Page 4

The gravel crunches under my boots like bone being ground to dust.

I step out of the SUV, the door shutting behind me with a dull thud that seems to echo through the trees. The air is colder out here—sharper, cleaner—but beneath it lingers the copper tang of blood, cut faintly by sweat and damp earth. A light flickers from inside the farmhouse ahead, seeping through cracked windowpanes like a warning.

The place is isolated. Perfect for what we needed—quiet, no neighbors, just thick woods pressing in from all sides. But I can feel the rot under the floorboards before I even cross the threshold.

Boris waits near the front porch, arms folded, jacket undone despite the chill. His face is tight, unreadable. That alone tells me it’s worse than expected.

“He’s inside,” he says simply. “Still alive.”

I push the door open.

The smell hits harder once I’m in. Stale wood, mildew, old fabric soaked with sweat—and beneath it all, the iron-rich scent of blood. The room’s dim, lit only by a single hanging bulb that sways slightly, casting shadows that ripple across the peeling wallpaper and sagging ceiling.

Yuri lies on a stained mattress on the floor, limbs splayed awkwardly, shirt cut open around the thigh. His face is gray with pain, soaked in sweat, jaw slack. The wound we gave him—just a clean shot through the muscle—is anything but clean now. The gauze tied around it is dark with blood, already seeping through. Too much blood.

Two men crouch nearby. Low-level muscle. Not medics, not even close.

One’s got a hand pressed over the dressing, the other clutches a bottle of vodka like it’s medical-grade antiseptic. Neither one looks up when I enter.

“Report,” I snap.

The man closest to me flinches, then straightens quickly. “He’s fading fast. We stopped the bleeding at first, but then it started again. He’s burning up. We tried ice, vodka, whatever we had, but—”

“You tried vodka?”

He swallows. “It was all we had.”

I walk slowly toward the mattress, eyes on Yuri’s leg. The bandage is soaked through and tied too tight in one place, too loose in another. No stitches. No antibiotic. No skill. Just panic and pressure.

I look down at him—this man who once sat beside me in meetings, who toasted with me in dark bars, who shared my trust like it was his right. Now he’s pale and shaking, his body sagging into the mattress like something already halfway dead.

My jaw clenches.

“You had one job,” I mutter to the men, not bothering to raise my voice. “Keep him breathing. Long enough to talk.”

“We tried,” one of them says quickly. “We’ve been here all night—”

“Get out.”

The words land like a blow. Neither argues. They scramble out of the room without looking back.

I stand there for a moment in the silence they leave behind, the bulb humming overhead, Yuri’s breath rasping shallow and uneven.

Boris steps inside after a moment, closes the door behind him. “He’s not going to make it to morning without a real doctor.”

“I know.”

“I made the call,” he adds, voice low. “Like you asked.”

I turn to him slowly. “And?”

“She’s en route.”

I nod once. The only thing to do.

Yuri shifts, groaning softly—half conscious, his head rolling weakly toward me. His eyes flicker open. They’re dull. Clouded. There’s a flicker of recognition there. Fear?

He tries to speak.

I crouch beside the mattress, resting my forearm on one knee. “You’re not dead yet.”

His mouth works around the word, but only a faint rasp comes out.

“You’ll talk when you can,” I murmur. “When you do, it had better be important.”

His body shudders, and the movement jolts fresh blood from the wound. It seeps through the already saturated gauze, blooming dark and fast.

He’s running out of time.

I stand and look to Boris. “When the doctor gets here,” I say, voice cold and even, “she keeps him alive. Long enough to confess everything. If he dies before that, I don’t care how talented she is—she’ll follow him into the grave.”

Boris nods once.

I walk to the far wall and light a cigarette with steady fingers, watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling as Yuri moans behind me. There’s a clock ticking somewhere. A soft, rhythmic pulse.

I exhale and let the silence stretch.

The doctor’s coming. Let’s see what she’s made of.

The sky overhead is thick and black, the stars obscured behind a layer of low-hanging clouds. Somewhere out in the woods, an owl calls out—sharp, distant, uncaring. The cold settles into my shoulders, seeping through the wool of my coat, but I don’t move to adjust it.

The two men I sent out stand near the porch, smoking in nervous silence. They straighten when they see me coming, the older one—Kostya, I think—dropping his cigarette and crushing it beneath his boot like it’ll make a difference.

I stop just short of them.

“You had one job,” I say, my voice low and level. “Keep him alive.”

Kostya swallows. The younger one, lanky and jittery, shifts from foot to foot like he’s deciding whether to speak or stay silent.

He chooses wrong. “We’re not doctors, Boss,” he blurts out. “You told us to hold him till help came, but you didn’t leave us anything. No meds, no gauze, no—”

I draw my gun and shoot him in the face.

The report is deafening in the quiet clearing. The sound ricochets off the trees, cracks through the cold like a thunderclap.

The kid crumples where he stands, half of his head gone, collapsing into a heap of limbs and slack muscle. Blood splatters the ground, warm and sudden, pooling fast against gravel.

Kostya doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t flinch. Just stares straight ahead like if he doesn’t move, maybe he won’t be next.

“You think I care what you are?” I ask, turning my gaze to him. “I don’t pay you to make excuses. I pay you to carry out orders. If I tell you to keep someone breathing, you keep them breathing. You crawl to the nearest pharmacy, you steal a medic from a street clinic, you do something other than sit on your ass with vodka and rags.”

He nods, once. It’s stiff. Controlled. “Understood.”

I stare at him for another few seconds, weighing whether that fear in his eyes is the kind that keeps a man useful—or the kind that makes him useless.

For now, he stays alive.

“Clean this up,” I say, gesturing at the body. “Bury him deep. I don’t want anything left to find.”

“Yes, sir.”

I turn back toward the house, already pulling another cigarette from the inside of my coat. My gloves are slick with blood; I peel them off and drop them on the steps as I climb them, lighting the smoke with steady fingers.

The smoke doesn’t clear the stench.

Inside, the air still reeks of sweat, infection, and stale wood. Yuri’s low moans drift through the cracked door behind me like a dying animal. He’s not dead. Not yet. But he’s dancing on the edge, and I don’t have time for the slow shuffle toward death.

There’s someone out there. Someone who thought Yuri was stupid enough to trade our secrets and live long enough to profit. Someone feeding him orders. Names. Targets.

Whoever that is, they’re still out there, thinking they’ve gotten away with it.

I flick ash onto the floorboards and take a long drag.

They’re wrong. Yuri will talk. He’ll scream if he has to. He’ll bleed every last secret into my hands if it kills him.

I step back into the house with purpose, the door creaking shut behind me. The bulb above Yuri flickers weakly, casting twitching shadows across the floorboards. He’s still conscious—barely. His face is drained of color, mouth slack, one arm twitching like his body’s trying to fight its own collapse. I stare at him for a moment, breathing in the decay, the sweat, the sharp tang of blood soaking into the mattress beneath him.

This is what betrayal looks like. Soft, pathetic, dying.

Boris leans against the wall near the window, arms crossed, but he straightens when I enter.

“He’s getting worse.”

“No shit.”

I walk toward Yuri’s body and crouch beside him. “Look at me,” I say, voice low but cutting.

His eyelids flutter, lashes crusted with sweat. He doesn’t respond.

I slap him. Not hard, just enough to jolt him, and his eyes snap open.

“Still in there?” I murmur, watching the panic spark briefly in the dullness of his gaze.

He tries to speak. Nothing comes out but a croaked breath.

“You’re not dying yet,” I say, voice level. “Not until I know every name. Every deal. Every fuckup you sold us out for.”

A tear slips down the side of his face.

I reach into my coat and pull out the knife I always carry—thin, surgical, not for combat but for statements.

I press the flat of the blade against his cheek.

“Do you know how many of my men are dead because of you?” I ask, letting the metal kiss his skin, letting him feel the chill. “They died not knowing why their safe houses weren’t safe anymore. Not knowing how the Italians got our drop points. They died with bullets in their throats while you were whispering into someone else’s phone.”

His breathing quickens. Blood bubbles at the edge of his mouth.

“Now you’re going to stay alive,” I whisper. “You’re going to bleed for me. Not out. Not yet. Not until every name falls from your mouth like a confession.”

I pull the blade away and wipe it on the mattress, then stand.

Boris watches me with the kind of silence that comes from long years of knowing how far I’ll go. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t need to.

“He’s not going to last much longer,” he says.

“He will.” I glance toward the window. “When the doctor gets here, she’ll patch him up enough to talk.”

“What about afterward?”

I look at him. “That entirely depends on Yuri here.”

There’s a beat of silence, filled only by Yuri’s ragged breath and the wind groaning against the house.

Then—headlights cut through the woods. They flash once across the window, high and clean, bouncing off tree trunks and the battered siding of the farmhouse.

Boris straightens. “That’s them.”

I nod once.

He’s out the door in seconds, boots heavy against the porch. I follow slower, the cigarette now burned down to the filter. I flick it into the grass as the car doors open.

Two of my men step out. Neither meets my eyes. I already know why.

The back door of the SUV swings open.

She’s crumpled on the back seat. Curled inward like her body tried to protect itself from what was coming. Still dressed in her coat, hair a tangled halo against the upholstery. Her face is slack, unconscious.

I stare down at her for a long moment. The doctor. The one Boris found.

Not one of ours. Not trained, not vetted. Just stolen.

“Alive?” I ask without looking away.

Boris steps closer. “Breathing. Sedated. Didn’t fight much.”

“She’ll be pissed when she wakes up, I bet.”

I reach forward and press two fingers to her throat—pulse steady, strong. Her skin is warm. She’s young. Not the kind of person who ends up out here unless someone drags her in by force.

I already know how this will go. She’ll wake in a strange house, tied up, blood in the air. She’ll see Yuri—see the wound, the infection—and she’ll want to fix it. That instinct’s why she’s here. It’s what I’m counting on.

“Get her inside,” I say. “Now.”

Boris nods, moves without hesitation. He lifts her with practiced strength, cradling her like something fragile. I turn back toward the house, already issuing orders.

“Put her in the side room. Tie her to the chair. Not too tight—just enough she won’t go anywhere.” I pause on the porch, hand resting on the frame as Boris carries her past me. “She wakes up,” I murmur, “I want her afraid.”

Then I go inside.