Chapter 1
PROLOGUE
Russia
Vladimir was asleep. His young face was twisted into a grimace of suffering as images swirled through his mind. Dozens of silhouettes – women and girls, their faces etched with terror.
He saw their pain, bleeding from one face into the next, until only a single figure remained: the hazy form of a girl in a dark garden. Ginger hair rippled around a face covered in bruises; a trickle of blood ran from her lips. She fixed her eyes on him, eyes filled with deep fear and humiliation. He reached out his hands to her, but before he could catch her, she was swallowed by the darkness. He knew she was beyond help. She was in hell, right there with him, even though she was innocent.
That was when he opened his eyes, gasping for breath. He found himself in the dark of his bedroom. He realised that, just like every other night, it had been nothing but a nightmare.
He checked the watch on his left wrist – half past five in the morning. Just like always. He got out of bed and did a few lunges and exercises to get his cold body moving and stay in shape. Then he stepped into the shower, turning on the lukewarm water. He tried to think of nothing at all, but his mind betrayed him. He felt a heavy weight pressing on his chest and had no idea why. But he had no time for such nonsense. He is Vladimir Ostrovsky. He must get up and do what he was taught and raised to do. Business wouldn’t wait for him to win a battle against who he truly was.
He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist, walking over to the mirror. With precision, he ran the razor over his angular cheekbones. On his neck, just below the ear, he had a tattoo of an eagle with its wings spread – a symbol of power and strength. Once shaved, he stared into the mirror for a moment. His dark eyes, contrasting sharply with his pale face, returned his gaze with complete indifference. He combed his black hair to the side and returned to the bedroom.
He pulled on a thin white shirt and dark trousers, securing them with braces over his shoulders. Leaving the room, he stepped into the long, deserted corridor of his manor. Not a single glint of light filtered through the tall windows on the second floor, as everything in the garden below was submerged in a thick, milky-white mist.
He made his way down the staircase and found himself in a vast hall. A magnificent chandelier hung from the ceiling, but it was unlit, leaving the space shrouded in twilight.
With a groan, the heavy oak door swung open, and he stepped out into the foggy haze. The gravel crunched rhythmically beneath his shoes, but he didn’t need to look for the path. He knew it by heart.
Every morning, he tormented his body with the cold. He needed to drive out weakness, forget the faces from his dreams, and feel his power once more. He was the one in control of everything – his subordinates, his accomplices, this entire estate, and the very lives of those he owned.
At half past six, having walked the entire length of the garden, he stepped back into the circular hall with its marble floor. Breakfast was waiting for him in the dining room. Galina, his maid, had been avoiding him lately. He ate in silence, watching a blossoming apple tree outside the window, around which a rose bush coiled in a peculiar fashion. Its tenacity, with which it had survived all the harsh winters, evoked a feeling in him that he did not understand. He flicked casually through the daily papers. Before he had even finished his meal, his mobile phone began to vibrate. He let it ring until silence reclaimed the room once more. Only then did he stand up and walk into his study
The room commanded respect. The shelves were packed with ring binders, aligned with millimetre precision according to their colour shades. On the opposite white wall hung the only genuine painting in the whole house – a large portrait of a young woman with raven hair and a heart-shaped face. Her dark green eyes seemed to follow his every move. He felt as though the woman’s gaze was chiding and judging him, yet he could not resist and had to look at her every single day.
Vladimir sat down in an armchair and, for a moment, thoughtfully touched the gold wedding band on his left ring finger. Then, he dialled the last number. As a rustling sound and the noise of a moving car came from the other end, he spoke coldly:
‘I presume you have a good reason for disturbing me this early, Nikolaj,’ he remarked, opening his laptop.
On the screen, a strictly secured webpage for an erotic club in Paris loaded.
‘Greetings, boss. I’m calling to say we’re on our way. In a quarter of an hour, we’ll be past Germany. We’ll arrive tonight, or tomorrow morning,’ Nikolaj reported over the hum of the driving car.
‘Good. I am more concerned with whether you delivered the cargo without any complications,’ Vladimir’s voice cut through the air like a knife blade.
‘They’re all where you wanted them. Bogdan and Boris took care of those two old ones. You know they passed them on to the Albanians,’ Nikolaj said.
Vladimir knitted his brows.
‘What about the French girls? How many are you carrying?’
He clicked through a gallery of images showing young Russian girls, photographed in lingerie in lascivious poses. These were the faces he kept seeing in his dreams.
‘Fifteen,’ Nikolaj paused, ‘sixteen, actually. We bagged one right before leaving,’ he said at last.
‘Right before leaving?’ Vladimir narrowed his eyes. ‘Did we not agree on a precise procedure? What happened?’ he growled, waiting intently for Nikolaj’s reply.
‘What?’ he laughed maliciously. ‘We were out on the street, just about to set off. Then she appeared out of nowhere. Tried to run, the stupid cow,’ he scoffed, ‘but we bagged her. I’m telling you, she’s the best of the lot. High-class blonde, twenty years old. Medium height, great tits. She’ll turn a tidy profit for us,’ he went on.
‘I don’t care about that,’ Vladimir snapped. ‘I will decide if they are suitable. Be here by two. And watch over them. Make sure nothing happens to them,’ he said, hanging up.
He stared at his laptop for a moment, then turned his gaze to the painting on the wall. Anxiety tightened in his throat, a feeling he couldn’t quite define. He stood up, walked over to the bureau, and poured himself a glass of expensive vodka. He knocked it back in a few gulps. Only when the alcohol burned his throat did he return to his desk and begin his daily routine.
