Aleksandr
The air in the vault is stale with the stench of old money and new sin. I sit in a shadowed alcove, a ghost at the feast, watching Ivan Volkov preen at his table. He drinks too much, laughs too loud. A pig playing at being a wolf. He thinks this auction, this parade of human misery, is a display of his power. It is a display of his weakness. A man who must buy his leverage is a man with none to begin with.
My man, Dmitri, stands at my shoulder, as silent and solid as the marble walls. I was not supposed to be here tonight. My presence in these places is a risk, a deviation from the discipline that keeps me alive. But my sources said Volkov was moving a new product through this channel. Something beyond his usual sordid affairs. I came to observe. To find the seam in his operation and rip it open.
The auctioneer is a peacock in a tuxedo, his voice a slick oil coating every word. I have listened to him sell off lives and secrets for the last hour. A politician's son with a drug problem. A corporate accountant with a stolen ledger. Each a piece on the board. Each a commodity. I am bored. The intelligence is thin. Volkov is just cleaning house, selling off old debts. I have seen enough.
“Our final lot for the evening,” the peacock announces. “A special acquisition.”
I make a subtle motion to Dmitri. It is time to leave. I have no interest in the final pathetic soul Volkov has trapped in his net.
Then she walks onto the stage. And the world stops.
It is not a grand, cinematic halt. It is a quiet, violent cessation of everything. My breath catches in my throat. My heart, a steady, disciplined muscle, gives a painful lurch. The glass of whiskey in my hand becomes a lead weight.
She is young. Too young. Dressed in the cheap, functional uniform of a waitress. Her hair is pulled back, her face pale under the harsh stage lights. There is terror in her eyes, yes, but it is banked, controlled. Beneath it, there is a defiance that radiates from her like heat. A silent, stubborn refusal to break.
And then she lifts her chin, and her eyes meet the crowd. My eyes.
Anastasia's eyes.
The same shade of whiskey brown, flecked with gold. The same shape. The same fierce intelligence that could see right through a man and into the hollows of his soul. It is not a resemblance. It is an echo. A perfect, painful replication of the only thing I ever lost.
A memory, sharp as shattered glass, cuts through me. Anastasia, seventeen years old, laughing in the summer rain, her eyes brighter than any star. She is grabbing my hand, pulling me toward the shelter of an old oak tree. Her touch is lightning. Her smile is a promise of a life that was supposed to be mine.
A life the Volkovs stole.
“Lot number seven,” the auctioneer’s voice drones on, a distant noise. “The winning bidder will also acquire the significant debt of her father, David Miller, currently held by our esteemed colleague, Mr. Ivan Volkov.”
David Miller. That worthless, sniveling gambler. Anastasia was forced to marry him, a political arrangement to save her own father after the Volkovs engineered his ruin. I was too young, my family not yet powerful enough to stop it. I could only watch.
And now her daughter. David Miller’s daughter. On stage. For sale.
The bidding starts. A number. Then another. Each one is a physical blow. Men I know to be monsters are raising their hands, their voices, staking a claim on her. On a piece of Anastasia. The rage begins as a low hum deep in my chest. It is an old, familiar beast, one I have kept caged for a decade. Now, its bars are beginning to rattle.
I watch Ivan. He sits back, a smug, possessive smile on his face. He is enjoying this. He is enjoying the degradation, the display. This is a Volkov tradition. Ruining everything beautiful in the world.
I see his father's face in his. The same cruel eyes that watched as Anastasia’s family was dismantled. The same man I know in my bones was behind the car accident that took her life. An ‘accident’ with a key witness who disappeared onto a Volkov payroll a week later. They took her from me. And now her son sits there, ready to claim her child.
My grip tightens on my glass. I can feel the fine crystal begin to strain. Dmitri shifts, a silent question.
Ivan makes his bid. “One point five million.”
The room quiets. The insects know better than to challenge the spider. The auctioneer begins his count.
“Going once…”
No.
“Going twice…”
He will not have her. I will not stand by and watch another piece of my past be devoured by these animals. I failed her mother. I will not fail her.
A new bidder challenges him. Good. It buys me a moment. But it only serves to anger Ivan, to make this a contest of ego. He raises the price to five million. A declaration of ownership. The room falls into a dead, final silence. This time, no one will dare to counter.
The peacock smiles. “Going once…”
This is not a business decision. This is not strategy. This is a debt that must be paid. A ghost that must be appeased. This is an act of pure, unadulterated madness. And I do not care.
The beast in my chest breaks its cage.
I stand up. Dmitri looks at me, his eyes wide with alarm. I ignore him. I step out of the shadows. The low hum of the room cuts off as if a switch has been flipped. I feel hundreds of eyes on me, feel the collective intake of breath. Their fear is a tangible thing, a wave that washes over the room, but I feel nothing.
My world has shrunk to the girl on the stage. Her terrified, defiant eyes are locked on mine. She has no idea who I am. To her, I am just a bigger monster than the one she was expecting.
I walk forward. The path parts before me as if I am Moses and these men are the Red Sea. They cannot get out of my way fast enough. My gaze never leaves her. She has Anastasia's courage. Standing there, facing down a room of wolves, and she has not yet shed a tear.
Ivan Volkov is on his feet, his face a mask of rage and confusion. “Petrov. You have no business here. This is a Volkov matter.”
I finally drag my eyes from her to him. I let him see the cold, bottomless pit of my hatred. I let him see the promise of his own annihilation in my gaze. He visibly recoils.
“Everything in this city is my business,” I say. My voice is quiet, but it carries in the oppressive silence. Then I turn my gaze back to her, and the next word is a claim. A brand. A vow.
“Twenty million.”
The number hangs in the air, obscene and absolute. It is not a bid. It is a declaration of war. It is the price of a soul. My soul, not hers. A down payment on a decade of vengeance.
Ivan stares at me, sputtering, speechless. The power he thought he had has evaporated. He is a child who has been scolded in front of his friends. The auctioneer, pale and sweating, scrambles for his gavel.
“Is the sale concluded?” My voice is ice.
He nods, his hand trembling. He brings the gavel down. The crack echoes like a gunshot. It sounds like a promise. It sounds like a cage door slamming shut.
Sold.
I turn without another word and walk back toward the entrance. I do not look back at her. If I do, I am afraid of what she will see in my face. What I will see in hers.
Dmitri is at my side instantly, his footsteps silent.
“Sir?” His voice is low, tight with confusion and concern. He knows I have just shattered years of careful planning.
“Get her,” I command, my voice harsher than I intend. “Bring her to the penthouse. Use my private elevator. No one is to touch her. No one is to speak to her. Is that understood?”
“Understood, sir.” Dmitri hesitates for a fraction of a second. “And Volkov?”
“Volkov will do nothing,” I say, pushing through the massive steel doors into the cool air of the underground garage. “Tonight, he learned what happens when a pig tries to claim something that belongs to a wolf.”
I get into the back of my car. The door closes, sealing me in silence. The driver pulls away, ascending back into the city of lights and lies.
I lean my head back against the cool leather. What have I done? I came here tonight for intelligence, a piece of information to use in my long, cold war against the Volkovs.
Instead, I have given them the greatest piece of intelligence imaginable.
I have shown them my weakness. I have shown the entire underworld that a nameless waitress is worth an astronomical sum to me. I have not bought a piece of leverage. I have bought a target. I have painted her back with my own colors, and now all my enemies will aim for her.
All to save a girl I have never met. All for a pair of eyes that have haunted my dreams for ten years.
I failed to save Anastasia from her fate. I was too weak. Now, I have the power to move mountains, to burn cities to the ground. And I will use all of it to protect her daughter. I will build a gilded cage of wealth and violence around her, and I will never let her go.
It is not a choice. It is a penance. And it has already begun.
