Page 5

DIMITRI

Prison changes a man. Not all at once or in the way people think. It doesn't shatter you in some sudden burst of clarity. No, it's slower than that. Quieter. Like rust eating through steel or rot spreading beneath the surface of a polished floor.

You don't notice it until the walls start pressing in on you. Not the physical ones, but the kind built from silence and the echo of what you’ve lost.

I lean against the cold cement wall of my solitary cell, a thin stream of light slanting in through the small window cut high into the wall.

I haven’t seen the sun in full for days.

It just peeks through wire mesh or flashes through the reinforced glass during transfers.

But that light, pale, sterile, too weak to offer warmth, still finds a way to crawl over my bruised skin and into my bones.

Every movement hurts. My back aches where a guard's baton slammed into me last night.

It was “accidental,” he said. My jaw still throbs from the fist that broke the skin on day five.

My knuckles are raw from the fight I started on purpose.

Better to strike first than wait for the knife in your back.

But none of that compares to the real pain of being without Sandy. Every hour without her, every minute without her voice or the touch of her hand, eats away at me.

I don’t deserve her. But I'll die to protect her. And right now, death doesn’t seem like such a distant possibility.

I close my eyes, letting memories of her wash over me.

The curve of her smile in the morning light, the way her hair spilled across my chest as she slept, the fierce determination in her eyes when she told me she was pregnant.

Our child. My legacy. The thought of them both pulls at something deep inside my chest that I buried long ago when I first took the oath of the Bratva.

Hope.

In this concrete box, hope is a dangerous thing. It makes you soft and vulnerable. But for Sandy and our child, I'll risk it all.

The scrape of my fingernails against the rough wall keeps me grounded.

Seven days in this hole already feels like five years.

Time stretches and contracts without rhythm or reason.

The only constants are the meals shoved through the slot three times a day and the bruising rounds of “questioning” that come without warning.

I trace the lines of graffiti etched into the wall beside my cot. Names, dates, prayers, curses. The desperate marks of men who'd sat exactly where I sit now. Some made it out. Others didn't. I wonder which I will be.

Heavy boots echo down the corridor. I don’t move from the cot. You learn not to react unless there is a reason to. Half the time, it's some rookie guard swinging his authority around. The other half, it's a test. Today, it feels like neither.

The footsteps stop outside my cell. The small slot at the door slides open. Then, a voice, low and measured and unmistakably Russian, cuts through the quiet.

“Open it.”

The lock disengages with a loud mechanical clunk. The door creaks open, and the light from the hallway blinds me for a moment.

Then I see him. Aleksandr.

He steps inside like he owns the place. The walls don’t matter, and the grime of the prison can’t touch him. He wears his suit like a crown, his expression like a mask carved from ice.

“ Brat ,” he says.

“ Pakhan ,” I murmur, standing slowly. My ribs protest the movement, but I push through it. The pain is irrelevant. I won’t let him see me weak.

His eyes sweep over me, cataloging the damage. “You look like hell.”

“Yeah?” I rasp. “You should see the other guy.”

He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t even flinch. He just walks farther in and glances around the cell like he might order someone to have it burned down out of spite. When he finally turns back, the tension between us isn’t just about bruises and blood.

Aleksandr's jaw ticks. “Talk.”

I sit back down on the cot, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. “They sent a guy after me. Yard scuffle. Shiv to the throat if I hadn't seen it coming. He said Morozov gave the order. ‘You don't make it out,’ were his exact words.”

The memory flashes before me. The glint of metal, the burning slice across my cheek, the copper taste of blood filling my mouth.

I'd moved on instinct, years of training kicking in before my mind could even process the danger.

One moment, I was standing in the yard. The next, I was driving my attacker into the concrete wall, his makeshift blade clattering to the ground between us.

Aleksandr paces, eyes sharp, every movement precise. The kind of quiet fury that makes men piss themselves. “You kill him?”

“Almost. Left him breathing—barely. The guards stepped in too early.” I pause, licking the cracked corner of my lip. “They put me in solitary under the guise of protection. But you and I both know what that is—it's containment. It makes it easier next time.”

He curses under his breath in Russian. His accent deepens when he does that, and his mask slips just enough to show the man beneath.

“Andrei won't stop,” I continue. “He's not here for negotiation. He's here to destroy us from the inside out.”

His face doesn’t change, not at first. But I see the shift, the crack behind his eyes, that hint of worry no pakhan is allowed to show.

“The guards came after me, too. Two of them. They're on Morozov's payroll. I took care of them, but they haven't tried to kill me again. Not yet, anyway.”

I haven’t told Sandy about that. About the night they'd come for me.

“Special interrogation,” they called it.

How I'd disabled them both, dragged their unconscious bodies into a supply closet, and made it back to my cell before anyone realized what had happened. She doesn’t need to know how close I'd come to being another statistic, another body found hanging in a cell with a falsified report claiming suicide.

A long silence stretches between us. Aleksandr doesn’t speak or move. Then he sits on the bench against the opposite wall, his hands clasped in front of him, his elbows on his knees, mirroring my posture. It was the closest we've been to equals in a long time.

“I'm not worried about dying in here,” I state quietly. “That's the easy part.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“I'm worried about Sandy. About what it will do to her if I don’t make it out. About the baby growing up with a father's name and no father to wear it.”

My throat tightens at the thought. I know what it is like to grow up fatherless.

The hollow space where guidance should be, and the constant questions that had no answers.

My own father had been buried before I was old enough to remember his face.

I'd only known him through stories, faded photographs, and the rare occasions when Otets wasn’t listening, and my mother's guard dropped enough to share a memory.

I won’t let my child grow up that way. Not with the same emptiness and questions.

Aleksandr looks away, his jaw grinding tight. “You think I'd let anything happen to them?”

“No,” I reply. “I think you'd burn this place to the ground to protect them.”

“Damn right I would.”

“If Morozov wants to hurt me, he doesn't need to touch me. He just needs to touch her.”

The thought alone is enough to make my blood boil.

Sandy has already been through too much because of me and the world I dragged her into.

Every night since the arrest, I'd woken in a cold sweat, images of her broken body haunting me. It isn’t just paranoia.

It’s an experience. I know what men like Morozov are capable of.

He stands abruptly, fists clenched. “We should've killed him when we had the chance.”

“I should've made sure I did,” I breathe.

The memory of that night played through my mind.

Morozov fought with the strength of a desperate man.

His elbow caught me in the jaw, sending stars across my vision.

I responded with a knee to his injured leg, drawing a howl of pain.

We rolled again, and suddenly, there was nothing beneath my back but air—we'd reached the roof's edge, teetering on the precipice.

For a suspended moment, we stared at each other, my hand gripping his coat collar, his fingers digging into my arm. Mutual destruction was one wrong move away. In his eyes, I saw naked fear for the first time.

Something shifted in his expression—calculation replacing fear. “Perhaps another day, Popov.”

With surprising strength, he ripped himself from my grasp, simultaneously shoving me back from the edge. As I scrambled to maintain balance, he grabbed his dropped rope, snapping the carabiner to his belt. Before I could reach him, he threw himself backward off the roof to his escape.

I lean back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “If I don't make it out of here, promise me something.”

Aleksandr doesn’t turn around. “Don't say that.”

“I need you to hear it.”

I release a heavy sigh. “Promise me that she'll never feel alone. That our child will know who I was. Not the monster the media paints me to be, but the man who loves them more than his own breath.”

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen Aleksandr truly shaken.

This is one of them. We've lost too much in this life. Parents, siblings, Bratva brothers, and parts of ourselves we can never get back. But this is different. This isn’t about the Bratva, territory, or respect. This is about family.

Aleksandr turns slowly, and for once, the pakhan is gone. What I see in his eyes isn’t power. It’s pain. The same pain I’m carrying.

He steps toward the cell door and knocks once. It slides open, the light spilling in again.

“I’ll get you out,” he vows without turning, his voice low and lethal. “You’re not done yet. I’m getting someone inside. Someone we can trust. Until then, keep your head down and stay alive.”

He glances back, eyes burning like lit fuses. “One way or another, I’m pulling you out of this hell.”

I force a smirk through the pain. “Then move fast, brat . I’m running out of patience—and mercy.”

He pauses but doesn’t respond.

“And maybe get a new cot, too. This one's shit.”

Then he was gone. The door slams shut behind him, steel against stone.

And I’m alone again.

I lean against the wall, one hand sliding to my side, where a bruise blooms beneath my shirt. The pain keeps me sharp. It reminds me I’m still alive.

Morozov wants me dead? He'll have to do better. Because when I get out of here, I’m coming for blood.

Hours pass like thick honey. I run through mental exercises to keep my mind sharp. Russian vocabulary my grandmother taught me as a child. Floor plans of buildings I memorized for Bratva operations. The exact sequence of events that led me here.

Morozov set me up. He has enough influence to fabricate evidence, to convince a judge that I’m an imminent threat who needs to be locked away immediately.

The charges are laughable to anyone who knows the truth.

Attempted murder of a federal witness who doesn’t exist, obstruction of justice in a case I have no connection to.

However, the evidence they manufactured is convincing enough for a judge who already has a grudge against the Bratva.

I trace the seven stitches on my cheek, feeling the tight pull of healing skin.

The doctor was right. This one will leave a scar.

Another mark to add to my collection. Sandy always says my scars tell stories.

This one will tell of betrayal, a system rigged against men like me, and enemies who will stop at nothing to see me buried.

The scrape of metal against concrete pulls me from my thoughts. Heavy and purposeful footsteps approach my cell. It isn’t the regular guard rotation. My muscles tense automatically, preparing for whatever comes next.

The metal slot slides open with a dull clank. Jensen’s voice comes through, low and even.

“You've got a new neighbor, Popov. Thought you should know.”

His tone is casual, almost conversational, but there is no mistaking the intent behind them.

“Is that right?” I keep my voice neutral, revealing nothing.

“Yeah. Some Russian guy. Transferred in this morning.” He pauses, letting the implication sink in. “Name's Orlov.”

My breath catches in my throat. Danil Orlov. One of Aleksandr's men. The “ally” he promised.

So, it begins. The first move in a game that will either set me free or bury me. I feel a smile tug at the corner of my mouth.

“Thanks for the update,” I reply evenly.

The guard nods once, then disappears. I don’t know if he was on our payroll now or just happened to be one of the decent ones.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Aleksandr fulfilled his promise.

He got someone on the inside who can watch my back, relay messages, and maybe even help engineer a way out of this hellhole.

I sink onto the cot and draw in a breath, the first real one I’ve taken since the day they arrested me.

That night, I had a dream about Sandy. Not as I'd last seen her, pale with worry and trying desperately to be strong for both of us.

But as she will be when I return home. Glowing.

Fierce. Her body growing with our child.

In the dream, I place my hand on her stomach and feel our baby kick against my palm, a tiny heartbeat pulsing beneath my fingers.

I wake with fire in my veins.

Across the cell, the small window shows the first hint of dawn, a pale glow that does little to brighten the darkness. Another day, another step closer to freedom or death.

The Russian in me, the Bratva soldier trained to kill without remorse, wants blood. I want to tear Morozov apart with my bare hands and make him suffer as I’m suffering. To ensure that when death finally comes for him, it will be slow and painful. A lesson written in agony that no one will forget.

But the man I’m trying to be, that Sandy believes I can be, wants justice. I want the evidence to clear my name and to walk out of here with my head held high. To return to her and our child with clean hands and build a future that isn’t founded on more bloodshed.

I’m not sure which man will win in the end. Perhaps both. Perhaps neither.

All I know is that these walls won’t hold me forever. That Aleksandr won’t rest until I’m free. Sandy is out there waiting and fighting in her own way. And that has to be enough.

I press my palm against the cold cement wall, feeling the rough texture against my skin. Prison changes a man, yes. But it doesn't have to break him. Not if he has something worth fighting for.

Whatever comes next, whatever Morozov has planned, and whatever cards Aleksandr has yet to play, I will face it standing. Because that's what men like me do.

We stand. We fight. We survive. And then, when the moment is right, we strike.