MasukCATALINA'S PERSPECTIVE
PARIS, FRANCE - RESTAURANTNIGHTDinner out was Carlos’ idea, though Nico carried himself as if he had orchestrated the entire affair.I didn’t argue.After the weight of folders and bloody reports, I needed something ordinary, something soft.And in this odd little family of ours, ordinary meant a public table where Dante’s composure fought Nico’s provocations while Carlos stole every chance to cling.The restaurant was tucked in a quiet Parisian street, warm lights spilling from its windows, casting gold across cobblestones.Inside, the chatter of diners blurred into a low hum, the air fragrant with butter and herbs. We took a table by the window.Dante guided me into my seat first, a hand on my back, his gesture protective yet possessive.Carlos sat beside me immediately, a grin stretched across his face as if daring Nico to object.Nico, naturally, slid into thCATALINA’S PERSPECTIVEVORONIN’S FORTRESS, CRIMEA – Three nights after the reunionThe war room smelled of gun oil, coffee, and scorched pride.The kind of smell that seeps into your skin and stays there like a reminder that sleep is optional and vengeance isn’t.Voronin had returned at dawn, eyes blood-shot but steady, family safely hidden in a dacha outside Arkhangelsk.He walked in, dropped a duffel of detonators on the table, and simply said, “I’m all in.”No theatrics. No speeches. Just a man who’d decided dying was preferable to running.Now the table was covered in satellite photos, blueprints, and a single red marker circling one location.Gavriil’s new primary residence, an old Soviet naval fortress on Cape Fiolent, rebuilt into a cliffside palace of concrete and paranoia.I stood at the head of the table in black fatigues, hair braided tight, the black-gold ring now hanging on a chain around m
CATALINA’S PERSPECTIVE VORONIN’S FORTRESS, CRIMEA – The day after the fireThe convoy tore through the gates at 14:12.I was already running before the first engine cut.Dante stepped out, coat whipping in the wind, eyes wild with thirty-six hours of no sleep and pure, murderous focus.I slammed into him so hard the air left his lungs.His arms crushed me to his chest, one hand fisted in my hair, the other banded around my waist like he could fuse us together through sheer force.I inhaled him, gunpowder, leather, espresso, the faint trace of the cologne I bought him the Christmas before everything burned.Real.Alive.Mine.He pulled back only far enough to run his hands over me, frantic, clinical, terrified: fingers probing my skull, my throat, my ribs, checking for fractures, for blood, for anything permanent.His voice cracked. “Tell me you’re whole.”I couldn’t
CATALINA’S PERSPECTIVEVORONIN’S FORTRESS, CRIMEA – Dawn after the fireThe SUV skidded through the gates at 05:47, tires screaming against stone still slick from night frost and ash. Smoke clung to the morning air, drifting in ribbons from the burned clothes I’d never bothered to change out of. My skin carried the stench of last night’s inferno, a scent that felt like it had burrowed straight into my bloodstream.I was out before the vehicle fully stopped. Boots hit gravel. Pain shot up my legs. Didn’t matter. I drew my pistol as naturally as breathing, grip steady despite the tremor hiding in my bones.Voronin waited at the top of the steps, coat unbuttoned, cigarette burning low between his fingers. The ember glowed like a single accusing eye.I didn’t give him the chance to speak. I stalked up the stairs and pressed the muzzle against his forehead. Hard enough that I saw the skin indent.“Te
GAVRIIL’S PERSPECTIVE SOCHI MANSION – The Night She Tried to Leave Me02:11The lights died because I told them to die.I stood in our bedroom, the one that still smells like her skin and gunpowder and crushed black roses, and felt her coming down the hall like a bullet I had already swallowed.Every footstep was a heartbeat in my cock.Every breath she took was oxygen I owned.I have memorized the rhythm of her pulse so completely that I can feel it across a darkened room. I know the exact weight of her body when she pretends to sleep against my chest. I know the way her thighs tremble when she’s pretending she doesn’t want me.Tonight she came to kill me.I have never been harder in my life.She threw the doors open like she was walking into her own coronation.I smiled at her the way a god smiles at a sacrifice that finally understands it was always mean
CATALINA’S PERSPECTIVE SOCHI MANSION - The night of implementation 02:11The lights on the security console blinked out exactly on schedule.Every screen went black. Every turret powered down. The mansion fell into perfect, obedient darkness.I exhaled for the first time in months.It was working.I touched the comm in my ear. “Phase one complete. Grid is blind. Phase two...go.”Acknowledgments crackled back immediately, calm, professional, mine.“East wing clear.” “Guard barracks neutralized.” “Helipad charges set.”I closed my eyes and felt something like peace.Nine months of blood, semen, and lies, and tonight it ended.I walked the corridors like a ghost.Every corner I turned, men in black nodded at me, weapons lowered in respect. My men. The ones I had bought with money, mercy, or the promise of Gavriil’s head.
CATALINA’S PERSPECTIVETHE MOUNTAIN SAFEHOUSE – Month 8, three nights before the final moveZurab waited for me in the dark.Not the broken thing I’d carried out of that warehouse eight months ago.The man who stepped from the shadows now was something forged in hell and tempered in silence.Six-foot-four of scar tissue and prosthetic steel.Left eye replaced by matte-black glass that caught the firelight like a dead star.Half his tongue gone, so every word cost him blood and breath.He wore a tailored black coat despite the heat, collar high to hide the rope burns that never quite healed.When he knelt, the floorboards groaned.I didn’t tell him to rise.I let him stay there, head bowed, until the way a wolf shows throat only when it chooses to.“Koroleva,” he rasped, voice like gravel poured over broken glass.“I am ready.”I walked a slow circle around him.The room was bare







