Ethan's POV
The cold outside wasn't cold.
It was something sharper...like winter had grown teeth.
The moment I stepped out, fog lifted from the ground in thin ribbons, curling around the bases of the hedges and washing across the gravel. Light from the farmhouse spilled over the path, but everything beyond the radius felt swallowed by shadow.
Two men stood there.
Still.
Silent.
Too familiar.
Not foot soldiers.
Bratva.
I knew the way they stood.
Feet grounded.
Weight balanced.
Hands loose, but ready.
Eyes tracking every breath I took.
One leaned against the stone wall, tapping ash from his cigarette.
He didn't exhale fast.
He didn't rush anything.
He was waiting.
The other stood closer to the gate, immovable...like someone had carved him out of the darkness itself.
They weren't here to attack.
Not yet.
They were here to test boundaries.
The kind of men who didn't speak until spoken to.
The kind of men who carried messages in silence.
My ribs still throbbed from the earlier fight with the Italians.
Every inhale stabbed deep.
My shoulder ached where the metal rod struck.
But the pain was distant....background static.
The real ache was inside me.
Inside the house behind me.
Raina.
Locked inside a panic room she never should've needed.
Her breath shaking.
Her trauma resurfacing like a monster from the deep.
I could still see her face when the steel door slid shut....
terrified
confused
trusting me against her will.
That look was the knife twisting in my chest.
The Russian near the gate shifted slightly, eyes narrowing at my hand.
Because I was reaching into my coat pocket.
Not for a weapon.
For something infinitely worse.
A black, industrial satellite phone.
Heavier than it looked.
Built for war, not convenience.
A phone no one in this country should see.
A phone you shouldn't even know exists unless you're born into a life where power isn't a throne...it's a sniper.
My thumb hovered over the keypad.
I felt the world hold still.
The fog paused mid-rise.
The hedges stopped rustling.
Even the two Russians outside went completely motionless.
They knew.
Everyone who mattered knew what it meant when this phone left my pocket.
I dialed a number I hadn't called in years.
Six digits.
No country code.
No saved contact.
Just a direct line into a darkness I spent my whole adult life outrunning.
My pulse slowed.
My thoughts narrowed into a single icy thread.
One ring.
Two.
The third ring didn't complete.
A click.
Silence.
Then...
A breath.
Low.
Measured.
Too calm.
It slid into my ear like smoke curling under a locked door.
Then the voice.
Just one word:
"Da?"
Not loud.
Not welcoming.
Not surprised.
A tone sharpened by decades of commanding men who feared looking him in the eyes.
I said nothing at first.
Because with this man...
silence was communication.
The cigarette ember outside flickered violently.
The Russian holding it straightened instantly, dropping it to the ground.
He crushed it under his boot like a man bowing.
The other Russian lifted his chin one inch.
Recognition.
The air thickened, electric, waiting.
Finally, I spoke.
"I need them gone."
I didn't explain who.
I didn't justify.
I didn't describe.
The line went silent.
Not a normal silence...
the kind that stretches, measures, evaluates.
I could almost hear him thinking.
Weighing.
The faintest exhale came through the receiver...
cold, controlled, a sound that could freeze an ocean.
Then the response:
"Kto?"
Who?
Just one word.
One scalpel-thin, precision-cut word.
"The Bratva," I said. "Not your faction."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
A cold, calculating pause.
Like someone adjusting a rifle on the other end.
A breath...
barely audible.
But I knew that sound.
It was the breath of a man who'd ended wars in less than a sentence.
Then he spoke again:
"Vne."
Leave.
I clenched my jaw.
"I'm not leaving her."
Silence again.
But this time, it wasn't the silence of confusion.
It was the silence of someone restraining emotion that could shake continents.
Then:
"Mnogo zvuka."
Too much noise.
He meant the leak.
He meant the attack.
He meant my injuries.
He meant the chaos Raina was drowning in.
"They came to the house,if you remember you did the same for the woman you love decades ago" I said.
This time, there was a sharp inhale on the other side.
Almost a hiss.
The kind of sound you hear right before a storm drops lightning.
Then:
"Ukhodi iz doma."
Leave the house.
My voice didn't rise.
But it hardened.
"I said no."
Silence.
This silence was different.
He wasn't angry.
He wasn't surprised.
He was remembering.
Remembering the one thing about me that he could never change:
I didn't run.
Not then.
Not now.
Not ever.
When the voice returned, it was lower...
and something in the air shifted.
"Oni ushli."
They are gone.
A command.
A verdict.
A death sentence to any man who disobeyed.
Two seconds later....
the Russians outside vanished.
Not hurried.
Not chaotic.
Just… disappeared.
As if the fog swallowed them whole.
No footsteps.
No retreat.
No car ignition.
Only absence.
The air felt carved out.
The phone stayed to my ear.
I didn't speak.
He didn't, either.
For a moment, all I heard was his breathing.
Steady.
Slow.
Dominant.
The kind of breath you expect from a wolf lying in the snow watching hunters approach
knowing he's not the prey.
Finally, the voice came again:
"Skoro."
Soon.
No explanation.
No reassurance.
No threat.
Just an omen.
The line went dead.
I stood there for a moment, the phone heavy in my hand, my ribs pulsing with pain.
Not the physical pain.
The deeper one.
The one tied to blood.
To history.
To him.
I slipped the satellite phone back into my coat.
It felt radioactive now.
The yard was empty.
Completely.
The only sound was my own breathing and the faint rustle of branches in the wind.
Inside the house, a bigger storm waited.
Raina.
My Raina.
I walked toward the door.
Every step hurt.
Every breath scratched my ribs.
Every memory of her shaking in my arms pressed deeper into my chest.
But pain didn't matter.
Because Raina was alive.
Inside.
Terrified.
And she'd heard him.
The Russian whisperer at her door.
Her trauma bleeding open.
Her voice breaking when she said my name.
I stepped inside.
The house was too quiet.
Then I saw her.
Standing just beyond the threshold of the panic room.
Eyes red.
Hands shaking.
Breathing too fast.
The second she saw me.
She ran.
Not graceful.
Not controlled.
A collapse disguised as a sprint.
Her knees gave out halfway.
I caught her before gravity could hurt her again.
She pressed her face into my chest, her fingers fisting into my coat like I was the only solid thing left.
"Ethan…"
Her voice was cracked porcelain.
"Are they gone? Are you hurt? Who..who was on the phone? What is happening to my life? I'm scared...I'm so scared.."
I closed my arms around her.
Slowly.
Firmly.
Possessively.
"I know," I whispered.
"It's over for tonight."
But it wasn't over.
Not even close.
Because that voice on the phone..
the one she didn't hear..
was the only man in the world I feared more than losing her.
And now he knew.
He knew she existed.
He knew she mattered.
He knew she was the thing that made me alive.
And that made everything worse.