CHAPTER ONE

The auction house stank of blood money, ego and desperation.

It dripped from the gold ceilings, soaked into the velvet curtains, and pooled between the cracks of polished marble tiles.

It was the kind of opulence that could only be paid for in blood.

Andrei Dostoevsky leaned back in his chair, disinterested, but at ease. He lit a cigarette. His movements were slow and precise — a predator in no hurry to hunt. The ember flared against the darkness, momentarily painting his sculpted face in shades of crimson and gold.

His father would want a full report later. Fyodor Dostoevsky, head of the largest and most feared Bratva in Russia and maybe the world, was a man who demanded excellence — who demanded everything.

Tonight, Andrei would be expected to recount every detail: who attended, what was bought, who whispered secrets over fluted glasses of poisoned wine.

It was politics disguised as pleasure. Power masked as art and culture.

Andrei thought it laughable.

He was only here to retrieve a painting — a damn painting at that.

The painting he was to recover was a relic lost to war and theft, valuable only because men decided it was so. The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, by Rembrandt, stolen centuries ago, hidden away in vaults and private collections, traded like a dirty secret among the worst of men. Now, it would be brought home to Russia. That was his task.

Yet already, the scent of the rotting souls in the very room he sat in made his throat itch.

The room buzzed with the world’s filthiest monsters. Princes and Princesses of illicit kingdoms. Tycoons who trafficked in suffering and smiled about it. Sheikhs, oligarchs, and arms dealers whose fingers had pulled more strings in shaping the world than any politician. It was a room of some of the most powerful and dangerous people in the world.

The auction was private, invitation-only, held once every two years in a secret palace outside Istanbul.

There were no photographs. No records. Only whispered legends that most men were wise enough not to believe.

Andrei barely spared a glance at the paintings and other art pieces that were paraded across the stage.

Masterpieces, timeless beauties; lost Caravaggios. Forbidden Monets. Forgotten wonders smuggled from crumbling European cathedrals, ravaged museums. Greedy hands applauded their rediscovery as if they had not commissioned the thefts themselves.

He flicked ash from his partly smoke cigarette into a golden ashtray, already tired of the night. Of the exhausting, nerve-grating attempts of small talk by the older attendees and brave, egotistical younger participants during the auction's intersessions.

He didn’t notice when the air shifted. When a collective hush rippled through the room like a stone thrown into stagnant water.

It wasn't until the gasp — soft, involuntary — reached his ears that he turned his head.

At first, he thought it was another fool mishandling a painting or vase.

Then he saw the figure struggling at the edge of the stage.

Not a painting.

Not a sculpture.

A human being.

The "Human Art" portion of the night had begun.

The grand finale.

He should have looked away. Should have remained detached, as he always did. But something about the sight snared him.

The boy — because that’s what he was, barely a man — had fallen hard, scraping hands and knees against the rough wooden floor. He wasn’t sobbing or begging, the way most of the others did.

He was breathing hard, trembling not from fear but from fury.

Pale skin gleamed obscenely under the harsh stage lights. His hair — a wild bird's nest of silver and gold — was messy, disheveled, but beautiful; strikingly beautiful, catching the light like a broken halo.

And his body —

God, his body was a map of violence, thin and tense, long-legged, bruised in places where fingers had clearly dug too deep.

But it was the eyes that froze Andrei's pulse. That all but sent shivers down his spine.

Wide. Glass-bright. Burning.

They were an inferno trapped behind a clear glass cage.

A living creature, he was bruised but not a broken thing. Not in the slightest.

Pride.

Defiance.

Rage that clung to him like perfume.

The boy might as well have spat in the faces of every monster in the room. Him included.

Andrei inhaled slowly, smoke curling from his lips like a spirit rising from a grave.

From somewhere behind him, a voice chuckled low and lewd.

"Pretty thing, isn’t he? Too pretty for his own good. He’ll fetch a high price." They said. "Some Emir’s pet, maybe. They like ‘em young."

Andrei’s fist tightened briefly around his cigarette. Hot ash fell down upon his wrist, but he did not flinch, did not feel—he welcomed the pain.

He moved in his chair, the leather groaning beneath him.

The boy was dragged to his knees before the podium, a brutal parody of obedience. A gold collar glinted mockingly around his neck, already staking a claim no man had earned.

The auctioneer — a white male with shark-white teeth and a politician’s smile — leaned into the microphone.

"Lot Eighty-Two," he announced. "Male. Age twenty. English-American descent. Fluent in English and French. Healthy. Certified. And clearly—"

He paused, letting the crowd feast with their eyes.

"—a work of art indeed."

Laughter rippled across the room. Bids began almost immediately, fast and aggressive, like sharks scenting blood.

Andrei barely heard them.

He watched the boy — Lot Eighty-Two — breathing hard, fists clenched, hatred bleeding from his very pores.

Lot Eighty-Two, as if he were a vase or a slab of meat.

A prize animal with a catalogue number.

Something deep inside Andrei, something dangerous, cracked open.

He didn't remember deciding to bid.

He simply raised his hand.

"Two million euros," he said, voice cold enough to snap steel.

The room froze.

Heads turned.

The room held its breath.

The auctioneer faltered, blinked once, twice, before pasting a smile—the best he could offer—across his face. "We have two million euros. Do I hear two point one?"

Across the room, a man — Turkish, draped in heavy robes and greed — hesitated. He lifted his finger.

"Two point one."

Andrei met his gaze.

Held it.

Dared him.

The man dropped his hand.

The auctioneer coughed into his sleeve.

"Two million, once.

Two million, twice—"

Final.

Inevitable.

The gavel slammed down.

The boy flinched, teeth bared in something feral.

Andrei thought, Mine.

Not for amusement.

Not for pleasure.

But because he wanted to own that fire; because he wanted to see what it would take to break it — or if it could be broken at all.

He rose from his chair and the leather again, groaned under him. He crushed the last of his cigarette under his heel and strode toward the stage, his black coat trailing behind him like the wings of something dark and terrible.

The handlers bowed their heads in automatic respect (that was draped in fear) and submission. They shoved the boy roughly toward him.

He staggered, then caught himself — refusing to fall again. His body vibrated with rage, too proud to whimper, too wild to beg.

Andrei said nothing; not with words, but the handler seemed to get the message clearly. The man gripped the boy by the arm and led him away, following a few steps behind Andrei and his bodyguard.

Outside, the air was cooler, but no less oppressive. And a black car waited for them, sleek and silent.

The boy was shoved into the backseat. Andrei slid in beside him. The shadow of a bodyguard stood just outside the car.

For a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath.

The boy was panting, glaring at him, skin fever-hot and alive with rebellion.

Andrei tilted his chin up between two gloved fingers.

The contact was electric.

He could feel the pulse hammering beneath the fragile skin.

"What's your name, boy?" he asked in English, his voice low and soft — a purr hiding his teeth.

The boy yanked his chin away and, without hesitation, spat at Andrei’s boots.

Silence bloomed like a dark flower inside the car.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then Andrei smiled — a slow, wild show of teeth that had nothing to do with kindness.

Good.

He wanted a fight.

He wanted a war.

And now, he had one.