Page 7

ROMAN

T his mission was risky.

I was unarmed, outnumbered, and worse—I didn’t know my enemy.

Which meant it was going to be fun.

Adrenaline surged through my veins, making me twitchy.

Time was short. I had to extract Pavel—fast and quiet.

No backup. No margin for error.

If it were only me? Fine.

But if I fucked this up, it wouldn’t just be my life on the line.

Pavel was counting on me to get him out and back to his wife and child.

We needed to vanish before anyone realized we were gone. If shots were fired, we were both dead.

“No pressure,” Kostya had said earlier when I told him the plan.

Fuck that.

Give me pressure. Stack the odds. Raise the stakes.

That was where I thrived.

I expected these men to be sloppy.

But I wasn’t prepared for how pathetic they actually were—undisciplined, unfocused, easily manipulated.

The air inside the warehouse stank of cigarette smoke, stale beer, and whatever narcotic they’d laced the skunk weed with. Like someone tried to mask the stench of a corpse with drugstore potpourri.

If anyone under my command ever behaved like this, they’d be executed.

Deliberately. Visibly. As a warning to the rest.

Men like this weren’t assets. They were liabilities—and I was going to use that.

It should’ve taken days to gain their trust. Weeks.

Instead, I met Mateo at an underground fight club and had a job within the hour.

Fifteen minutes of booze and bullshit was all it took tonight before they were spilling everything the second Zoya left the floor.

These men didn’t respect her.

And that was dangerous.

Not every boss starts with a legacy name—I got that.

But when you were in charge, you earned loyalty with money, fear, or pain.

Zoya thought she’d bought theirs.

She was wrong.

And it was going to get her killed.

But that wasn’t my problem.

My problem was the two-hundred-pound Russian in the basement with a broken femur.

I’d planned for him to sneak out once the coast was clear—until Mateo got high and decided to work out his aggression by turning Pavel into a punching bag.

And snapping something. Pavel roared.

No one escaped unnoticed with a shattered leg.

Pavel was tough, but he wasn’t Jesus.

Thankfully, three bottles of tequila and a few rounds of whatever poison they were smoking had most of them half dead on their feet.

“Tell me something,” I said, clapping the back of the man next to me as I poured another shot. “Why follow the ice queen?”

He yawned and blinked. “Because she has the money. For now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our boss needs capital. He told us to play along. Once he has her cash, we off the bitch and be done with it.”

“After we take turns breaking her in first,” another man added with a sick grin.

He wasn’t joking.

He said it like he was talking about a stolen car—like she wasn’t even human.

I tightened my grip on the bottle but kept my voice casual. “And you’re cool with taking orders from a woman?”

“Fuck no.” The first guy snorted. “She wants to boss me around, she better be on her knees with dinner in the oven.”

They laughed. Like it was normal.

Like any of it was funny.

“She thinks she’s in charge, but we only listen to Mateo. He plays along, but we do whatever the real boss says. Sometimes we follow her orders. Sometimes we just... have our own fun.”

His voice drifted off. I looked over and realized he was staring—mesmerized—at the cracked paint on the wall.

Jesus. This guy didn’t have two brain cells to rub together.

“They look like lightning,” he said, giggling like a high-pitched hyena.

I needed him focused.

“Hey.” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “What do you mean you don’t always do what she says?”

He blinked and came back to me. “Like, she said grab the Russian, but do it quiet. Wanted it to look like he ran. No witnesses.”

“She didn’t want the girl?”

“Nope. Said he had to be alone. That’s smart, right? Keep the Ivanovs confused.”

“But he wasn’t alone.”

“Mateo got tired of waiting. Lied to her. We snatched the big guy and left the bitch.”

“You think that was a mistake?” I asked, watching his expression shift.

“Yeah,” he said, glassy-eyed. “Would’ve been better to keep her. A little reward. Tie her up, take turns fucking the bitch. Way more fun than leaving her for the wolves.”

My stomach turned.

Not because I was shocked; I wasn’t.

But because this was the kind of filth we were dealing with. Not soldiers. Not mafia.

Predators in sweat-stained clothes, pretending to be men.

He kept rambling, his speech gradually slowing. “There was another guy, though. We didn’t plan for him. Don’t know who the fuck he was. Barely made it…out myself. If I find him…”

I let him nod off.

Out cold like most of the warehouse.

Mateo slumped in a chair, a needle and rubber tie abandoned in front of him.

A few others had passed out with their heads on the table.

One guy sat on the floor singing off-key about Lola the showgirl, swaying like a tree in the wind.

Perfect.

Time to move.

When I got back downstairs, Pavel had cut himself free.

He was hunched over the table, sweat-soaked, both hands bracing his weight on his one good leg.

“You need help, cousin?” I asked.

“You hit like a bitch,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

I smiled. “Then you bleed like one.”

He snorted and motioned for me to come help.

I slipped under his arm and hoisted him up. Heavy bastard.

“How hard is this going to be?” he asked.

I grinned. “We’re walking right out the front door.”

“What? What about the men?”

“What men? I only saw bitches.”

He rolled his eyes. “Bitches with guns. And I might talk a big game, but I’m not actually bulletproof.”

“They’re drunk. High. Half can’t lift their heads. They’re not loyal to her. They’re loyal to Mateo.”

“And Mateo?”

“He’s got a needle in his arm and won’t be waking up anytime soon.”

Wishful thinking. But I’d take the odds.

Pavel let out a low whistle. “I feel like a loser for getting caught by these assholes.”

“Oh, you should.” I grinned. “I’m never letting you live this down. This is funeral-speech material.”

“Not if I kill you first.”

We made our way through the halls, slow but steady. Pavel still had enough awareness to carry a gun and check corners, but we both knew if a single shot was fired, this warehouse would light up like a war zone.

I wasn’t twenty-two anymore.

I had no interest in dragging my cousin with one arm and firing with the other.

That shit hurt.

Step by painful step, we reached the exit.

The second the cold night air hit my face, I finally took a full breath.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Damien said as Artem and Gregor took Pavel off my shoulder. “What took so long?”

“The tequila.”

“What?” Gregor asked.

“There were too many to fight. Pavel’s leg is busted. So I got them all drunk.”

“When you say drunk…”

“I mean fucking wasted. Skunk weed, tequila, maybe heroin. I’m not sure. Smelled like death and bad decisions.”

“You really aren’t getting that stink out of your clothes,” Mikhail muttered, holding his nose. “Just burn ‘em.”

“I’m not going with you.”

Gregor stepped forward. “Why not?”

“Because I lied when I said the girl’s motives didn’t matter. I’m not so sure now. I want to know why she took him. And what Los Infideles are really doing. They aren’t following her. Not really.”

“What are you saying?”

“How many of your men show up drunk and high on the job?”

“None. Ever,” Gregor said.

“Why?”

“Because they know better. Most respect me. The rest fear me.”

I pointed at him. “Exactly. Zoya doesn’t have either. They’re not here for her. They’re here for something else. And so is she. Two enemies teaming up? I want them both. I’m going to burn this whole fucking organization to the ground.”

“Wait—what is he saying?” Artem asked.

“I’m saying take Pavel home. Patch him up. I’m not finished here.”

I walked back toward the warehouse. My hand hovered over the brass handle.

Am I really doing this?

Walking straight into the fire, with no map and no way out.

If they figured out who I was before I finished…

They’d kill me.

Every step forward was a step deeper into enemy territory.

And for what?

For a girl who went after my family?

Did I feel bad for her?

Was there some part of me that wanted to protect her?

There was no way.

No.

This wasn’t about saving the little printsessa .

This was about protecting my family.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

She went after one of us.

That made her an enemy of all of us.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t stop thinking about the way her voice cut through a room, or the defiant tilt of her chin when she looked me in the eye.

Didn’t matter that something happened inside me the moment she touched me with the knife, something sharp and electric and completely unwelcome.

She was a threat.

A distraction.

A fucking problem.

And that was what I did for my family. Solved problems.

I took a breath. Let the cold air center me.

Then I stepped inside.