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MORETTI'S ESTATE Carlos's Estate Office Carlos flinched when I smiled. Not the soft, angelic smile I gave strangers, but the wide, sharp one that stretched across my face like a blade. The one he’d seen when we were children and he knew he was about to be dragged through hell. “Since I’m staying for a while,” I said sweetly, “why don’t we make it productive?” His eyes widened. “Catalina-” I pinched his ear between my fingers and yanked him forward. He cursed, stumbling, but I didn’t loosen my grip. “Don’t whine. You’ll live.” Like a scolded boy, the Don of the Morettis was dragged across his own halls, men staring, too afraid to even breathe wrong. I threw open the doors to his office and shoved him inside. “Sit. And don’t move.” The desk was a warzone. Folders half-open, receipts stuffed between ledgers, unsigned contracts stacked likCYNTHIA’S PERSPECTIVEVORONIN’S FORTRESS, CRIMEA – The final 48 hoursThe fortress was quiet the way a loaded gun is quiet.My mistress and Dante had disappeared behind their door and hadn’t emerged in twenty-four hours.The sounds that leaked through the walls told everyone exactly what they were doing with the time we might not have.I didn’t begrudge them.I understood.At hour 26, Voronin found me in the armory.He looked wrecked.He didn’t speak at first.He just dropped to his knees in front of me, hands on my thighs, forehead pressed to my stomach.“Please,” he rasped. “One last time. Let me remember what it felt like to be inside you when the world still made sense.”I should have said no.Instead I threaded my fingers through his hair and pulled him up.Four hours.That’s what we gave ourselves.We didn’t make it out of the armory.I shoved him onto a crate
CATALINA’S PERSPECTIVE VORONIN’S FORTRESS, CRIMEA – The final 48 hoursThe door locked with a click that sounded like a starting gun.Dante didn’t speak. He just looked at me, eyes black with forty-eight hours of borrowed time, and crossed the room in three strides.His mouth crashed into mine, teeth clashing, tongues sliding, tasting blood and desperation.I ripped his shirt open; buttons pinged off the wall. He yanked my tank over my head, bra following, palms immediately cupping my breasts, thumbs dragging hard over my nipples until I hissed.We didn’t make it to the bed.He spun me, slammed my front to the nearest wall, kicked my legs wide, and shoved my fatigues and panties down in one violent motion.Cool air hit my soaked cunt a second before his fingers did, three at once, no warning, stretching me open while his other hand fisted my hair and arched my neck back.“Mine,” he gr
CATALINA’S PERSPECTIVEVORONIN’S FORTRESS, CRIMEA – War Room, 03:14 a.m.The air in the bunker tasted of cordite, metal, and the kind of rage that doesn’t fade with sunrise.One overhead bulb flickered, carving jagged shadows over the table.Satellite photos were pinned down with knives, their edges curling like scorched flesh.The red circle around Cape Fiolent looked like a fresh bullet wound.I stood at the head of the table, palms flat against cold steel, knuckles white enough to crack. Every muscle in my arms felt wired to a detonator.Dante was a wall of heat at my back. Close enough that I felt each breath he took drag against my spine.Not touching.He knew better.If he touched me right now, one of us would break. And neither of us had the luxury.Voronin cleared his throat, voice gravel ground into glass.“Forty-eight hours until the moon is dark enough. After that, the cliff is lit lik
CATALINA’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







