Adrian barely slept. Even when he drifted off, half-sitting in the old armchair by the fire, his hand stayed wrapped around the gun resting on his thigh. Ann didn't sleep either — she stayed close, feeding the flames, watching shadows flicker across the cabin walls.
Outside, the forest was silent under a thin blanket of dawn mist. A lie of calm, hiding teeth and claws in the dark.
Ann's mind wouldn't stop racing. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Thomas's gun. She felt Adrian's blood warm against her skin. And beneath the fear was something new — colder than fear. Resolve.
She slipped into the tiny kitchen, opening the battered cupboard where Adrian had hidden the burner phone. She turned it over in her hands. He'd given her Viktor's number, the ghost from his past. A name that felt like a door she wasn't sure she should open — but they didn't have a choice.
Ann dialed the number with trembling fingers. The line rang once. Twice. Then a voice answered, thick with sleep and an accent she couldn't place.
"Speak."
She swallowed, her heart hammering. "I need Viktor."
A low chuckle. "He's listening."
Ann drew a sharp breath. "Adrian Kingston. He needs you. They turned on him — Thomas betrayed us. They'll come again. He says you owe him."
Silence. She could almost hear the man's mind turning on the other end.
"I owe Adrian Kingston nothing," Viktor said, voice flat. "But I hate his father's friends more than I hate him. Where are you?"
She hesitated. "A cabin. Upstate. We can't stay long—"
"Send me the coordinates. I'll come to you. Be ready."
The line went dead. Ann stared at the phone in her palm until the dial tone buzzed in her ear.
She felt Adrian's presence behind her before he spoke.
"Viktor?" he rasped. His voice was sandpaper — dry, strained, but alive.
She turned, pressing the phone into his palm. "He's coming. He didn't sound thrilled, but… he's coming."
Adrian's mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile. "You did good."
Ann crossed to him and touched the side of his face, tracing the bruise blooming on his jaw. "I don't know what he is to you. But if he can help us—"
"He will," Adrian said. His eyes drifted past her, distant for a heartbeat. "He hates the family more than I ever could."
They spent the next hour cleaning up — wiping away any trace of Thomas's body. Adrian was too weak to drag it far, but Ann didn't flinch. She helped him haul the corpse out into the woods, shivering as she scraped pine needles over the shallow grave they dug behind the cabin.
When they stumbled back inside, Ann's clothes were streaked with dirt and sweat. Adrian's bandage was soaked red again.
"You should rest," she said.
He looked at her, a flicker of amusement in his pain-glazed eyes. "I'm starting to think you enjoy giving me orders."
She shot him a look. "Sit down, Adrian."
He obeyed, half-laughing as he sank onto the couch.
By late afternoon, a low rumble of an engine echoed through the trees. Ann's heart thudded in her chest. Adrian was already standing, gun in hand, posture stiff with barely hidden agony.
A matte black Jeep appeared between the trees. It rolled to a stop in front of the cabin. The driver's door opened — and out stepped a man who didn't look like he belonged anywhere near civilization.
Viktor was huge. Broad shoulders stretching a battered leather jacket, dark beard streaked with gray, eyes the color of winter storm clouds. He looked at the cabin like he might decide to burn it down for fun.
Adrian stepped onto the porch, swaying slightly. "Viktor."
Viktor raised an eyebrow. "Kingston." His eyes flicked to Ann and softened — just a little. "You must be the trouble he married."
Ann blinked. "Excuse me?"
Viktor barked out a laugh, showing white teeth under the rough beard. "If she wasn't trouble, she wouldn't still be here. Good." He jerked his chin toward Adrian. "You look like shit."
Adrian coughed out a laugh that turned into a grimace of pain. "I could say the same about you."
Inside, Viktor didn't sit. He paced the living room, scanning the windows, testing the door locks like a wolf sniffing the edges of a new den.
"I know what you did to Leo," Viktor said without preamble. "The old men are panicking. They'll send dogs tonight or tomorrow."
Ann leaned against the table, arms folded tight across her chest. "Then help us hit them first."
Viktor's eyes flicked to her, sharp and assessing. "Brave girl. You think you have the stomach for that?"
Adrian cut in, his voice deadly calm. "She has more stomach than half my men ever did."
Viktor barked a laugh again. "Good." He turned to Adrian. "You still have the files?"
Adrian nodded. "Encrypted drive. Offshore backups."
"Then we bleed them dry," Viktor said. He cracked his knuckles, a sound like snapping branches. "We leak half. Hold the rest. Watch them turn on each other."
Ann's mind spun. "And what if they don't care? What if they come anyway?"
Viktor grinned — all teeth, no warmth. "Then they come. And they learn."
The plan took shape fast — scribbled notes on scraps of paper, coordinates exchanged, burner phones reactivated. Ann listened as Adrian and Viktor spoke in short, brutal sentences. Names she'd never heard. Codes for safehouses, bribes, hits that might be called in like favors owed.
Somewhere in the middle of it, Ann realized she hadn't eaten since dawn. She went to the kitchen, hands numb as she spread butter on stale bread. When she turned, Viktor was standing in the doorway, watching her like a wolf curious about a lamb.
"You love him," he said. Not a question.
Ann bristled. "Yes."
"He'll get you killed." Again, not a question.
Ann's spine straightened. "Then I die fighting beside him. Not hiding behind him."
Viktor studied her a moment longer, then grunted approval. "Good answer." He pushed away from the doorframe and disappeared back into the living room.
Ann stared at the cold bread in her hands, then tossed it aside. Hunger didn't matter. Not tonight.
Near midnight, the plan was sealed. Viktor would take the files, leak them to the right vultures. Adrian and Ann would vanish deeper into the forest, bait in the water to draw out the men sent to kill them.
"They think you're weak," Viktor told Adrian, voice low and dark. "You bleeding, your wife beside you — they think you're cornered. Let them."
Adrian's mouth curved into something that might have been a smile. "And then?"
Viktor's grin was pure death. "And then we show them what happens when the king still has teeth."
When Viktor left before dawn, Ann watched his taillights disappear into the trees. Adrian stood beside her, his arm draped heavy over her shoulders.
"You trust him?" she asked quietly.
Adrian exhaled. "No. But I trust he hates them more than he hates me."
Ann leaned into him, burying her face against his chest. "Then we wait."
Adrian's hand came up to cradle her head, fingers tangled in her hair. His heartbeat thudded strong and steady against her ear.
"No," he murmured. "We don't wait. We finish this."