Russia pisses me off.
It pisses me off the way the city breathes, the way it smells, the way it tests your limits before it ever says hello. This city is beautiful in a hostile way, like a large animal that knows it could crush you effortlessly if it needed to.
Russians piss me off even more.
In the past week, I've lost an entire shipment, three good men, and a route that brought me clean, steady money. Not because of competition. Not because of the police. But because of stupidity mixed with ego—the most dangerous combination in this world.
Ivar is an idiot.
He's older than me, has more wrinkles and more experience on paper, but he doesn't fully understand how business is done now. He still believes in old loyalties, in words spoken over a table, in respect earned solely through age. He doesn't get that the world has changed, that Russians respect nothing that can't be destroyed or bought.
Russia does not forgive.
Tonight I have to go to a club—one of those places where the music is too loud, the drinks are too expensive, and the decisions are too dangerous to be made with a clear head. That's where I'll meet the people who, if things go well, will become my future partners.
The Volkov clan.
There will be six at the table, but only three truly matter. The rest are their shadows: brothers, cousins, men raised together in the same organized violence. They're not street-corner traffickers. They control ports, maritime routes, customs warehouses, and people embedded inside the system. If you upset them, they don't kill you.
They erase you.
You disappear from records, from conversations, from memories. As if you had never existed at all.
I've made enough mistakes in my life to know you can't treat them like ordinary partners. You don't negotiate with the Volkovs. You offer. You show them you're useful. That without you, they lose more than they gain by eliminating you.
And yet, my nerves aren't only about business.
They're about Alla.
About the way she looked in that dress. About how she stayed silent when I pulled back. About how easy it would have been to stay—and how necessary it was to leave. Control isn't an option for me. It's a survival rule.
Tonight, I have to be perfect.
Calm. Calculated. Dangerous.
For Volkov. And for her.
I go after her.
The corridor is quiet, padded with that kind of luxury that swallows footsteps and thoughts alike. I knock once—short, more out of reflex than politeness—then I open the door.
Alla is there.
And for a fraction of a second, all the noise in my head—Russia, the Volkovs, the losses, the tension—pulls back like a frightened tide.
She's stunning.
Not in an ostentatious way, not like women who know exactly what they're doing and for whom they're doing it. She's stunning in a complete, effortless way, like a truth you can't argue with. Her hair falls heavily in soft, rich curls, that cinnamon color that catches the light and throws it back warm, dangerous. She wears it loose, and every movement of her head makes it ripple slowly, almost hypnotically.
Her green eyes catch me instantly. Clear, deep, still faintly surprised, as if the world hasn't quite had time to dull them yet. Her skin—too pale, smooth, almost porcelain—clashes violently with the black of the dress, making her seem fragile in a way that has nothing to do with weakness.
Her curves are exactly where they should be. No excess, nothing forced. Hips that promise. A waist that calls to the hand. Long, firm legs that look made to be wrapped around my hips.
A complete package.
Dangerously complete.
I realize I'm breathing more slowly than I should.
"You ready?" I say, and my voice comes out lower than I intended.
I don't wait for an answer. I pull the square green velvet box from my pocket and step behind her.
The necklace is cold in my palm. Green emeralds, perfect like her, cut into teardrops, set simply, without unnecessary excess. Heavy. The way things with value are supposed to be.
I move closer and gently sweep her hair aside, baring the nape of her neck.
"Stay," I murmur.
I place the necklace at the base of her throat, and when the metal touches her warm skin, I feel a dark, primal kind of satisfaction. The emeralds settle perfectly between her collarbones, as if they were made for her—their green caught by the green of her eyes, a continuity that's anything but accidental.
I let my fingers linger on her skin a second too long.
She's mine. I bend and kiss the nape of her neck.
"Now you're ready, little love," I say.
And for the first time tonight, I know exactly what risk I'm willing to take.
We reach the club in central Moscow quickly.
Descending into the club feels like a controlled dive into a dense, dark liquid where the music isn't heard but felt in the bones, and the lights pulse like warning signals no one takes seriously.
The air is thick with expensive alcohol, smoke, and bad promises. Power floats here in its purest form, mixed with danger, with that electric sensation you only recognize if you've been close to death often enough that it no longer scares you.
Alla walks beside me.
Their booth, with its oversized couches, sits in a carefully chosen corner, slightly elevated, where they can see everything and no one can take them by surprise. There are seven of them. I was wrong to think I knew them all.
Six men—massive, expensively dressed without ostentation, hard faces, calculating eyes. Each with his role, each with his violence kept tightly leashed. And then the woman.
"Yelena Morozova," she introduces herself, her smile sliding slowly toward the men beside her. "First cousin to these nightmares," she adds with a short laugh, gesturing at them with her eyes.
She's small in stature, almost delicate at first glance, with hair so white it looks like untouched snow, and eyes—an uncanny, old-doll blue—that regard you with a warmth that isn't real. She smiles when she sees us, and for a fraction of a second I almost believe in that smile.
Then her face changes.
Her mouth stretches into a grin that's too full, too sharp, as if beneath her lips there are only teeth waiting to bite. It's the kind of smile that promises nothing good, that doesn't seduce but warns. In that moment, I understand exactly what she is.
If Alla is fire and warmth, life and beauty, Yelena Morozova is ice and death.
Her gaze slides to Alla and lingers there longer than politeness allows. She weighs her. Takes her apart into invisible pieces. Then her eyes drop to Alla's hand, caught in mine, and for a moment something shifts in her expression—the cold interest fractures, as if a blade has met resistance for the first time.
"Beautiful," she says in Russian, her voice surprisingly gentle.
I know it's not a compliment. It's an assessment.
I sit down with Alla beside me, close enough to leave no room for doubt, and their table subtly rearranges itself around us, like an old mechanism that knows exactly what it's meant to do.
Now I recognize the real Volkovs.
They are Sergei Volkov's sons—the man no one ever speaks of in the past tense, because no one is quite sure they'd still be alive if they did.
The first is Mikhail, the eldest. Silent, massive, broad-shouldered, with the heavy gaze of a man who never raises his voice because he doesn't need to. He doesn't negotiate. He decides whether a conversation is worth continuing.
The second is Artem, the one who smiles. His smile is calculated, almost friendly, but his eyes stay cold, always one step ahead. Artem is the brain. Routes, numbers, people who disappear without a sound—all of it runs through him.
The third is Nikolai, the youngest and the most dangerous. He has a relaxed, almost bored air, like a man who has never been told no. His violence is impulsive, personal. If Mikhail erases you and Artem ruins you, Nikolai makes sure you suffer first.
Mikhail lifts his glass.
He does it slowly, without hurry, like a man who knows all eyes are already fixed on him.
"To growing business," he says calmly, "and to alliances that bring profit to everyone smart enough to respect them."
He tips his glass slightly toward me.
Nikolai doesn't raise his.
He looks at Alla.
His gaze is insistent, too attentive—the kind of attention that searches for cracks, not beauty. He tilts his head slightly, studying her hand still caught in mine, then lets his eyes travel up, slow and deliberate, to her face.
"Is it prudent," he asks, his voice calm, almost curious, "for foreign ears to hear what we have to discuss?"
He doesn't wait for my answer.
He turns directly to her, as if my presence has, for a moment, become secondary.
"What's your name?"
Alla doesn't hesitate. Her voice is clear, unexpectedly steady.
"Alla."
"And how old are you, Alla?"
I feel the table tighten imperceptibly, like a circle closing without anyone moving.
"I turned eighteen today," she says.
For a fraction of a second, the club seems to fall silent just for us. I tighten my grip around her small hand and make a conscious effort not to flinch at the revelation—I didn't know. I didn't know today was her birthday, and I didn't know she was turning eighteen, and the realization lands in me like a muted blow. And yet, beyond the surprise, beyond the calculations, I know with every fiber of my being one clear thing:
She is mine.
Nikolai lets out a short, satisfied laugh.
"Oh," he says. "Now that really is worth celebrating."
He raises a finger.
That's all.
Even though the club is suffocatingly crowded, the space around us is empty within a two-meter radius, and from the side a waitress appears instantly, as if summoned from the shadows.
She sets a heavy ice bucket in front of us, packed with ice and a bottle of top-shelf vodka, the label cold, perfectly aligned.
Nikolai stands.
The movement is slow, deliberate, as if he's officiating an old ritual known only to them. He opens the bottle, pours into the glasses one by one, unhurried, without spilling a single drop, then takes one and offers it to Alla ceremoniously, with a smile that asks nothing.
She takes it.
Brings it to her lips and drinks it in one smooth motion, without grimacing, without blinking, perfectly in sync with the rest of us, as if she's been doing this her whole life.
For a moment, I see Nikolai assessing the result.
Then he smiles, satisfied.
I move my hand almost imperceptibly and pull Alla closer to me—just enough to make it unmistakable to anyone watching.
"I vouch for her," I say calmly, without raising my voice. "She's trustworthy."
The words land heavy, deliberate—clearly not a promise made lightly.
Mikhail looks at me for a moment, then starts speaking in Russian, directly, without detours. His tone is low, weighted, the tone of a man who has already decided half the outcome. Ivar answers him, more rigid than I'd like, and I step in between them, adjusting, correcting, cutting away the excess. The negotiation comes together in short fragments, dense sentences, looks that say more than words ever could.
Artem stays silent.
He leans back, his untouched glass in hand, letting his gaze drift through the club with bored interest, as if the music, the women, and the power around us are things he's seen too often to be impressed by anymore. It's the kind of silence that takes notes.
Nikolai, on the other hand, doesn't stay silent at all.
He makes it his mission to get Alla drunk.
He fills glasses for everyone, orders bottle after bottle, laughs, jokes, creates the perfect noise to pass for conviviality. But his eyes stay locked on her, sharp like a fox's, counting every sip, every pause for breath, every infinitesimal shift in her posture.
With every glass she finishes, his smile grows deeper.
And I realize that while business is being discussed in Russian and money is taking shape between words, the real test is unfolding right beside me.
And it has nothing to do with me at all.
The alcohol starts to work its way into her slowly, insidiously—not like a wave, but like a fog rising from the ground up, from her legs, her stomach, from that fragile space between breaths. I feel the change before I see it—the way she leans into me a little more, the slight delay in her blinking, the smile that arrives a fraction of a second too late.
Nikolai notices.
He sees it with cruel precision and pours again, for everyone, glass after glass, laughing, talking loudly, filling the table with noise, while his eyes stay fixed on her, tracking every sip, every hesitation. It's a game to him. One he knows how to play.
Yelena says nothing.
She watches.
The satisfaction in her eyes is cold, almost beautiful in its own sick way. She smiles rarely, barely at all, and that smile isn't for Alla—it's for what comes next.
I realize I have to stop this.
I don't raise my voice. I won't create a scene.
I lean my lips close to Alla's ear, close enough that only she can hear my breath.
"Go with Gaston for a bit," I murmur. "Go to the bathroom. Splash some water on your face. Get some air."
I give Gaston a brief signal, and he understands without explanation. He steps in, offers her his arm—discreet, professional, as if this had been the plan all along.
When Alla stands, she does it with carefully controlled grace, as if the dizziness were nothing more than a wrong impression.
"Excuse me," she says calmly, with a polite smile. "I'm just going to the restroom to freshen up."
Yelena rises at the same time, her movement surprisingly fluid.
"I'll come too," she adds, already taking Alla by the arm—familiar, almost tender, as if they'd been friends all their lives.
After the women move away, with Gaston and two of the Volkovs' men a few steps behind them, the table seems to lose its air. The noise of the club rushes back in, but something remains suspended between us.
I turn to Nikolai.
"And now," I say evenly, "how about you stop making eyes at my woman and stop trying to get her drunk?"
Nikolai laughs—short, unhurried—as if I've said something amusing, not drawn a line.
"Relax, brother," he replies, lifting his glass. "I'm doing it for you."
He tilts his head to the side, his smile sharpening.
"The little vixen will bounce on you with a lot more enthusiasm with a bit of vodka in her veins," he says, and his laughter fades slowly.
I don't smile at all.
Mikhail doesn't intervene.
Artem finally shifts his gaze toward us.
I take advantage of that fragile silence.
"I came all the way to Moscow with good intentions," I say slowly, deliberately. "I want to do business with you. Clean, profitable business. Long-term."
I move my eyes from Nikolai to Mikhail, without hurry.
"But everything collapses the second my woman isn't treated with respect."
I let the words settle.
"Alla is mine."
Ivar makes a short, involuntary sound. I glance at him from the corner of my eye and he looks exactly like a fish out of water—mouth half open, eyes bulging, unable to process what he's just heard.
Mikhail raises his glass.
Not immediately. First he measures me with a long look, then brings the glass to his lips and drinks at length, unhurried, like a man who knows everyone else is waiting for the verdict.
When he sets it down, the sound of glass against the table is sharp.
"We understand," he says calmly.
His tone is enough.
The tension retreats a step.
Nikolai crosses his arms over his chest and sinks back into the couch, sulking, jaw clenched, like a scolded child whose toy has been taken away. He says nothing more, but his silence is heavy, full of unspoken promises.
Artem laughs for the first time that night—a short, surprising sound that doesn't last long enough to read. Then his interest fades just as quickly; he lets his gaze drift through the club again, bored, as if the scene that just played out were nothing more than a footnote.
Mikhail makes a discreet gesture with his hand.
He, Ivar, and I turn back to the table, and the discussions resume—lower, more calculated—numbers taking shape, routes being redrawn along the rims of glasses. Business resumes its course, as it always does.
As if the fire had just been covered by a thin layer of ice.