The warehouse at the docks was a hollowed-out shell, the smell of burning rubber and chemical fire stinging my lungs. But as I stood over the charred remains of my shipment, a cold, oily dread began to pool in my stomach.
The Romanos were sloppy. This attack... it was too easy. It was loud, it was expensive, but it lacked the surgical precision Marco usually aimed for.
"Pakhan!" Yuri shouted, running toward me from the perimeter, his face pale under the flickering floodlights. He was holding his phone like it was a live grenade. "It's the house. Communication is down."
The world stopped spinning. The silence that followed was louder than the sirens in the distance.
"What do you mean, down?" I grabbed Yuri's collar, nearly lifting him off the ground. My voice didn't sound like mine. It sounded like something rising from a grave.
"The scramblers went up five minutes ago. I got a partial transmission from the south gate. They're under siege, Dimitri. It was a feint. The warehouse was a distraction."
I didn't think. I didn't breathe. I was in the SUV before Yuri could finish his sentence.
"Drive," I roared at the driver. "If you hit the brakes before we reach that gate, I will kill you myself."
The ride back to the mansion was a blur of red lights and screaming tires. My mind was a gallery of horrors. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sofia—the way her blood had looked like spilled wine on the pavement. I had told myself I could control this. I had told myself Maya was just a contract, a piece of leverage.
Lies. All of it.
If she was hurt, if Marco so much as breathed on her, I would not just kill him. I would erase the name Romano from the history of this city. I would pull their legacy up by the roots and salt the earth.
We screeched through the gates of the estate ten minutes later. The scene was a massacre. Two of my SUVs were smoldering heaps of metal. The front doors of my home—my sanctuary—were hanging off their hinges.
I was out of the car before it fully stopped, my gun drawn.
"Maya!" I screamed, the sound tearing at my throat.
The foyer was a wreck of shattered marble and glass. I found Viktor near the stairs. He was slumped against the wall, blood pouring from a gash on his forehead, his breathing shallow.
"Viktor!" I knelt beside him, my hands shaking—actually shaking—for the first time in a decade.
"Dimitri..." he coughed, his eyes struggling to focus. "The wine cellar... the tunnel... I tried... they had a tactical team..."
"Where is she?" I hissed, my fingers digging into his shoulders.
"They took her," he whispered, the words hitting me harder than any bullet. "The scarred one... Volkov, I'm sorry..."
I stood up, the rage in me turning from a fire into a frozen, absolute vacuum. I didn't feel the cold. I didn't feel the grief. I felt nothing but the singular, vibrating need for slaughter.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A video file from an encrypted number.
I opened it. My breath hitched.
It was Maya. She was tied to a wooden chair in a dark, damp room. A single lightbulb swung above her, casting dancing shadows across her pale face. Her emerald dress was torn at the shoulder, her hair a mess, a bruise blooming on her delicate jaw. But her eyes... even through the screen, they were burning with that same defiant fire.
Then, Marco's face drifted into the frame. He was smiling—that oily, arrogant smirk that had haunted my family for years. He held a knife to her throat, the blade reflecting the dim light.
"You dropped something, Dimitri," Marco's voice crooned. "She's a fighter, I'll give you that. Nearly took out one of my best men with a vase. But now? Now she's just a trade-in."
Marco leaned into the camera. "The Old Pier. Pier 42. Midnight. Come alone, or I start peeling back that pretty skin to see if she's green on the inside too. Just like Sofia, Dimitri. Only this time, I'll take my time."
The screen went black.
"He's going to kill you the moment you show up," Yuri said, standing behind me, his hand on my arm. "It's a suicide mission. We need to call the crews, we need to surround the pier—"
"No," I said, my voice as cold as the Arctic. I shoved my gun into its holster and turned toward the stairs. "He wants me. He thinks he can break me by using her."
"Dimitri, listen to reason—"
I whirled on him, my eyes so dark Yuri actually stepped back. "Reason died the moment they touched her, Yuri. She isn't a debt. She isn't a contract. She is *mine*. My wife. My heart. And if I have to walk into hell to bring her back, then I will make the Devil move aside."
I went to the armory in the basement. I didn't choose the sleek, hidden weapons of a Pakhan. I chose the heavy artillery of a soldier. I suited up, the weight of the Kevlar and the steel feeling like the only things keeping me grounded.
I looked at the emerald necklace sitting on the counter—the one she had been wearing. It had been ripped off during the struggle, the clasp broken.
I tucked it into my pocket.
"Marco wanted a war," I whispered to the empty room, checking the slide on my rifle. "Now he's got one. And I'm going to make sure he's the last Romano to ever see the sun rise."
I walked out to the lone SUV waiting in the drive. I didn't look back at my house. It wasn't a home without her.
"Midnight," I muttered, flooring the accelerator. "Start praying, Marco. You're going to need it."