Aleksandr opened the car door. Cold air rushed in. "However you like. Drowning is quiet. A car accident is believable." He stepped out, then leaned back in. His breath fogged in the air between them. "But make it hurt. I want her to know why."
The door slammed shut.
Dmitry sat alone in the dark car. The glass in his hand trembled slightly. He stared at it until the shaking stopped.
The driver cleared his throat. "Where to, sir?"
Dmitry finished the vodka in one swallow. "The church."
The driver did not ask why.
St. Mikhail's stood empty at this hour. The candles flickered as Dmitry walked down the center aisle. The smell of incense and old wood filled his lungs. He stopped before the icon of the Virgin Mary. Her eyes seemed to follow him.
"You're not usually the praying type."
Dmitry did not turn. "Leave, Leo."
Leo Markov plopped down in the pew behind him, crunching on something loudly. "Can't. I'm here for my weekly dose of guilt and poor life choices." He held up a bag of sunflower seeds. "Want some? Blessed by a priest and everything."
Dmitry closed his eyes. "What do you want?"
"Just checking on my favorite emotionally stunted billionaire." Leo spat a shell onto the floor. "Heard you got your marching orders. Sofia Ivanova, RIP, yeah?"
Dmitry's hands curled into fists. "You're remarkably well informed for a man who wasn't there."
Leo grinned. "That's why they pay me the medium bucks." He leaned forward, his voice dropping. "For what it's worth, I think the detective's kinda hot. In a 'will definitely stab you' sort of way."
Dmitry turned slowly. "Are you volunteering?"
Leo held up his hands. "Whoa now. I'm just the comic relief." He stood, brushing seeds off his lap. "But between us? If you're looking for creative ways to not kill her, I've got ideas."
The church door creaked open. Igor, Dmitry's bodyguard, stepped inside. His face was grim.
Leo sighed. "And that's my cue." He tossed the seed bag into a donation box. "Pro tip? If you do decide to ice her, make it Tuesday. Cops are always understaffed on Tuesdays."
Dmitry waited until Leo's footsteps faded. Then he looked at Igor. "Well?"
Igor's jaw worked. "They're already watching her apartment. Three men. Your father's."
Dmitry turned back to the icon. The candlelight made the Virgin's face look sad. "When?"
"Tonight."
The wind howled outside. A draft made the candles gutter.
Dmitry reached into his coat. Pulled out his phone. Scrolled to a number he had memorized but never called. His thumb hovered over the screen.
Igor shifted. "Sir..."
Dmitry pressed call.
It rang once. Twice.
A sleepy female voice answered. "Hello?"
Dmitry took a breath. "Detective. Don't go home tonight."
The line went dead.
Igor stared. "That was..."
"Stupid," Dmitry finished. He pocketed the phone. "Come. We have work to do."
They left the church together. The snow had started again. It fell silently on the graves in the churchyard. On the blood soon to be spilled. On the choices that could never be undone.
Somewhere across the city, Sofia Ivanova sat in a diner, staring at her phone.
And the game changed.
The diner's fluorescent lights buzzed like angry flies. Sofia Ivanova sat in a corner booth, her hands wrapped around a coffee mug that had gone cold an hour ago. The phone call played on a loop in her mind. That voice. That warning. She had recognized it immediately.
The waitress, a tired woman with smudged eyeliner, refilled her cup without asking. "You waiting for someone, honey?"
Sofia stared at the black liquid. "Just the sunrise."
Outside, the snow fell in thick sheets. The street was empty except for a single black car parked across the road. It hadn't moved in thirty minutes.
Sofia's fingers brushed the grip of her service weapon.
The bell above the door jingled.
Leo Markov strolled in, shaking snow from his ridiculous purple scarf. "Well well well," he announced to the empty diner. "If it isn't Moscow's most wanted." He slid into the booth across from her. "Mind if I join? My therapist says I need to socialize more."
Sofia didn't blink. "What do you want?"
Leo signaled the waitress. "Coffee. Black. Like my soul." He turned back to Sofia. "So. Heard you got a mysterious phone call."
Sofia's hand stilled on her cup.
Leo leaned forward. "Relax, detective. If I wanted you dead, I'd have poisoned the creamer." He nodded toward the small pitcher on the table. "Which, for the record, I didn't. Probably."
The waitress brought his coffee. Leo dumped six sugars into it.
Sofia watched him stir. "You work for Kuznetsov."
"Correction," Leo said, licking the spoon. "I work for whoever pays me. Today, that happens to be me." He tapped his temple. "Self employed."
Outside, the black car's engine turned over.
Sofia's muscles tensed.
Leo followed her gaze. "Ah. The welcoming committee." He sipped his coffee. "Three men. Armed. Very angry. Also, fun fact? Terrible tippers."
Sofia stood abruptly, throwing cash on the table.
Leo grabbed her wrist. "Bad idea."
She jerked free. "I don't run."
Leo sighed. "And that's why you'll die before thirty." He reached into his coat and slid a key across the table. "Back door. Alley. Blue Lada. Don't crash it, I just had it detailed."
Sofia stared at the key. "Why?"
Leo grinned. "Let's call it an investment in future comedy material."
A shadow passed the diner window.
Sofia grabbed the key and moved.
The kitchen was hot and smelled of grease. The cook didn't look up as she passed. The back door opened to an alley piled with trash bags and broken dreams.
The blue Lada sat where Leo promised. The door was unlocked.
Sofia slid into the driver's seat just as the diner's front window shattered. Gunfire erupted. People screamed.
The Lada's engine coughed to life.
She peeled out as bullets punched holes in the alley walls behind her.
The car handled like a shopping cart with three wheels. The heater blew cold air. The radio only played static. Sofia didn't care. She focused on the road, her knuckles white on the wheel.
Her apartment was out. The station was compromised. There was only one place left.
The safehouse was a crumbling Soviet-era building on the city's edge. Sofia took the stairs two at a time, her breath fogging in the freezing stairwell. The door was reinforced steel. She punched in the code.
The apartment was dark. Empty. Or so she thought.
A shadow moved by the window.
Sofia drew her weapon. "Don't."