Achilles [chapter 2, 3] | Crowns of Carnage

The silence in the penthouse felt like a physical weight. It wasn’t the peaceful kind of quiet one can find in a library or a church. No. It was the silence of a tomb.

Achilles woke at 6:00 a.m. to an empty room.

Which was nothing new. He’d slept in the guest wing alone for the past two years, ever since his marriage to Cassandra had ceased to be anything more than a legal contract.

The gray light kept creeping through the sheer drapes. He lay there for a moment, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Today marked the second year.

Some part of Achilles still believed this was nothing more than a bad dream—that he would wake up one day and find Kyan still there. But there was no waking up from this. Two years ago, Kyan chose a bullet because their father couldn’t stomach the thought of having a son who loved a man.

Achilles didn’t linger in bed. Lingering invited thoughts, and thoughts were a luxury he couldn’t afford today. He showered in silence, dressed in black—not that anyone would notice the difference, since black was what he wore most days, but today it meant something and he knew it, even if he never said so out loud.

Downstairs, the atmosphere was brittle.

Rosa, the housekeeper who’d seen him grow from a scared boy into a violent man, didn’t even look him in the eye. She just placed a cup of black coffee on the island and retreated into the kitchen. Her footsteps were frantic, the sound of someone walking on a frozen lake, waiting for the ice to shatter. Everyone knew what day it was. The day Achilles Vassiliou became the only son. The day the heir became the sole survivor of a war he hadn’t even realized he was fighting until it was over.

“I’ll skip breakfast,” he said, not looking at her.

“Yes, Mr. Vassiliou,” Rosa whispered quickly.

He grabbed his coat, heading for the door. He was halfway there when Cassandra’s voice found him from the top of the staircase, sharp and amused.

“Leaving without saying goodbye to your wife? People might start to think you don’t love me, Achilles.” A pause, the click of her heels starting down the stairs. “Then again, people already think that. I suppose it saves us the performance.”

He didn’t turn around. “Not today, Cassandra.”

“Oh, is today special?” she asked. “You know, most husbands manage to remember their wives exist more than twice a week.”

“I said not now.”

“I’m simply making conversation, Achilles. Or is that also forbidden in this marriage?” She continued. “Anyway, my father invited—”

“Your father can go fuck himself. And so can you.”

“Temper, temper,” she tittered, though there was no humor in it. “You really should try a little harder to be presentable, or people might get the idea that you actually cared about that little deviant.”

“Cassandra,” he turned his head to look at her, his eyes cold, “If you don’t shut the fuck up, I will kill you before the sun sets. And your father won’t have enough pieces of you left to bury.”

​He didn’t wait to watch the color drain from her face. He walked out.

Down in the garage, he bypassed his driver, who was standing nervously by the town car, and tossed him the keys to the Bentley. “Take the day.”

Achilles climbed into the driver’s seat of his Aston Martin, shut the door, and sat in the suffocating silence of the cabin for a long minute.

Then he drove.

He was already late for the morning briefings at the office, but the office wasn’t the destination he had in his mind. His hands turned the wheel, taking him north, away from the glass towers of Midtown, toward the quiet, green hills of the cemetery where the Vassiliou family buried their secrets.

The air was damp and bitingly cold as he stepped out of the car. Morning fog settled over the endless rows of grey headstones, blurring the edges of the cemetery and soaking the grass with dew.

He walked through the damp grass, the mist clinging to his coat. He saw the tombstone from a distance. Kyan Vassiliou. Beloved Son and Brother. A fucking joke. He wasn’t beloved. He was a complication.

As he neared Kyan’s grave, his steps faltered.

There was already someone there.

A lone man was sitting on the bench opposite the headstone. He wore a black trench coat, his head hung low, his broad shoulders bowed under an invisible weight. A fresh bouquet of Kyan’s favorite white anemones already rested on the marble of his grave.

Alden Murray.

​Achilles stood frozen. His legs simply refused to carry him further, and for once he didn’t fight that either. What right did he have to close that distance? What right did he have to stand over the grave of a boy he was supposed to protect, while the man who had actually loved Kyan, who had actually fought for him, mourned alone?

He took one step back. Then another.

“Leaving like a coward again, Achilles?”

Alden’s voice was flat, devoid of the warmth it used to have when Kyan was around. It was the voice of a man who lived in the dark. He didn’t turn around, but he knew. Of course he knew. Alden was the finest assassin the Vassiliou family had ever bought, a man whose situational awareness bordered on the supernatural, and old instincts didn’t retire just because the man carrying them had.

Achilles stopped but said nothing. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t sound like an excuse, and he had promised himself years ago he would never give Alden Murray an excuse.

Alden stood, unhurried, and closed the distance between them himself, since Achilles clearly wasn’t going to. Up close his eyes looked tired.

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” Achilles finally said.

“I’m here every year. Every month. Every day.” Alden said, his hands buried deep in his trench coat pockets. “Did you really become so stupid that you thought I wouldn’t be where Kyan is?”

His gaze swept over Achilles. “You look tired. What? The crown finally starting to feel heavy?”

Achilles scoffed softly, the corner of his mouth twisting into a bitter, humorless smile.

A long silence stretched between them, filled only with wind moving through the trees.

“How is she?” Achilles finally asked.

Alden’s eyes narrowed slightly. “She’s good. And she’s going to stay good, far away from your family’s filth.” He stepped closer. “Which brings me to my next point. Stop sending your soldiers to tail me or my daughter. I’ve spotted three of your dogs in the last month alone. If I see another one, I’ll send you their severed heads.”

“They aren’t there to interfere. They’re there to make sure no one else finds you.”

“I don't need your protection,” Alden spat. He walked past Achilles, his shoulder brushing against Achilles’ arm with deliberate force. He took two steps down the gravel path, then stopped. He turned his head just enough to look at Achilles’ side profile.

“You better not be standing in my way when I come for Icarus,” Alden said, his voice flat and deadly. “Or I’ll end your pathetic existence right alongside his.”

A pause lingered between them before Alden turned his eyes forward again. “Though I suppose, knowing you, that’d be a favor.”

​Achilles didn’t answer. He just stood there, letting the cold wind bite through his coat, as the only man who had ever truly loved his brother walked away.

​Yes, Achilles thought. It would.

---

By the afternoon, the sky had darkened further, threatening rain. Achilles arrived at the offices of Vassiliou Maritime Holdings, ignoring the greetings of the executives and secretaries as he strode through the glass lobby.

He went straight to his private penthouse office on the top floor, closing the door behind him.

He stripped off his suit jacket, throwing it onto the sofa. He ripped his tie off, tossing it onto his desk, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his collar.

He walked over to the bar in the corner, his hands steady only through sheer force of will. He poured himself a glass of neat, heavy whiskey, the amber liquid splashing against the crystal. He took a long, burning sip, letting the alcohol sear his throat, before walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Manhattan skyline.

​A quiet knock broke the silence.

“What?” he asked, not turning.

Charles, his head bodyguard, stepped into the room. The large man shifted his weight, looking hesitant. Unusual for a guy who’d seen three gang wars.

“Boss. Sorry to interrupt. But there’s a woman in the lobby. She’s been waiting for nearly three hours. She says it’s urgent.”

“I’m not taking appointments today, Charles. Send her away.”

“It’s... miss {{user}}, boss.”

The glass in Achilles’ hand stopped halfway to his mouth. For a second, the sound of the city outside vanished, replaced by the rushing of blood in his ears.

{{user}}.

The name hit him like a physical blow. The housekeeper’s daughter. The girl with the eyes that used to see right through his bullshit. The girl he’d left behind for a crown of thorns.

It’d been four years.

Four years since he’d traded her for Cassandra.

Four years since he’d heard her voice.

Four years since he started watching her from the shadows like a fucking stalker because he couldn’t let go and because the thought of not knowing where she was made him violent.

He knew everything about her. He knew her job. Knew her apartment, her schedule, and the coffee shop she liked.

What he didn’t know was why she was standing in his waiting room now, after four years of silence.

A woman like {{user}} didn’t walk back into a place like this unless something had gone very wrong.

“Send her in,” he said. “Right now.”

Charles nodded quickly and disappeared.

Achilles turned away from the window. He felt a sudden, violent surge of adrenaline. It wasn’t the cold rage of the morning; it was something hotter. Hungrier.

The second knock came fast.

“Come in.”

And there she was.

Fuck.

The four years of surveillance photos didn’t do her justice. He let himself look a second too long at her before he spoke, and even then, what came out of his mouth wasn’t kind.

“Well, hello there.” He came around the desk, drink in hand, and leaned back against its edge, unhurried, insufferable, watching her from a distance he had no intention of closing yet. “Heard you were looking for me. Were you missing me, {{user}}?”

When she spoke, he listened. He listened to her talk about her brother. The loan sharks. Bad investments. The kind of story he’d heard a thousand times. A dead man walking if she didn’t get the money.

​Achilles then set the crystal glass down on the desk. He pushed off the wood, slipping both hands into the pockets of his dark trousers.

“So, let me get this straight,” Achilles said smoothly, his voice devoid of any pity. ‘Your idiot brother took money from the wrong people, gambled it away, and now he’s a dead man walking. And you came to me, wanting me to buy out the debt.”

He let the silence stretch just long enough to make her uncomfortable.

“Alright.” He said, closing the distance between them. “I’ll give you the money. I’ll even handle the people holding his marker.”

He watched relief start to bloom across her face, and let it exist for exactly as long as it took him to speak again.

“On one condition.”

He couldn’t divorce Cassandra. Couldn’t undo the alliance, couldn’t unmake four years of careful architecture. He knew that better than anyone. But he would be damned to the deepest pit of hell before he let {{user}} walk out of his life for a second time. Not when she’d walked back into his cage on her own two feet.

Achilles was not a good man. He’d never once claimed to be. So he’d shut that cage door, and he’d lock it from the outside, and he'd sleep fine that night, same as every other night he’d chosen power over conscience.

​He pulled his hands from his pocket and lifted a hand, his large, calloused fingers wrapping around her jaw. He tilted her face toward his, watching her eyes for the exact moment she understood what he was about to ask.

“Be my mistress.”

“Make it anonymous.”

Achilles said into the phone.

“No paper trail leading back to any Vassiliou entity. Wire it through one of the shells and tell the principal it came from a private donor who believes in public education. Make sure the school gets the funds by Friday."

“Sir, that’s a large figure for an elementary school in—”

“Did I ask for your opinion?”

A pause. “No, sir.”

“Then just do what you’re told.”

Achilles ended the call and set the phone face-down on the desk.

​He leaned back in his leather chair, staring at the ceiling of his penthouse office.

​It had been four weeks. Four weeks since {{user}} had walked into his office desperate to save her brother, and four weeks since Achilles had locked the door behind her, trading her brother’s life for her freedom. He had moved her into a property that didn’t exist on any paper Cassandra could find.

And for four weeks, she looked at him like he was the man who’d just shot her dog.

Gone the girl who used to laugh at his dark jokes and challenge his arrogance. She was cold now. Brittle.

Could he blame her, though? Whatever she’d been to him at nineteen, Achilles had taken that girl apart and put a kept woman in her place.

​It broke whatever rotted remnants of a heart he still possessed, but Achilles didn’t care. He was a selfish bastard, and he knew it. He would rather she hated him, loathed him, cursed his name to hell and stayed than leave him and be happy.

He had never really been the one to believe in that poetic, self-sacrificing bullshit about loving someone enough to let them go.

People who said it had never wanted anything badly enough.

But lately there was something else. Achilles watched {{user}} come home from work quieter than usual, and twice he’d found her at the kitchen counter with a pile of papers she turned face-down when he walked in. She would never tell him what’s wrong if he asked.

So, guess what?

He hadn’t fucking asked.

He’d had Rio dig instead, and found it in a week: the school she taught at was hemorrhaging funds, supplies drying up, a program she had built cut in the last budget.

Fixing it cost him nothing he would miss.

So he did.

And she would never know.

Achilles liked it that way.

​A sharp knock broke his train of thought. He straightened up. ​ “Come in.”

​Charles stepped into the room. The massive man looked uncharacteristically stressed.

​”Boss. We have a situation at the Tribeca property.”

​Achilles’s blood ran cold. “Is {{user}} hurt?”

“Miss {{user}} is fine. It’s... your sister.” Charles cleared his throat. “Miss Daphne showed up unannounced. The guards tried to turn her away, per your orders that no one accesses the floor but you.”

“And?”

“She broke in anyway.” A beat. “She said, and I quote ‘if you stop me, I will burn your houses down, and then, I’ll unleash Enzo on you if I feel like it.’”

​Achilles closed his eyes, exhaling a long, slow breath. His sister was just nineteen years old, but she’s definitely the most frightening person in the family. She would absolutely burn a poor soldier’s house down and feel nothing but satisfaction.

“Enzo,” he said. “That’s the third time this week that name has come up around her.”

“I ran him as you asked.” Charles said. “Enzo Calvetti. Senior at Wexley, transferred in this year from Saint Kingsfall City. Plays lacrosse. Trust fund kid. Old money, totally clean record. Looks like any other rich kid.”

“Saint Kingsfall?” Achilles spat the words like they were poison. “Nothing clean ever came out of that hellhole. That place is a graveyard of sins, Charles. If a record is that polished, it means somebody spent a fortune scrubbing it. Dig deeper. I want to know who this kid actually is.”

“Yes, boss. And Miss Daphne?”

He considered it. His sister was a menace sure, but she adored {{user}}. Always had.

Besides, {{user}} had lost everything familiar when he took her. A woman in that position could use one person in the room she didn’t hate.

“Let her stay.”

Charles inclined his head. His phone rang before he could turn, and he checked the caller ID, his brow furrowing. “It’s Rio.”

“Answer it.”

Charles answered it on speaker.

“Tell me you’re with him,” Rio's voice crackled through the line, tight and urgent.

“I’m here,” Achilles said. “What is it?”

“Bratva made their move, Achilles.” Rio said grimly. “They hijacked the container at the port. The crew is dead.”

A pause hung on the line.

Then, “Gleb got Nikos. Sliced his throat and left him pinned to the side of the container as a message.”

​The silence in the office became suffocating.

Nikos was dead.

“Have the bodies brought back,” Achilles said after a moment. His voice sounded perfectly normal. “All of them.”

“Got it.”

Charles disconnected the call.

“Tell the men to be ready tonight, Charles.” Achilles said.

“Are we attacking?” Charles hesitated. “Boss... a direct hit on the Pakhan’s son—Mr. Vassiliou won’t authorize—”

“Icarus Vassiliou can go to hell. Do what you’re told.”

Charles nodded and left.

Alone, Achilles stared at the wall blankly for a moment. Then he picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory.

The call was picked up on the second ring, as though the man had been holding the phone all along, waiting for it—or rather, dreading the moment it came.

“How did this happen?” Achilles asked. “And why didn’t I know before it happened?”

“Achilles... I swear, I didn't know!" The voice on the other end was frantic. “Gleb, he... he didn’t tell anyone. He just grabbed a few hitters and went. He’s unpredictable, you know that! He’s a fucking maniac!”

“Unpredictable,” Achilles repeated, his tone conversational, which was infinitely more terrifying. “You’re paid to predict the unpredictable, Pyotr. You’re paid to be my eyes and ears. Instead, I’m looking at six dead men and a hijacked shipment."

“Please, Achilles... I can fix this! I can—”

“You’re right. You can. And you will.” Achilles waited a beat. “Otherwise you will be of no use to me. And I will have to call the Pakhan and tell him exactly how his son’s favorite driver has been selling him out to me for months. I wonder how long it takes them to skin a traitor alive? I hear they start with the fingers.”

A sound came down the line that was very nearly a sob. “Anything. I'll do anything.”

“Good.” Achilles said. “Where is Gleb right now?”

“Leaving for the club in a bit. To c-celebrate.”

“I see. Let him throw his victory party. Let him drink. Then you bring him to me, to the place I’ll send you. And I'll forget how badly you failed me this morning.”

He ended the call before the man could finish thanking him.

---

1:05 AM.

The gunshot rang out of the empty warehouse louder than it had any right to.

Achilles lowered the gun and slid it back into its holster and stood over what remained of Gleb Orlov, the Pakhan’s favorite, spoiled son. His men moved around him. He took a cigarette from his jacket with fingers that weren’t quite steady and lit it.

The first drag burned.

His knuckles were split. His shoulder throbbed where the bastard had managed to stab him with a switchblade before Achilles had broken his arm.

The kill had not been quick. He hadn’t wanted it to be. Gleb had come in drunk and laughing, pleased with himself, and had realized where he was a full ten seconds after the door closed behind him.

Achilles had made the man scream for his father, for his mother, for God.

God wasn’t listening, though.

Only Achilles was.

And Achilles didn’t have any mercy left.

“Put him where they’ll find him,” he said. “Not hidden. I want it seen.”

One of the men nodded. Achilles crushed out the half-smoked cigarette under his heel and walked to the car.

His driver was already behind the wheel with the engine running. Achilles got into the back and shut the door.

The silence hit him then. The adrenaline began to ebb, leaving behind a hollow, aching exhaustion.

Nikos was dead.

The thought finally broke through the wall he’d built.

​Men died in his world every day. Achilles had ordered hits, carried them out, and stepped over the bodies without a second thought.

But Nikos had been one of the ones he had actually liked having around, a loyal, decent, dry-humored man who never once asked for anything. He had a wife he adored. Children. A kitchen with a table. A disgustingly ordinary life Achilles had always secretly envied.

And now it was gone, because he hadn’t been fast enough, or careful enough. Again.

Just like Kyan.

He let his head rest against the seat.

“Home, sir?” the driver asked.

Home? Yeah. He wanted to go home. He wanted to go to his home so badly his chest ached. He was so fucking tired.

“No.” Achilles said. “Miss {{user}}’s.”

The car pulled away from the curb.

---

​Achilles stood outside her door. His dark suit was ruined, stiff with blood. His shoulder throbbed with pain. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the key.

Yes, he had a key. He had always had a key; he owned the damn building.

​For a moment, he stared at the metal in his hand.

Then he knocked on the door instead.

He waited. For a terrifying minute, he thought {{user}} might ignore it.

But then, the door opened slowly.

Achilles looked at her as she stood in the light of the hallway. He didn’t say a single word. He didn’t have a single word ready.

He just stepped forward, his height looming over her. He lowered his head until his forehead rested against her shoulder. He felt the warmth of her skin through her clothes.

He reached out, his large, blood-stained hands wrapping gently around her upper arms—not to hold her in place, but to hold himself together.

“Don’t pull away,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

“Please.”

Charles opened the car door after it stopped in front of the church in Astoria.

Achilles stepped out into the thin grey light and buttoned his jacket. The church was already full. Men in black stood along the steps and the sidewalk. Everyone was quiet. It was the quiet of people who knew exactly how their friend had died and who had done it. He felt them look at him as he crossed the pavement. He nodded to no one.

It had been seven days since Nikos.

Seven since Achilles had stood over Gleb Orlov’s body with a cigarette burning his fingers. He had been sleeping well since then, which was the difference. He didn’t look too closely at why. A woman’s back against his chest every night, a bedroom door she no longer closed, and none of it spoken about. It was enough to let him function.

But Nikos was still in a box in the church.

Inside, the priest’s voice rose and fell over the closed casket, and when the congregation answered with the old words for memory eternal, Achilles said them with the rest and kept his face still.

Nikos’ wife, Luna, sat in the front pew in black, a veil over her hair, her daughter pressed against her side. The girl had a folded piece of paper in her fist. Achilles saw the corner of it as they carried the casket past: a horse, drawn in pencil, one leg too long. She had asked to put it in with her father.

Achilles stood through the burial. Afterward he found Luna alone near the church steps while the others drifted toward the cars.

“Luna.”

“Mr. Vassiliou.” She did not offer her hand. Her eyes were red and perfectly steady. “Thank you for coming.”

“Nikos worked for me for eleven years.” He spoke quietly. “My men will remain stationed at your house. The family will look after you and the children. Whatever you need.”

“No.”

He waited.

“I’m taking the children to my sister’s.” She said it flatly. “Nobody there knows what Nikos did for a living. I don’t want men with guns outside my children’s window, Mr. Vassiliou. I want to teach my daughter that a house can be quiet.”

Achilles nodded. “The offer stands. Always.”

“He said you were different from your father.” Luna’s mouth twisted slightly. “I never understood how he could believe that. I hope he was right.”

Achilles didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Charles was walking toward them across the courtyard. He had his phone in his hand, and he was hurrying, which is how Achilles knew something was very very wrong.

“Boss.” Charles said quietly, turning slightly so Luna could not hear. “Miss Daphne took Miss {{user}} out shopping. Two cars were with them. I called the lead car, no answer. I called the second car.” A breath. “The second car got stuck behind a delivery truck that jackknifed across the street. When they got through, the lead car was shot to pieces. All three men dead. The women are gone.”

The courtyard went very quiet around him, though nothing in it had changed.

Luna saw his face. She stepped back without a word.

Achilles was already walking. Charles fell in behind him.

“Lock down the city,” Achilles ordered as the mourners turned to stare as the two of them cut across the courtyard, “Shut down the ports, the bridges, the tunnels. Mobilize every single made man and soldier from here to Jersey. If a fucking rat tries to crawl out of Manhattan, I want it dead.”

​“Yes, Boss.”

He reached the car and had his hand on the rear door when his phone rang in his pocket.

Unknown number.

He knew who it was before he answered.

“Achilles Vassiliou.” A deep, thick accented voice said. “Forgive the interruption. I understand you’re at a funeral. How is the widow, by the way? I’m told she’s very beautiful.”

Achilles said nothing. His hand stayed on the car door.

“Gavriil Orlov,” the voice went on, as if introducing himself at a party. “You killed my brother. I want you to know that I’m not angry. Gleb was an idiot, and idiots die. But my old man needs to see that something has been done about it.”

“Where are they?”

“Alive. For now. Isn’t that what you would like to hear?” There was a faint sound, ice in a glass. “I have three requests. Nothing complicated. You fulfil them and I hand them over.”

“Speak.”

“First, you come yourself. Alone, naturally. I would like to look at you.”

“Done.”

“Second, the terminal. Everything you took from Gleb’s hands, back where it belongs.”

“Done.”

“Third.” Gavriil paused, and Achilles could hear him enjoying it. “Senator Winslow. Your family’s money leaves his campaign by morning, publicly. I’d like to read about it in the paper.”

Achilles thought of Cassandra, her father, four years of telling himself he couldn’t give up the alliance without the whole structure coming down. He thought of it for exactly as long as it took to breathe in.

“Done.”

The silence on the line lasted a full second. “You did not even think,” Gavriil said. “Three times, done. I did not expect this. I was told you were a hard man to move.”

“Your men have my sister and my woman.” Achilles said, his voice betraying none of the panic he felt. “If either of them has a mark on her when I arrive, I will do to you what I did to your brother, and I’ll take longer.”

Gavriil laughed then, low and genuinely delighted. "Ah. You see, this is why I wanted to meet you in person. Do you know, I spent all week debating whether to take your wife or your mistress? But judging by how quickly you said yes, I think I made the right call. Feeling very proud of myself. And the little sister was a nice bonus.”

“Location.”

“Someone’s in a hurry.” Gavriil drawled. “An address will arrive in ninety minutes. If I see one car behind you, I’ll send your mistress back to you in six different boxes.”

The line went dead.

Achilles lowered the phone and got into the back seat. Charles took the passenger seat and turned to look at him.

“Gavriil Orlov’s men have them,” Achilles said. “He’ll send the exact address.” He checked the clip in his gun, and snapped it home. “I go in alone. You stay a mile back with every man you can pull. If I’m not out in fifteen minutes, you go in and you level it. All of it. Then every Orlov property in the city.”

“Boss—”

“That’s an order, Charles.”

---

DAPHNE

Daphne had been in worse situations than this.

Not many, but a few.

It had started out as a perfectly good day. In a boutique with a ridiculous pink dress she had {{user}} try on, and a phone that Daphne had left on the fitting room bench on purpose because it would drive a certain someone mad.

Then the car, the street, a truck jackknifed sideways, men in vests who weren’t construction workers. After that it was a smear of noise and hands and a hood that smelled like diesel. Somewhere in there she had seen one of her brother’s men fall, his coat suddenly very red.

Now she was in a chair in a cold, enormous room, wrists bound behind her, ankles lashed to the legs. Not gagged. That was their first mistake.

She found {{user}} in the next chair, just as bound.

“Don’t worry, {{user}},” Daphne whispered. “We are not dying tonight.”

There were six men in the room. One at the door, four near a table with guns on it, a man with a radio. They moved like men who had done this before. Daphne didn’t speak a word of the language, but she knew suka when she heard it, and the tone was universal.

“Six of you,” she said to the room. “For a Vassiliou? That’s... cheap. Is Bratva on a budget or something?”

One of them said something, and another laughed. A tall man detached himself from the table and walked over. He had a scar through one eyebrow and the flat eyes of someone who thought he was good at this.

“You talk very much, little girl.”

“And you talk very little. I assumed you were shy.”

The man’s hand lashed out, slapping her hard across the face.

Daphne’s head snapped to the side. Her ear rang, and fresh blood welled in her split lip.She slowly turned her head back, fixing the man with a dead, terrifyingly calm stare.

“Is that it?” She spat blood on the concrete. “You hit like a little bitch.”

​The man’s eyes darkened with fury. He lunged forward, his massive hand clamping around Daphne’s throat. He squeezed, cutting off her air, and leaned in until she could smell the alcohol on his breath.

​“Keep running that mouth,” he snarled, “and I’ll shut it up with my dick. Your brother isn’t here to save you.”

​Daphne choked, but her lips curved into a wicked, feral smile.

Suddenly, the lights went out.

Every light in the shed died at once, and the dark was absolute for a heartbeat before the moon asserted itself and turned the room into silver and shadow. Someone shouted in Russian. The hand on her throat jerked away.

“No,” Daphne's voice was a raspy whisper. “He isn’t. But my stalker is.”

​Before the man could even process the words, a suppressed gunshot coughed in the shadows. The Bratva soldier standing by the door dropped without a sound.

“Kto tam?” one of the soldiers barked.

Then everything happened at once.

Daphne saw it in pieces. A shape moving along the wall, fast, low, using the stacked pallets for cover. Muzzle flash, a burst that went wide and punched holes in the corrugated steel. A man screaming, cut off.

Enzo came out of the dark with a knife, put it into the nearest soldier’s neck, and used the body as a shield when the next burst came. He swung the dead man around, dropped him, and went for the next one. A round grazed his sleeve and he didn’t seem to notice. He grabbed a length of pipe from a rack by the wall and brought it down across the skull of the man with the scar. The man went flat as if a rope had been cut.

One of the soldiers got an arm around Enzo’s neck from behind, and Enzo twisted, got his own arm free, and locked the man into a chokehold.

“You’re late,” Daphne stated.

Enzo, who was breathing hard, kept his arm locked on the soldier’s neck until the man went limp. “No shit, Sherlock,” he said. “You left your phone in the fitting room just to piss me off.”

“Did it work?”

Enzo didn’t answer. He dropped the body and crossed the room. With his knife he cut the thick zip-ties bounding Daphne’s wrists and legs. “Next time I’ll let them keep you.”

“Liar.”

Behind him, the man with the scar groaned.

Enzo clicked his tongue, annoyed that he was still alive. He turned around to finish the job.

“Wait,” Daphne said, freeing her hand and flexing them. She stood up. “That one’s mine.”

Enzo looked at her for a long second. Then he shrugged and tossed the gun across the space between them. She caught it by the grip without looking and walked over to where the man lay clutching his head, eyes opening to find her standing over him.

​She aimed the barrel straight down between his legs.

“You made a lot of promises about your dick,” Daphne said, thumbing off the safety. ”Let's see how you do without it.”

She then pulled the trigger.

​The man’s agonizing, guttural scream ripped through the warehouse as blood exploded across his lap. He curled into a fetal position, sobbing and thrashing on the concrete.

Daphne lowered the gun and looked at Enzo. For the first time since she had met him, he looked genuinely impressed.

---

The yard was dark except for the moon.

Achilles got out of the car a hundred yards from the shed. Charles’ men were a mile back, out of sight, as ordered. Ahead of him the long building loomed. He took the gun from his holster at the fence line and kept it low.

The first body was slumped against the chain-link, a Bratva soldier with his throat opened. The second lay face-down near the gate, one arm bent under him. Neither had been dead long.

He stepped over them, and the dread shifted into something stranger. This wasn’t an ambush. Gavriil Orlov’s men weren’t supposed to be dead.

The door to the building stood ajar. He eased it open with his shoulder and went in with the gun up, expecting a fight.

Moonlight lay across a floor covered in bodies. Bullet holes in the walls. The smell of blood everywhere. And in the middle of it, his sister crouched behind a chair, a knife in her hand, cutting through the zip ties on {{user}}’s wrists.

{{user}} was alive.

Achilles' legs nearly stopped working.

Beside them, leaning against a container with a cigarette between two fingers, stood a man in a torn black shirt, blood drying on his sleeves. Dark hair, sharp face, an ease about him that did not belong in this room. He took a slow drag and exhaled.

“You’re slow, Mr. Vassiliou,” the man said. “And keep a better leash on your enemies. Or I’ll have to start billing you.”

Achilles’ grip tightened on the gun. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Enzo.” The man said, looking bored. Enzo Calvetti.”

The kid from Saint Kingsfall. He was supposed to be a shy rich boy with a clean record. But he was standing in a slaughterhouse looking bored. Achilles opened his mouth to say something that would have been very cold indeed—

Movement. A shape detaching from the shadow of a container behind Daphne, fast and low.

The man came out of the dark and hauled {{user}} up out of the chair, an arm locked across her chest, and Daphne was thrown sideways and hit the floor. A knife blade lay flat and bright against {{user}}’s throat, and the man’s voice came out ragged and shaking.

“Everyone, gun down! Right now! I walk out of here and nobody follows, or she dies!”

Achilles’ blood went cold. The blade was pressed under her jaw, and a thin bright line of red had already appeared on her skin.

He lowered his gun, slowly. “All right.” His voice was perfectly steady, and he wasn’t sure how. “Easy. Nobody’s going to follow you.”

“Back up.”

“I’m backing up.” He took a step back. His eyes found {{user}}’s for a moment and he understood, with total clarity, what she was thinking.

“{{user}},” he said softly.

It was only her name. But he poured everything he had into it, praying to a God he didn’t believe in that she understood what he was trying to say.