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“Good afternoon, sir. Can you talk now?”

My phone is on speaker, sitting on the desk in my new home office.

I pace up and down in front of the desk. Looking around the office, I can’t help but be slightly annoyed by the boxes that haven’t been unpacked yet.

“Yes, you can go ahead, Ivan. What do you have to report today?”

Ivan is my inside man; he keeps a watchful eye on my enemy, Danil Balakin.

Danil is the entire reason I moved to Boston.

He murdered my whole family in cold blood. He left their lifeless, brutally tortured bodies on display in our family home so that I could discover the carnage myself. Balakin and I did some business around five years ago, and it didn’t go as well as we had both hoped. He thought I’d double-crossed him, when actually, there were just some poor decisions that were made on both our parts.

As revenge, he murdered the people I loved most in this world—my mother, my father and my little sister. But he didn’t just murder them. He tore them apart. The pain of their deaths is burned into my retinas, forever forged into my memory.

I can’t unsee what he did to them; no matter how hard I try to push it from my mind, every single time I close my eyes, I see them.

The red of their blood.

Their torn flesh.

Exposed bone.

The fear and pain frozen in their expressions.

I set the house on fire. I tried to give them peace by burning away everything that happened to them. I tried to remold their deaths into something more tolerable. But it didn’t work. I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. I set fire to my childhood memories, my mother’s art, my father’s antique book collection. I set fire to my sister's old vintage records and my family photograph albums. I burned it all away.

All that was left was gray ash and empty numbness.

“It’s more of the same, sir,” Ivan confirms. “Balakin has just returned from the Maldives. A month holiday, kicking his feet up, drinking the finest champagne and basically just living the high life. While he was there, he purchased a new yacht, and on his return to Boston his new Aston Martin DBS 770 Ultimate was delivered. Quite the impressive machine. And he has a custom paint job on it. He’s been back home for two days now, and he and his daughter have just been hanging around the house. They threw a party last night for close allies. The usual over-the-top style.

I sigh and rub my fingers against my eyes. “So, basically, more of the usual. He’s just enjoying his life, living in luxury and not having to deal with any consequences for what he did to my family?”

“Um—yes, sir, exactly that.”

Pulling my mouth tight, I let out an agitated sigh. “And the girl?”

“His daughter is out shopping right now. I imagine she will come back with more of those ridiculously overpriced things that she never wears. Her closet it full of designer items with the tags still on. Then I think she is going out for a lunch with Balakin after that. I can’t confirm it one hundred percent, it's just what I overheard this morning. I’ve emailed you the report on where she's gone and what she’s been doing lately.”

“She’s just being daddy’s little princess, splashing around with his credit cards and doing nothing valuable with her life. It should have been her that died. Not my little sister.”

Ivan is quiet on the other side of the phone.

I take a slow breath. There is no point in starting to think about my little sister now. I will get revenge for her life. I have to focus on my plan.

“Ok, Ivan. Anything else to report from the recent weeks?”

“I think I covered it all, sir. Mm. Apart from what I’ve told you, I think they have another holiday planned for next month. I’m still waiting to hear if it is a holiday or a business trip, but with the bookings I saw, it looks more like entertainment than anything else. Oh, and tomorrow night there is some event here at the house. The guest list looks high profile.”

“Fine. Thanks for the update. We’ll chat again soon, whenever you can get away for a bit. But you're still good there, right? Not in any danger?”

“No—they don’t suspect me. I’m good here. Remember, I got promoted two weeks ago to head of security. It’ll come in handy when we play out the next part of your plan.”

“Definitely. Nice job on that.”

I hang up the phone and stare at the blank screen for a moment. So much has happened in the last five years, but also so little, because I’ve had to be patient in carrying out my plot.

The first three years after the death of my family, I was a wreck. I couldn’t think straight. I could barely function.

My business suffered because my mind was always overwhelmed with grief and hate. It was only two years ago, when I finally decided on the best way to get revenge, that I started to be able to focus again.

I’ve been painfully impatient since then.

At first, I just wanted to torture him in the same way that he had tortured my family. But the idea brought me no satisfaction. It would have been a temporary pain for Balakin—short-lived, perhaps a few weeks at most. I want him to suffer for the rest of his life, the way he is forcing me to suffer. I want him to wake up each day and hate the moment when he opens his eyes because he realizes that his life is a nightmare.

That’s why I came up with my plan, and the reason I am here in Boston.

I am not going to touch a hair on that man’s head. He will be completely and utterly physically unharmed, but I will drag his mental and psychological well-being into the depth of hell.

With everything that I know about Balakin, I can confirm that he has one thing in his life that has meaning to him—his daughter.

She is a pampered, stuck-up snob of a princess. She is daddy’s little angel, and he is obsessed with her. She goes everywhere he goes, gets spoiled and doted on, and it’s clear to anyone who watches them that he adores her.

So I am going to take her away from him.

Sasha Balakin is going to be my pathway for destroying his life.

Now that I am here in Boston, I’m going to kidnap her, force her to marry me, and then spend every day of the rest of my life making her miserable, right in front of her father. He will have a front-row seat to his daughter's horror, and there will be nothing he can do about it.

Oh I know I could take her, torture her, kill her and lay her body out for her father to see—torn apart and displaying every moment of pain she had to go through—but that would be a temporary pain for Danil. He would have the relief of knowing that his pride and joy, his beautiful daughter, is no long in pain.

I don’t want that.

I want him to spend every day of the rest of his life worrying about what is happening to her on that day. What unimaginable things she is going through.

He can’t find peace. He can’t be allowed to have the peace of knowing his daughters torment has ended. Her continuous torment will be his torment for the rest of his life.

Once I came up with this plan, I worked with a single focus. I rebuilt my business, lifted myself up higher than I ever was, motivated by my own hatred of that man. I created an unstoppable force with the single goal of being his worst nightmare.

I wander out of my office toward the kitchen. I need coffee.

My shoulders are so tense lately. I know it is because I've finally moved into my new mansion in Boston—I'm so much closer to achieving my goals, but the move has made me even more agitated with impatience.

I want Sasha in my hands already. I want to get things going now that I’m here.

Walking past the empty rooms of my residence, I note more unpacked boxes.

The house staff are only starting tomorrow, and then it will be sorted out. For now I just need to ignore it as best I can. It’s only one more day.

The moving company at least set up my gym equipment on the top floor, so I can get a good workout in this afternoon. I don't want strangers going through my belongings, so I’d rather have my own trusted staff doing that.

I have very few people that I trust in my life.

Ivan is one of them.

My very limited house staff consists of my chef, my housekeeper, and my security team, who have all been with my family for over a decade.

I moved them and their families to Boston with me.

I walk into the kitchen and flick on the coffee machine.

It hisses softly as the water heats up, and I rinse the same mug I used earlier because I don’t care to scrounge around in the kitchen boxes for a fresh one.

I think I’ll go out in the morning tomorrow and let everyone else deal with this while I am not in the way; then, when I get back in the afternoon it’ll be done.

Coffee begins to shoot in a high-pressured stream into my mug, and the smell dances in the air, pulling my thoughts into some kind of order.

The next few days are going to be a bit tedious, but after that things will start happening quickly.

I stand out on the balcony, sipping at my coffee and reading through my emails.

The one that has my attention is Sasha Balakin’s schedule. She doesn’t go out much at night, but during the day she roams around shopping malls, attends really fancy lunches and a lot of her father’s events and meetings.

She’s obviously a socialite.

Empty-minded, pampered little bitch.

The photos of her that Ivan sent me are hard to look away from.

She’s gorgeous, in a classic sort of way. Her long blonde hair is perfectly waved over her shoulders, not one out of place. Her bright green eyes catch the light quite severely, and her rosy cheeks accent her porcelain skin.

But her beauty just makes me feel annoyed. She has everything. Money, looks, and all of daddy’s spoiling. Holidays, fancy cars and a dream life.

She doesn’t deserve any of it.

She and her father—I know who they are. They use people. Kill people. Do whatever it takes to feed their lavish lifestyles.

I toss the phone onto the table and stare out at the late afternoon sky. The sun will be setting soon, and the clouds have been tinted orange and pink. To anyone else, it would be a beautiful scene, but I’ve been so numb for so long that I can hardly appreciate beauty anymore.