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YULIAN

The docks are deserted. They always are at this time of night. When the moon is this high on the water, only shadows slink around the piers. The kind of shadows you wouldn’t be caught dead with.

I’d know. I’m the worst of them.

As I walk through the docks, those shadows scatter in my wake like cockroaches. Lowlifes, dealers, junkies: the city’s filthy underbelly. The forgotten.

But I haven’t forgotten. Not this place, not its dwellers. Nor the one who made it out alive.

I walk to the edge of the pier. That pier. If I close my eyes, I can see it like it was yesterday: my hand gripping the knife, tearing eye flesh apart. Desya, begging for mercy.

Then my one-eyed former best friend, sinking into the black waters.

Those waters are churning now, filthy with waste. No one cares to keep it clean. Why would they bother? It’s better if the muck hides all the things beneath it.

I haven’t walked five steps before I hear a voice behind me. “Took you long enough to come.”

“I’m not here on a social visit.”

“Pity. I just brewed a fresh pot.”

“Is that what you’re holding against my back?”

He chuckles. His gun presses harder into me. But I know he won’t shoot—he’d never end the game so early. “Fuck, I’ve missed this. You, me, our endless banter.”

“I haven’t.”

“Liar.” His tone turns sharp. “Why accept my invitation otherwise?”

His invitation. I remember the words that brought me here, spoken as an aside that time in front of the StarTech building.

“If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“I’m here to change the rules.”

I can hear the surprise in his reply. “That’s bold. What makes you think I’d let you?”

“Because I’m the one you want.” I turn my head slightly, enough for our gazes to meet. “And if you agree to my terms, I’ll give you exactly that.”

“You’ll come over to my side?” For a second, his tone sounds almost hopeful. “You shouldn’t toy with people’s feelings, Yul. You never know how they might react.” As if to make his point, the mouth of his gun digs into my spine.

It’d be easy to be swept up in his provocations. To let his taunts undo what I’m trying to do here.

I grit my teeth and force myself to remember who I’m doing this for.

Mia. Eli. The baby.

My family.

“You’ve figured out our plans.” I don’t phrase it as a question. It’s not.

Desya doesn’t pretend it is. “You mean, the whole trying-to-lure-me-out plot? I admit, it was cute at first, but then it got old. And I so hate to play boring games.”

“Sounds like what a loser would say.”

“Am I? A loser?” He clicks his tongue in disagreement. “I don’t know, Yul. So far, I seem to have come out on top.”

“You didn’t get your body last time.”

“I’ve got extra lives. Your people don’t.”

It’s taking all my willpower not to carve it out with my bare hands, to stay calm and speak with my words instead of my fists.

But right now, I’m outgunned. I knew I would be the second I walked up to this pier. It’s Desya’s territory. His ground, his rules.

For now.

“Perhaps not,” I concede. “But I’ve got a proposition.”

His remaining eye twitches with interest. “You have my attention.”

“You’ll lay off of Mia and her kids. That’s rule number one. Non-negotiable.”

Desya makes a pensive noise. “Now, why would I do that?”

Because if you don’t, I’ll murder you here and now. I don’t care if I have to eat a bullet to do it—you’ll go back into those waters and stay there.

I force those words back in my throat and say, “Because I’m offering you what you really want. One last game with me, all cards on the table. Winner takes it all.”

“I hate to say, I’m intrigued.” His voice laces with suspicion. “What’s rule number two?”

“No more gunning for my men.”

“That’s a lot to ask.”

“It’s what it takes.”

He smirks like he’s just thought up something hilarious. “Tell you what. I’ll agree to one of your rules. You can save your men, or you can save your girl. Your pick.”

Fury flares inside me. Choose. That’s his play, then: torturing me. Forcing me to pick between one side of my life and the other. My Bratva or my woman.

I think of Slavik, dead before he could notice. Of Rurik, whose last words I still carry with me. Of Kazimir, twice wounded, still breathing. Of Tikhon, grazed by sheer bad luck. Of Nikita, so haunted she can’t see straight anymore, not even through her rifle sight.

Of Zhenya.

I see her in that bed, hooked to all sorts of machinery. I see her bleeding on the floor, gasping for breath, two bullets inside her. I see her waking up and realizing she’ll never walk again.

But in the end, it’s not any of them I’m seeing.

It’s Mia.

And I know, just like that, that it’s no choice at all.

“Rule number one.” I set my jaw so hard it might snap. “That’s my choice.”

Silence falls between us.

“Interesting,” Desya says eventually. “That’s not the choice you would have made twenty years ago.”

“It’s always been my choice. You just never knew me.”

For a second, his gun bites hard into my ribs. I’m almost convinced he’ll throw his little game to the wind and shoot me.

Do it. My hand is already on my own weapon. Give me an opening. I’ll blow your skull with it.

Even if it costs me my fucking life.

“So be it.” He sounds equal parts angry and wounded. “One last game. I’ll be waiting for your invitation.”

Then the pressure’s gone.

I stand there for what feels like hours. While Desya’s footsteps fade in the dark, my eyes fix on the churning river. Dark, deadly waters.

But not deadly enough.

I could have tried to ambush him here. Maybe, if I’d have brought my men, made a stand… But no. I know Desya. He isn’t the type to get caught by something like this. No matter how careful we were, he would have noticed.

And then I’d have lost my chance to save them.

But now, I have his word. It might not be worth much, but it’ll hold. At least until our next game.

Which is why I have to make it our final game.

“Maks.” My phone cracks in my grip. “It’s done. Get it ready.”