Chapter 1
Alexsandra (Alex)
The thing about killing someone in their office is that you have to wait for the cleaning crew to leave. Sigh. I’ve been in this damned air duct for forty-three minutes, watching through the vent as a woman in her fifties vacuums the carpet below.
She’s wearing headphones, humming along to something I can’t hear, completely oblivious to the fact that I’m twelve feet above her head with a suppressed 9mm and a contract to fulfill! The mark is still sitting at his desk. Corner office, forty-second floor, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. He’s working late. Has some kind of financial report spread across three monitors; his tie has been loosened, and his jacket is draped over the back of his chair.
I don’t know his name nor do I want to. All I need to know is that someone paid my family $500,000 to make sure he doesn’t see tomorrow!
The vacuum shuts off. The cleaning woman unplugs it, winds the cord, and wheels her cart towards the door. At the threshold she pauses for a second and then glances back at my mark. She says something I can’t hear through the vent that causes him to wave his hand without looking up. I watch her leave and listen as the door clicks shut behind her. I count to sixty to make sure she’s not coming back, and then I move.
The vent cover is removed silently because I loosened the screws three hours earlier during my initial reconnaissance. Lowering myself through the opening, I drop to the floor in a crouch, landing without a sound.
The mark doesn’t notice my movement because he’s still staring at his monitors, one hand on his mouse, the other holding a pen he’s tapping against the desk in an irregular rhythm. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. It’s fucking annoying as hell.
Crossing the office in four steps, my footfalls are absorbed by the plush carpet. I’ve already attached the suppressor to my weapon with the safety off and a round chamber. I’m three feet behind him when he finally senses something’s wrong.
As he starts to turn, I put two rounds in the back of his head. The suppressor muffles the sound to a dull thwip-thwip, barely louder than the hum of the air conditioning. His body jerks forward, his forehead hitting the desk with a wet thud, and then he’s still.
Blood spreads across printed financial reports in a slow, dark bloom as I stand for a few seconds just watching as it trickles across the dark wood of the desk to confirm he’s dead. His chest isn’t moving. His hand is still holding the pen, but the tapping has stopped. Thank fucking God.
I don’t feel anything. No guilt or not satisfaction. Not the adrenaline rush some people talk about. No, it’s just the quiet hum of a job completed. After a second I holster my weapon and move to the desk because I need to stage the scene correctly.
It needs to look like a suicide. The client was specific about that. No signs of forced entry. No evidence of a struggle. Just a man who worked late, couldn’t handle the pressure anymore, and decided to end it.
Pulling a throwaway pistol from my jacket pocket; (untraceable, wiped clean, purchased with cash three states away) I press it into the mark’s hand, and adjust his fingers around the grip, and fire one round into the wall behind his desk.
The angle is wrong for a self-inflicted wound, but the first responders won’t notice. They’ll see the gun in his hand, the gunshot residue on his fingers, and the trajectory that could be consistent with suicide if you don’t look too closely. And they won’t look too closely. People never do.
After that task is completed, I wipe down every surface I might have touched; the vent cover, the doorframe, the edge of the desk and then I retrieve the two shell casings from my weapon and pocket them. Once done, I scan the room one last time to make sure I haven’t left anything behind, and then I climb back into the air duct, replace the vent cover, and disappear.
By the time I’m back on the street, it’s 11:47 PM. The city is still awake; taxis honking; people stumbling out of bars, the distant wail of sirens that have nothing to do with me.
I walk three blocks to where I parked my car, a nondescript Nissan that could belong to anyone and slide into the driver’s seat. Removing my gloves, I check my phone. One message from my father: Confirmation?
I quickly type out a reply. Complete. Staged as requested.
His response comes thirty seconds later. Good work. Payment will clear tomorrow. With a nod of my head, I shove my phone back into my pocket and start the engine.
The drive back to Tribeca takes twenty minutes. I don’t think about the mark. I don’t think about his family, or whether he had kids, or what he did to make someone pay $500,000 for his death. Not that it matters. This is the family business. This is what I was trained for. This is what I’m good at.
When I get home, I strip off my tactical gear, and take a scalding shower, and fall into bed. I’m asleep in five minutes. No nightmares. No second thoughts. No ghosts. Just the quiet, dreamless sleep of someone who’s done this a hundred times before and will do it a hundred times again.
Tomorrow, there will be another contract and another mark. Another job like countless ones before it. And I’ll complete it the same way I completed this one; efficiently, professionally, without hesitation. Because that’s who I am. That’s who I’ve always been...
The thing about family dinners at the Morozovs’ is that someone always ends up dead by dessert. Not at the table, obviously. We’re not savages. But by the time my mother serves her famous medovik (honey cake so good it could make a man weep) someone, somewhere in the city, is usually marked for death. Tonight is no exception.
I sit across from my father in the dining room of our Tribeca safehouse, watching him slide a manila folder across the mahogany table. The folder is pristine, cream-colored, and expensive. We’re professionals. We don’t do crumpled paper or coffee-stained dossiers like some low-rent operation.
“Dmitry Volkov,” my father says, his accent still thick with Moscow despite twenty years in New York. “Thirty years old. Son of Dominique Volkov.”
I raise an eyebrow and ask with a hint of surprise; ”The Dominique Volkov?”
“Is there another?”
Fair point. There’s only one Dominique Volkov who matters in this city. He’s the kind of man who owns half of Brighton Beach and the other half of the NYPD. The kind of man whose name makes grown criminals check under their beds at night.
Picking the folder up, I flip it open. My eyes automatically land on the photo paper clipped to the inside of it. I find myself having to suppress an urge to whistle.
Dmitry Volkov is... well, he’s not what I expected. I was picturing some bloated mafia prince, all gold chains and track suits, maybe a receding hairline and a cocaine problem... Instead, I’m looking at a man who could’ve walked off the cover of a GQ magazine. He has a sharp jawline and dark hair that looks professionally styled but effortlessly tousled.
His eyes cause me to catch my breath. They’re an unsettling shade of blue, even in the photograph. He’s wearing a tailored suit that probably costs more than most people’s cars, and he’s got this half-smile that suggests he’s in on a joke the rest of us haven’t heard yet.
“Pretty,” I say, keeping my voice neutral.
My father rolls his eyes and grunts. “Pretty is not relevant to the task at hand.”
A scoff slips past my lips. “Pretty is always relevant,” I say and then add with a smirk; “makes it easier to get closer to the target.” I flip through the rest of the file. “Or harder, depending on security.”
The dossier is thorough. My family doesn’t do half-assed, sloppy work. Dmitry Volkov, heir apparent to the Volkov empire. Educated at Columbia, MBA from Wharton. Runs the “legitimate” side of his father’s business; real estate development, import/export, and a few restaurants. The kind of front operations that look good on paper and launder money beautifully.
Currently engaged to one Nicollet Lebedev, daughter of another prominent Russian family. Their wedding planned for six months from now... A proper alliance marriage, the kind that consolidates power and territory... Except someone wants him dead before he makes it to the altar. “Who’s the client?” I ask, scanning the details.
“Anonymous. Routed through our usual channels. Payment is already in escrow; half up front, the other half upon completion.”
I look up and give my father a questioning stare. “Anonymous? We don’t usually take anonymous contracts on someone this high-profile.”
My father’s expression doesn’t change. “The money is very good, Aleksandra. Very good.” Ah. So good that we’re willing to bend our usual rules. I look back down at the file, at Dmitry Volkov’s stupidly photogenic face. Someone wants this man dead badly enough to pay a premium and stay hidden. That’s... interesting.
My interest piqued I ask “timeline?”
“Flexible. But obviously the sooner the better. The client wants it done before the wedding.”
Six months. Plenty of time. I’ve done jobs with much tighter windows. Last month, I had thirty-six hours to take out a hedge fund manager before he could testify. I made it look like autoerotic asphyxiation. His wife was mortified. I was professional. “Method preference?”
“Clean. No message. Make it look like an accident or natural causes if possible,” mom says as she hands dad a slice of the sweet cake.
I nod, still studying the photograph. Dmitry Volkov has the kind of face that would look good surprised. I wonder what expression he’ll make when he realizes he’s dying. Will those blue eyes go wide? Will that smirk finally fade? I shake off the thought. I’m getting ahead of myself.
“He has security,” my father continues. “Not as extensive as his father’s, but present. Two bodyguards, rotating shifts. A driver. His apartment building has doormen, cameras. He’s not paranoid, but he’s not stupid either.”
“Does he have routine?” I ask letting my gaze bounce between my parents.
“He is a creature of habit,” mom starts to say but then dad jumps in adding “a gym-rat. There every morning at six. In his office by eight. Lunch meetings, usually at his restaurants. Home by seven most nights, unless he has evening obligations. Weekends he spends with the fiancée; dinners, charity galas, the usual society circuit.”
I flip to a page showing Nicollet Lebedev. She’s beautiful in that cold, calculated way. With platinum blonde hair, razor-sharp cheekbones, the kind of woman who looks like she was assembled by a team of experts. Which, given her family’s money, she probably was. “Happy couple?” I ask.
My father shrugs. “They look happy in photographs. Who knows what happens behind closed doors?” Who knows indeed. And who cares? In six months or less, Dmitry Volkov will be dead, and Nicollet Lebedev will be a very wealthy widow-who-never-was. Maybe she’ll cry at the funeral. Maybe she’ll wear black Chanel and look devastatingly beautiful. Maybe she’ll inherit his portion of the family business. Maybe... She’s the one who wants him dead. I file that thought away for later. Never assume. Assumptions get you killed in this business.
“I’ll need a few days for surveillance,” I say, closing the folder. “Get a feel for his patterns, find the weak points.”
“Of course. Take what time you need. But Aleksandra,” my father leans forward, his expression serious. “This is a significant contract. High-profile target, powerful family. If something goes wrong...”
“Nothing will go wrong,” I say with a sigh and then take a bite of my own slice of medovik.
“If something does go wrong,” he continues, ignoring my interruption, “we cannot afford the exposure. The Volkov’s are not forgiving people. Dominique Volkov especially.”
I meet his eyes. “Papa, when have I ever failed a contract?”
He considers this. “Never.”
“Exactly. So, trust me. Dmitry Volkov will be dead within six months, and no one will ever know it was anything but tragic bad luck.”
My father nods slowly, then slides another photograph across the table. This one is more candid; Dmitry Volkov leaving what looks like a restaurant, laughing at something someone off-camera has said. He’s in a more casual suit, tie loosened, and that smile is full wattage now. He looks... alive. Vibrant. Like someone who’s never considered his own mortality. They never do, the ones who have everything.
“Study him,” my father says. “Learn his behaviors. Become his shadow.”
I pick up the photograph, looking at that smile, those eyes, that face that belongs on billboards and movie screens instead of in a morgue and say, “consider it done.”
Later, alone in my room, I spread the contents of the folder across my desk. Photographs, documents, surveillance reports, and financial records. The entire life of Dmitry Volkov laid out like a dissection.
I should be planning. Strategizing. Thinking about approach vectors and exit strategies and the hundred small details that separate a successful hit from a disaster. Instead, I keep finding myself drawn to the candid photograph. The one where he’s laughing and wonder what the joke was. I wonder if he’ll still be laughing when I kill him.
I tuck the photo back into the folder and close it with a snap. Enough. Tomorrow, I start surveillance. Tomorrow, I begin the careful work of learning how to end Dmitry Volkov’s life. Tonight though, I will finish my mother’s honey cake and try not to think about blue eyes and dangerous smiles. It’s just another contract. Just another body. I’ve done this a hundred times before. This time won’t be any different.
