I didn't go home that night.
Went straight to the warehouse.
The one in Red Hook that nobody knew about except me. Three floors of nothing but concrete and rust and the smell of the river bleeding through the walls. I bought it six months ago under a company that doesn't exist. Paid cash through four different accounts.
Nobody comes here.
Nobody knows it's mine.
I unlocked the side door and went to the third floor. Metal table in the middle. Black duffel bags lined against the wall. I unzipped them one by one.
Glock 19. Loaded.
Glock 26. Backup.
Suppressed MP5. Checked.
Two combat knives. Edges sharp enough to split paper.
Flash grenades. Four of them.
Kevlar vest. Dented on the left side from Prague. Still holds.
I laid everything out like a surgeon setting up tools before an operation.
Clean. Organized. Calm.
My hands didn't shake.
They never do.
That's what fourteen years of Mama Liba buys you. Fear of death goes away. Hands stop shaking. Brain stops screaming. Everything goes quiet and cold like the inside of a freezer.
I checked each weapon twice.
Then I sat on the floor with my back against the wall and stared at nothing.
Katie's face kept showing up behind my eyes.
Her smirk when I pulled up in the McLaren.
The way she wiped grease off my lip with her thumb.
How she kissed me at the rooftop with the whole city below us like we owned it.
I pressed my palms into my eyes until I saw white.
Stop it.
She's not yours.
You don't get to have that.
But the Volkovs already took that choice from both of us when they sent that photo.
*Katie walking into her building tonight.*
I pulled my phone out.
Stared at the picture again.
Whoever took it was good. Right angle. Clean shot. Not a random guy with a phone this was someone who knew what they were doing. Professional lens. Shot from the building across the street, second floor, northeast window based on the angle of the shadow.
I know how these people work because I am these people.
I put the phone face down.
Thought about what Scar Man said with his last breath.
*Volkov sends his love.*
The Volkovs are old Russian mob. Old money. Old blood. Started in Saint Petersburg, spread like cancer through New York in the 90s when the wall came down and every Russian with a gun and a grudge came West looking to eat. Richard used to talk about them sometimes. Quiet, in the car, when he thought I was sleeping in the backseat.
*"The Volkovs are the worst kind of animal, Sam. Smart ones. Patient ones. The kind that wait ten years before they bite."*
I was eight when he said that.
Now I'm twenty-two.
Fourteen years.
I guess they finally got hungry.
I fell asleep on the concrete floor at some point.
No pillow. No blanket.
Slept better than I had in weeks.
---
3 AM I was awake.
Eyes open before the rest of me caught up.
Old habit. Mama Liba used to have men burst into our rooms at 3 AM just to see who was ready and who was sleeping. Kids who were sleeping got cold water poured on them. Kids who were really sleeping got a boot to the ribs.
I stopped being a deep sleeper at eleven years old.
I got up. Splashed water on my face from the rusted sink in the corner.
Looked at myself in the small cracked mirror above it.
I looked tired.
Not body tired. The other kind. The kind that builds up over years of doing things that can't be undone. The kind that sits right behind your eyes and never fully goes away no matter how much sleep you get.
Richard used to call it ghost eyes.
*"Men who've seen too much get ghost eyes, Sam. You can always spot them in a room. They look at everything but see something else."*
I pulled on a black hoodie. Dark jeans. Boots.
Tucked the Glock at my waist.
Knife on my ankle.
Then I drove to Katie's building.
Not to knock.
Not to wake her.
Just to watch.
I parked across the street in a grey Honda I keep for exactly this kind of thing. Nothing trackable. Nothing memorable. The kind of car nobody looks at twice. I killed the engine and cracked the window and sat there in the dark with the heater off because cold keeps you sharp.
Third floor.
Her light was on.
2:47 in the morning and her light was still on.
She was probably painting. She told me she does her best work when the rest of the world shuts up. Said the city at 3 AM feels like it finally belongs to her instead of everyone else.
I understood that more than she knew.
I sat there and watched the window.
Catalogued every person who walked past on the street below.
Old man with a dog. Clean.
Couple arguing outside the bodega. Not interested in her building. Clean.
Black car that slowed near the corner. I tensed. Watched it for two full minutes. Driver on his phone waiting for someone. Guy came out of the building next door. They drove off. Clean.
Nobody.
Not tonight.
But that didn't mean nothing. It just meant they were being patient. Watching me watch her. Seeing if I cared enough to protect her so they knew exactly how hard to squeeze.
I cared.
That was the problem.
I sat there until the sky started going grey.
Her light went off at 6:15.
She was finally sleeping.
Good.
---
She came out at 7:42.
Paint-stained overalls. Old white t-shirt underneath. Hair pulled back but curls already fighting their way out. Coffee in a travel mug. Bag over one shoulder. Headphones around her neck but not on her ears — she liked to be able to hear the city.
Smart girl.
I followed her from two blocks back.
She walked to the subway.
I took the parallel street, kept her in sight through the gaps between buildings.
She stopped at the corner bodega. Bought a muffin. Talked to the old man behind the counter for a few seconds. Smiled. Left a dollar tip on a two-dollar muffin.
Of course she did.
She took the F train downtown.
I rode in the next car.
Watched through the connecting window.
She sat with her knees together, muffin in her lap, staring at her phone with that little line between her eyebrows she gets when she's thinking hard. She didn't notice the man two seats down who looked at her legs one second too long. She didn't notice the teenager behind her who stood too close when the train rocked.
I noticed both.
Neither of them were a threat. Just regular city garbage. But I filed it. Catalogued it. Kept it ready.
She got off at 23rd Street.
Walked six blocks to a building with scaffolding on the side.
I watched her wave to two other students outside. They went in together.
Art class. Right.
I stood across the street for eleven minutes making sure nobody followed her in that I didn't already know about. Then I pulled out my phone and looked at the photo the Volkovs sent again.
The angle hadn't changed in my memory.
Second floor. Northeast window. Building across from hers.
I put my phone away.
Walked to her block.
Found the building.
Walked in like I lived there.
---
Apartment 2C.
Lock was a basic Schlage.
I had it open in six seconds.
Empty inside.
Smelled like cigarettes and takeout boxes. Folding chair by the window. Cigarette butts on the windowsill. Three of them, all the same brand. Someone had been sitting here a while.
I took a picture of the chair. The angle from the window. The cigarette brand.
Then I checked the floor.
Scuff marks near the window. Shoes with a wide toe box. Bigger than mine. Male, probably. Waited here at least two to three hours based on the number of cigarettes and the dent in the folding chair cushion.
One person.
Not a team.
A watcher.
Volkovs sent one person to gather information before they moved. That told me something. Either they were being careful or they were short on manpower. Either way, the watcher was gone now. Job done. They had what they needed.
They knew about Katie.
They knew I cared.
Now they were going to use it.
I left everything exactly how I found it.
Went back to the street.
Stood on the corner for a minute feeling the cold air move through the city.
---
I went to her apartment next.
I know.
I know.
But I needed to see if anyone had been inside. Needed to check her space. Make sure she was safe in her own home before I figured out what came next.
Her lock took four seconds.
Inside smelled like her.
Turpentine and paint and that vanilla shampoo she uses. Canvases everywhere. Against the walls, stacked in the corners, one half-finished on an easel by the window. Big abstract thing in deep blues and reds that looked like fire underwater.
I walked through slow.
Living room. Clear.
Kitchen. Clear.
Bathroom. Clear.
Bedroom.
Small bed, sheets twisted up. Sketchbooks stacked on the nightstand. Clothes on the chair in the corner because she hated closets. String lights above the headboard, off now.
No signs of entry except mine.
Good.
I was about to leave when I saw her laptop open on the kitchen table.
I know I should have walked out.
I sat down and typed.
Her password was written on a sticky note under the keyboard.
*paris2024*
I shook my head. Reminded myself to tell her never to do that. Then I stopped because how do you explain to a girl you're supposed to be dating that you break into places and know what a real security risk looks like.
I opened her browser history.
My stomach went cold.
11:47 PM. Last night.
*"Moretti fire 2009"*
*"Richard Moretti mob boss death"*
*"Volkov family New York"*
Three searches.
She was digging.
I sat there for a full sixty seconds not moving.
She already knew something wasn't right. The phone call at the rooftop. The way I went cold. She felt it and instead of letting it go she went looking.
Smart.
Dangerous.
Both.
I closed the laptop exactly how I found it. Went to the door. Stopped.
Turned around.
Left a burner phone in the kitchen drawer, under the dish towels.
Pre-loaded with one contact. No name. Just a number.
If anything happens. If someone comes to the door and something feels wrong. If she gets scared.
She calls that number.
I answer in under ten seconds.
Then I left.
---
She texted me at noon.
*Katie 🍑: you free later?*
I was sitting in the warehouse again, building a profile on the Volkov organization from what I could pull on encrypted channels. I had a name now, Viktor Volkov's younger brother, Alexei. Thirty-eight. Took over after Viktor disappeared from the scene two years ago. Smarter than Viktor. Colder. Didn't like noise. Preferred pressure over chaos.
The kind of man who sends a photo of your girl and waits.
Just waits.
I picked up my phone.
*Sam: Tonight works. Your place?*
Three dots.
*Katie 🍑: yeah. I'll cook. Don't laugh at my cooking.*
Something shifted in my chest.
I pressed my thumb into the brand on my shoulder until it hurt.
This isn't real, I told myself. This is a job now. She's a liability you need to keep close so you can keep her alive.
But when she sent a second text two minutes later
*Katie 🍑: actually I can't cook at all. I was going to order Thai. Is that ok or is that embarrassing*
I laughed.
Out loud.
In an empty warehouse surrounded by weapons.
Laughed like an idiot at a text from a girl who didn't know she was being hunted.
*Sam: Thai is perfect.*
*Katie 🍑: 7pm. Bring dessert. Something chocolate. Don't be cheap.*
*Sam: I have 2.7 billion dollars.*
*Katie 🍑: ??? okay that's not a normal thing to say*
*Sam: See you at 7.*
I put the phone down.
Looked at Richard's ring on my finger.
The Volkovs thought they were setting a trap.
But traps work both ways.
You just have to be willing to be the bait and the hunter at the same time.
I'd been both my whole life.
Tonight I'd sit with Katie and eat Thai food and let myself feel something real for a few hours.
Tomorrow I'd start ending this.
One Volkov at a time.
Until there was nobody left to threaten her.
Nobody left at all.