Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
I pulled the slim black fob from my pocket and used my thumb on the biometric lock. A soft click, then the gate rolled open on silent tracks, just wide enough for us to pass single-file.
We passed through, and the gate closed behind us automatically. I reached over and took her hand, feeling her fingers tighten in mine for half a second. The drive narrowed, the gravel crunching under tires the closer we came to my home. I pulled to a stop when we got to the garage. The house itself was low, concrete, and half-buried into the hillside. Once in the garage with the door closed, I climbed out and helped Zoya.
“Come on, malyshka.” I took her hand. It was small, warm, and so damn steady in mine as I led her toward the inner door.
I stopped at the reinforced steel door that had no handle or visible lock. I placed my palm flat on the scanner embedded flush in the frame. Retinal scan kicked in next with a red light that swept my eye. A soft beep sounded, and it opened, allowing us entry.
Inside, the alarm panel glowed softly on the wall. I stepped in first, pulling Zoya with me, and keyed the disarm code on the touchscreen… another thumbprint, another six digits. The system chimed once. Green.
The door shut behind us with a solid thunk, and the silence settled thick, intentional. Zoya looked around the entryway. There weren’t any windows at ground level. Minimalist design, built for comfort, but mainly safety.
“A fortress,” she breathed.
“Has to be,” I answered. “Hell isn’t below us. We are living in it.” I squeezed her hand once and led her deeper inside.
I didn’t soften the truth when we sat down in the main room. The house was quiet from the thick walls, and the low hum of the security system and Zoya’s heavy thoughts and unanswered questions filled my head.
She sat across from me on the leather couch, legs tucked under her, still in that oversized sweatshirt, hair loose and messy in a beautiful way. Zoya looked small against the dark furniture, but her eyes were steady. Waiting. Like she already knew this conversation would change everything.
I’d told her things already, and she put shit together. But I wanted her to be on the same level and mindset I was, and understand if she really wanted to go through with this.
“Human trafficking isn’t chaos, Zoya. It’s logistics. Clean, organized, and profitable. Routes disguised as medical transfers with private ambulances, fake patient manifests, and hospitals that look the other way. Shell companies move people the same way they move inventory with invoices, manifests, and offshore accounts. No mess. No traces.”
She didn’t interrupt, just watched me, absorbing every word.
“Snuff distribution?” I continued, keeping my tone flat, factual. “It doesn’t live in basements and back alleys anymore. That’s old-school. Now it hides behind encrypted platforms, paid subscriptions, dark web sites with tiered access. Men pay thousands for exclusive content. They think anonymity makes them untouchable. Firewalls, VPNs, crypto payments. They’re wrong. Everything leaves a trail if you know where to look.”
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the sweatshirt hem, knuckles whitening for a second before she exhaled slowly through her nose. Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t look away. She held my gaze as if she were forcing herself to see every ugly detail without flinching.
“Andrey made sure others did worse so he could use it against them and absolve himself,” I said, keeping my voice low and even. “That’s how men like him stay clean on paper. They outsource the violence. After he killed my mother, though, something shifted. He got smarter about it… colder. He realized getting his own hands bloody left traces no amount of money could fully erase. So he changed the playbook. No more direct involvement. No more witnesses who could point back to him. He started using middlemen, hired muscle, and disposable people who took the fall if things went sideways. He drew up the plans, funded the jobs, collected the profits, but never touched the knife himself again. That way, when the bodies dropped, his name stayed off the reports. Clean and untouchable. Or so he thought.”
She nodded once, as if she locked that piece of information into a place with everything else I’d told her.
“He thought he could stay above it all,” she whispered. “But he couldn’t. Not forever.”
“No,” I agreed. “No one can. Not when someone like me is looking.”
She was quiet for a long beat after that, her thoughts clearly weighing heavily. Then she looked back at me, voice soft but direct. “How do you do it, Dmitry? How can you be part of the same organization as him—as these men—and still do the things you do? The bad things. The blood. The deals. How is that different from what he is?”