FLASHBACK: EASTERN UKRAINE
Dust and cordite choked the air, the safehouse walls pocked with fresh bullet holes.
Drey crouched by a shattered window, Makarov still warm, blood streaking his gloves—not his. The team had just smoked a dozen separatists—ambush gone wrong, turned right by sheer violence.
Marek slumped against a crate, gut-shot low, groaning but alive, clutching a rag to his abdomen.
Rook sat on a table, a bullet lodged in his bicep, grinning like a maniac while Kasia dug into his arm with forceps, iodine dripping.
"—and then, bam, I spin, pop that fucker right in the teeth!" Rook yammered, wincing as Kasia probed deeper. "He's still spitting lead, so I dive, grab his AK—blasting like it's New Year's, right, Drey? You see that headshot? Picasso couldn't paint it better!"
Kasia rolled her eyes, yanking the bullet free with a wet squelch. "Rook, you talk more than you shoot. Shut up or I'll stitch your mouth next."
Rook laughed, then yelped as she slapped a cotton wad soaked in iodine onto the wound, pressing hard. "Ow—fuck, Kasia, you're a sadist! This is why you're single!"
"No, it's 'cause I'd rather fuck a grenade than you," she deadpanned, taping him up.
Drey smirked, reloading, while Gorman rasped, "Keep it down, idiots—I'm dying quieter than you."
"Not dying…" Drey said, tossing Marek a canteen. "Drink. You'll live to see another day."
Rook cackled, flexing his arm. "See? Team's golden. Bullets can't stop us—only Kasia's bedside manner."
Kasia flicked blood off her gloves, grinning. "Next time, I'll use pliers."
PRESENT DAY: BRATVA SAFEHOUSE, MOSCOW
Viktor winced, teeth gritted, as a Bratva doc—a grizzled ex-army hack named Pavel—probed the graze on his ribs, needle stitching through skin like it was canvas.
The room stank of antiseptic and stale sweat, a flickering bulb casting shadows over cracked plaster.
Across the table, Dmitri cursed under his breath, a peroxide blonde—Lena, some nurse Lev kept on payroll—bandaging his shredded leg and arm, blood soaking the gauze red.
"Fuckin' Chechens," Dmitri growled, swatting Lena's hand. "Petrov, you're a curse—every time you're near, I bleed."
Viktor snorted, pain flaring as Pavel tugged the thread. "Maybe stop standing where bullets fly, princess. Aim's not your gift."
Pavel paused, squinting at Viktor's torso—old scars, GROM's brutal tattoos peeking through, jagged lines no prison could carve. "These ain't prison marks," he muttered, voice low, menace creeping. "Military. Deep cuts—special ops?"
Viktor's eyes flicked to him, cold as steel. "You a doctor or a detective? Sew, don't talk—or I'll stitch your tongue to the table."
Pavel smirked, resuming, but his hands lingered—too curious, too close to the truth.
The door creaked open, Lev striding in, suit pristine despite the hour, gold TT dangling loose in his hand. He scanned Dmitri, then Viktor, nostrils flaring at the blood.
"You two look like shit," Lev said, dry as bone. "Chechens hit back?"
Dmitri spat on the floor, blood flecking his lips. "Ambush at the gun stash—Petrov's genius plan. Sasha's dead, I'm half-crippled."
Lev's stare shifted to Viktor, heavy as a guillotine. "And you?"
"Ribs scratched, still breathing," Viktor said, shrugging as Pavel tied off the stitch, the needle's bite sharp. "Dope stash burned, Chechens smoked. Dmitri tripped their trap, not me."
Lev's laugh was a blade, cold and cutting. "Good. War's on, but it's quiet now—calm before the storm. Lay low, Petrov. Rest up. You're no use to me dead." He turned to Dmitri. "You—stop whining. You're alive."
Lev left, door slamming like a gunshot. Pavel packed up, muttering something, his eyes lingering too long as he shuffled out.
Lena finished Dmitri, who limped off, cursing Viktor's name under his breath.
Alone, Viktor flexed his side, pain gnawing, but alive—for now.
Viktor's room was a dank pit—peeling paint flaking like burned flesh, a mattress sagging like a fresh grave, a half-empty Żubrówka bottle glinting on the floor.
He slumped against the wall, shirt off, probing fresh stitches, angry red lines slicing through old scars—GROM's brutal legacy carved in skin. Vodka seared his throat, mind roiling.
Anton's USB, heavy in his pocket, pulsed with Rook's voice—"They sold us, brother"—a loop of betrayal in his skull. Polish brass, Lev, NATO cash—shards of a puzzle, edges too sharp, missing its core.
Something bigger clawed at him, an itch like a primed grenade with no pin.
He rolled the drive in calloused fingers when a sharp knock jolted him. His Makarov snapped up, ribs screaming, instinct overriding pain.
"It's me," Nastya's voice slithered through the wood, low, a coiled viper.
"Fuck," Viktor hissed, scrambling, jamming the USB under a loose floorboard, kicking a rag over it with a stab of agony.
He limped to the door, cracking it slow, gun low.
Nastya stood there, black leather gleaming with rain, a grease-stained bag in hand—pierogi, sausage, enough for two. Her smirk was a lit fuse.
"Checking on my favorite soldier," she said, shoving past, dropping the bag on a scarred table with a thud. "You look like death's drunk cousin. Eat—keep your strength."
Viktor holstered the Makarov, wary, ribs throbbing. "What's the catch?"
She laughed, popping a sausage in her mouth, chewing slow, eyes dissecting his scars. "No catch. Just don't want you keeling over before I play nurse." She sprawled on the mattress, patting it, springs creaking like bones. "Sit. You're wired—war ghosts?"
He grabbed a pierogi, biting in, grease slick on his chin. "War's clean. It's the silence that's a bitch."
They ate in quiet, her stare too sharp, slicing through the dim light.
Then she leaned in, voice low and electric. "All that fire—bullets, screams, Dmitri howling like a banshee—it got under my skin. Let's burn it out."
Viktor winced, ribs still raw. Her grin flared like a match.
"Easy," he muttered. "Doc said I need a week, not a wrestling match."
She tackled him anyway, knocking the breath out of him, not caring. Clothes came off in messy handfuls, scars brushing against scars.
She straddled him, fierce, eyes wildfire, hips grinding against him, her heat a furnace searing through denim. Her kiss was fierce, biting, urgent.
"Make it count," she whispered, nipping at his collarbone—playful, not vicious.
They collided like sparks off a live wire - desperate, tangled, more fury than finesse. she bit his shoulder hard enough to mark it, eyes daring him to hold back. he didn't.
The mattress sagged, springs snapping with a twang, dumping them to the floor in a snarl of sweat, and vodka fumes.
Nastya's laugh was a blade, yanking him back, her lips scorching his throat, then dragging him into her again, legs locking around him, pulling him into her inferno.
Viktor winced as his stitches tugged, and she softened without losing intensity.
His climax hit like a gunshot, her shudder a detonation, her cry clawing the air, drowned by a neighbor's fist pounding the wall—"Whores!"
They collapsed, gasping, her cigarette smoke curling like a death warrant. "Better than a suture, yeah?" she purred, lighting up, smirk wicked.
"Next time," he grunted, "we get a damn mattress that doesn't fight back."
Nastya bandaged Viktor's ribs, her touch clinical. "Lev's screaming for blood. Are you ready to give it to him?"
Viktor studied her. "You say his name like it's poison."
She yanked the bandage tight. "When I was twelve, he made me shoot a man who owed him money. 'Family duty,' he said. The guy begged—said he had a daughter my age."
"Did you pull the trigger?"
Nastya's smile was a razor. "No. I missed on purpose. Lev broke my finger for it." She flexed her pinkie—crooked, never set right. "Next time, I didn't miss."
Viktor understood then: her loyalty wasn't to Lev. It was to surviving him.
Viktor lay there after Nastya had left, chest heaving, then dragged himself up, wincing as he fished the USB from under the floorboard. Rook's voice haunted him—"Find her, brother… Lev's…"—and the pieces wouldn't fit, gnawing at him like a fresh wound.
Then it hit—Magomed, the Chechen with the gold teeth, dead in the bar. He'd pried a burner phone from that bastard's cold hand, forgotten in the chaos.
He stumbled to his jacket, digging it out—cracked screen, blood-smeared, but alive.
He thumbed the call log, heart kicking. One number—frequent calls, not daily but steady, a lifeline in the dark. No name, just digits, cold and stark. His thumb hovered, suspense coiling tight, a live wire in his gut. He hit a call.
It rang—once, twice, three times—each tone a hammer on his skull. No answer. He killed it, breath ragged, then dialed again. One ring—cut off, sharp, deliberate. He tried once more—dead air, line gone, a ghost on the other end.
His fist clenched the phone, knuckles white, blood seeping from his stitches, dripping onto the floor. Someone knew. Someone was listening. And they weren't talking—yet.