's alive, but barely."

I'm already reaching for my clothes before he finishes speaking. The cold December air bites through the windows of my study as I pace, listening to Viktor's report. My bare feet are silent against the marble floor, but my heart pounds like a war drum.

"Where?" The single word carries all my fury, all my desperate need to finally, finally give Anya something instead of taking from her. Pyotr has been missing one week without a trace, and I've had nothing but disappointing news to present to my wife every time she's asked.

"Warehouse district, sector seven. Tied to those Zharov loyalists we've been tracking. Surveillance picked up chatter two hours ago—they're holding him as punishment for what they call 'interfering with the boy's abduction.' They plan to finish what they started, Boss. Tonight."

The rage that fills me is different from the calculated fury I've lived with for years. This is primal, protective, something that claws at my chest and demands blood. They want to hurt her family. They want to hurt what belongs to me, and I thought they learned their fucking lesson the first time. If they think they'll escape this, they're wrong, and if they think I won't go as hard on them for Pyotr's life as I did my son’s, they're doubly wrong.

"How many men?"

"Three confirmed, possibly four. The warehouse is isolated, single entry point, minimal security. They're not expecting company."

"They're about to get it." I'm already pulling on my tactical vest, checking the magazine in my Glock. "Assemble the strike team. I want Renat, Misha, and Stepan in full gear. We leave in ten minutes."

Anya watches me from the window of our room with a hollow look in her eyes—not the same forlorn expression I'm told she had while Nikolai was missing, but almost as bad. I promised her to protect what she cares about, and until now, I've had no news to even go on. But now I get even. Now I finish this so she can rest easily for the first time in six years.

The drive through Moscow's empty streets gives me too much time to think. I stare out at the city I've conquered, the empire I've built brick by bloody brick, and all I can see is Anya's face when she realizes her father is gone. The way her shoulders curved inward when she thought no one was watching, the hollow look in her eyes that I put there with my own hands.

I've taken so much from her. Her freedom, her choices, her peace. I've caged her like a beautiful bird and convinced myself it was love. But this—saving her father—this is something I can give back.

Viktor sits beside me in the passenger seat, his fingers drumming nervously against his thigh. "Boss, what if it's a trap? The Zharovs have been quiet lately. Too quiet."

"Then we spring it." I check my weapon one more time, the familiar weight of steel grounding me. "But if there's even a chance that old man is alive in there, we're going in."

The warehouse looms ahead like a concrete tomb, its broken windows staring down at us like dead eyes. We have the lights cut two blocks away and proceed on foot, our boots silent against the cracked cement.

Misha takes point, his massive frame moving with surprising grace as he signals the all-clear with two fingers darting in the direction of the door. Through the grimy windows, we can see movement inside. Shadows dancing against harsh fluorescent lighting. The murmur of voices is casual and unconcerned.

They don't know death is coming for them tonight.

I peer through a crack in the boarded-up window and my blood turns to ice. There, in the corner of the warehouse like discarded trash, sits Pyotr Morozov. He's tied to a metal chair, his head lolling forward, silver hair matted with blood. His clothes are torn, his face a map of bruises, but his chest rises and falls with shallow breaths.

They have him gagged and it looks like he's barely breathing. I see a car battery and a bucket of water nearby. So they've been torturing him—probably for information about me, which he wouldn't be able to give them.

He's alive. Barely, but alive.

Two men stand near him, one counting a stack of cash like he's doing nothing more complicated than buying groceries. The other is speaking rapid Russian into a cell phone. A third figure lurks in the shadows by a stack of crates, smoking a cigarette that glows like a tiny ember in the darkness.

"Yes, the old bastard is still breathing," the man on the phone is saying. "We'll finish it tonight and dump the body in the river. No one will find him."

The rage that fills me is beyond description. It's molten steel in my veins, a roaring furnace that threatens to consume everything in its path. These animals dare to touch what belongs to me. They dare to hurt Anya's family.

I signal to my men, fingers moving in the silent language we've perfected over years of violence. Misha and Renat circle around to the back entrance. Stepan takes position by the loading dock. Viktor stays with me.

When I give the signal—a sharp whistle that cuts through the night air—all hell breaks loose.

The warehouse explodes into chaos. Misha kicks in the back door just as Viktor and I breach the front, our weapons raised, death singing in our hands. The man counting money spins toward us, his eyes wide with shock, but he's too slow. Viktor's bullet catches him center mass, and he crumples like a broken doll.

The one on the phone tries to run, screaming something about reinforcements, but Stepan is there to greet him with cold steel. The cigarette smoker has better reflexes—he dives behind the crates and returns fire, his muzzle flashes strobing in the darkness.

"Take him alive if possible," I shout over the gunfire, but even as the words leave my mouth, I know it won't happen. These men signed their death warrants the moment they touched Anya's father.