All Chapters of THE MAFIA'S BLOODY POSSESSION: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

 Ivan’s PovI found Nikolai in his office and closed the door.He looked up from his desk. "I heard," he said."How much.""Enough." He set his pen down. "Sit down."I sat. "He asked about the end date. He asked about a man we were seen with outside." I looked at Nikolai. "Someone gave him a specific story. Not just the timeline. A scene. Something visual enough to stick.""Morozov escalated.""Yes." I put both hands on the armrest. "I told him the scene was not true. He asked how he could know that and I had nothing that would have helped."Nikolai was quiet."He is not wrong that we have not told him things," I said. "He is sitting in that room with a fabricated story and a real grievance and no way to tell which parts are which.""I know." Nikolai opened his desk drawer and took out a folder. He set it between us. "The sweep came back this morning."I opened it. The cover identity for

Ace's PovThree days of it was enough.Three days of good morning with nothing behind it and mugs left outside doors without knocking and corridor passes where everyone nodded and kept walking. Three days of dinners where the conversation stayed shallow and nobody reached across the distance.I had asked for the distance and they had given it to me. The wall was mine and they had simply accepted it, somehow that acceptance was the part I could not get past.I had told myself I did not care. I had said it plainly and clearly and I had meant it, or I had meant to mean it, then three days of being given exactly what I asked for had made something in my chest do something I was not prepared for.It was not anger. I could have worked with anger.It was quieter than that. It sat behind my sternum, did not have a name and I could not reason my way around it because every time I tried to locate it and dismiss it, it moved.On the third morning I sat at the breakfast counter while both of the

Ace's PovHe had an answer ready immediately and I noticed that, not clearly at the time, but somewhere underneath the conversation. He had not said let me think about how this could work. He had known exactly what he needed before I had finished asking the question.I told myself it was because he had thought it through already. That was what a person did when they cared about helping someone."Get me in," he said. "One time. That is all I need."I looked at him. "And then what.""And then I get you out. You go to Marcus's family, you stay there until things settle, and you figure out the next step from a place that is not inside that building.""And you just want to see the inside of the building.""I want to know the layout so I can move us both safely. If I go in blind I cannot protect you."It was a reasonable answer. It was the kind of thing that made sense if you were thinking about logistics. I stood there on the street corner and I looked at his face. I thought about the w

Sergei's PovHis message came through at half past two in the afternoon.Two words. I need help.I sat at the kitchen table and looked at them for a long time.This was the moment. The thing I had been building toward for three weeks. Ace Rivera had closed off from the twins, had decided the story I fed him was true, had decided the coldness he was reading was confirmation, and now he was reaching out to the one person he thought had no stake in any of it.I typed back and arranged the meeting and put the phone down.Then I sat with it.My daughter had been in that room for thirty one days with her lamp and her three books and thirty second calls every three days. Darnell had what he needed to keep me moving and I had been moving, one contact at a time, one seed at a time, and now the movement had brought me here.Here was using a twenty two year old kid who had done nothing wrong to get two men killed.I had told myself the job was the job for long enough that the phrase had lost me

Chapter 39: The AgreementAce's PovDaniel had an answer ready before I finished the question.I noticed that, but it was there underneath the conversation. No hesitation, no pause to think through logistics. He already knew what he needed before I spoke.I told myself it was because he had been planning this for a while. That was what someone did when they genuinely wanted to help."Get me in," he said. "One time. That is all I need."I looked at him. "And then what.""Then I get you out. You go to Marcus's family, you stay somewhere safe, and you figure out the next step from somewhere that is not that building.""You just want to see the inside.""I want to know the layout so I can move us both safely. If I go in blind I cannot protect you." He kept his tone level, nothing urgent in it.It was a reasonable answer. It was exactly the kind of thing a person said when they were thinking about logistics. I looked at his face and I thought about the eyes that stayed still when he smiled