KHIMKI OUTSKIRTS, MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT
Tires chewed frozen dirt, spitting gravel like broken teeth as Lev's convoy roared toward the Khimki warehouse, a black hulk squatting under a moonless sky.
In a car trailing two vans stuffed with Kuznetsov's goons and Bratva dogs, Lev gripped his TT pistol, eyes glinting like rabid wolves, while Kuznetsov's smirk hid a Judas kiss.
The air reeked of diesel, sweat, and the sour promise of blood.
They screeched to a halt fifty yards out, warehouse doors yawning like a drunk's maw. Two Chechens popped up, AKs barking—crack-crack—before Bratva bullets turned their skulls to red mist.
Men spilled from vans, rifles raised, boots pounding frost to mud. Viktor slid out, Makarov heavy, heart slamming like a jackhammer. He stood a few paces from Lev, next to a Bratva thug with a face like chewed leather. "Shits about to hit," Viktor muttered
Lev waved six men toward the entrance, their silhouettes swallowed by the dark.
Three seconds, four—silence, thick as a grave.
Then the warehouse detonated, a fireball clawing the sky, shockwave hurling men like matchsticks.
Two vans erupted, flames vomiting shrapnel, men screaming as fire ate their flesh—some burned alive, others flung, skulls cracking on dirt.
Sniper shots cracked from nowhere, precise as a reaper's scythe.
Viktor hit the ground, mouth full of blood and filth. "Fuck this hellhole!" he spat, ears screaming.
Chaos reigned—Kuznetsov had vanished, the slippery bastard. Bratva men staggered up, only to drop, chests exploding red, sniper's handiwork.
Viktor's eyes darted—Lev, limping, clutching a shoulder gushing blood, roared like a gutted boar, sprinting for the last van, coat a crimson rag.
This was Viktor's shot to end Lev and ghost this cursed city.
But the sniper's scope and Chechen boots closing in fucked that plan sideways. The sniper zeroed on Lev, shots spitting dirt—misses, somehow.
Viktor scrambled up, Makarov barking at the van as it peeled out, bullets pinging like piss in a bucket.
Dust choked the night, Lev gone.
Zara's men slithered from the dark, phantoms in firelight, carving wounded Bratva like pigs—knives ripping throats, silenced pistols popping skulls.
Zara and Nastya strode up, Zara's crew jamming rifles in Viktor's face, hands raised, Makarov dangling like a limp dick.
Nastya's eyes flicked to him, cool as ice. "This is Viktor," she said, voice a blade.
Zara raked him with a stare that could flay skin. "Lev escaped," she hissed, voice venom, boots kicking a charred arm. "How'd that fuck-up happen?"
She spun to Aslan, looming like a gargoyle. "Get the sniper. He better have a good reason or I'll peel answers out of his hide."
Viktor's gut lurched—Rook? His face stayed stone, but his heart screamed, What the hell's he playing at?
Lev's van tore through Moscow's guts, blood dripping like a leaky tap, soaking the seat. He clutched his phone, dialing Nastya—nothing. Dmitri—nothing. His empire was a smoking crater. He is now a king with a broken crown, bleeding out in a city that wanted him dead.
UNDISCLOSED WAREHOUSE
Lev slumped in a shithole warehouse, blood pooling under a rickety chair as a shaky doc stitched his shoulder, needle flashing in dim light. Pain burned like hellfire, his arm a useless slab.
"Bullet tore clean through," the doc mumbled, sweat dripping. "leaving a hole, but this arm's fucked for weeks."
Lev spat, vodka and rage sour on his tongue.
"Kuznetsov, that cockroach, sold me to the dogs," he snarled, voice sounding like a gravel pit. His empire—ash.
The Americans' deal, half of two million paid for a job dirtier than a sewer, was a noose tightening.
He'd planned to clean house—Chechens, traitors—before pulling it off, but now?
"Worse than square one," he muttered, grim humor twisting his lip. "Might as well finish the job, grab the cash, and ghost these streets. Regroup, come back to skull-fuck 'em all." But he needed his kids—Nastya, Dmitri—to pull it off.
He dialed Nastya again, phone ringing, then dying. Twice. Dmitri—same, dead air. His stomach knotted, fear slithering like a snake. Betrayed? Dead? His blood, his legacy, slipping through his shot-up hands. "Fuck," he whispered, a ghost's plea in hell's pit.
KHIMKI OUTSKIRTS
Viktor stood in the wreckage, firelight dancing on corpses, air thick with cordite, charred meat, and the tang of spilled guts.
Zara's men fanned out, rifles hot, while she and Nastya hissed plans, cold bitches plotting in a slaughterhouse.
Viktor's eyes caught a slim figure limping through smoke—sniper rifle slung, gait too familiar. Rook.
Viktor's heart stopped. Same eyes, same face but not the familiar playful grin he used to have. Viktor's own face, rebuilt by a surgeon's knife, wasn't Drey's either.
Rook stared, wary, like a dog sniffing a trap then walked away.
Viktor cracked a grim grin, voice low. "Hello, Rookie."
Rook spun, eyes slitting, voice a growl. "Who the fuck's this?"
Viktor's laugh was dark, a blade in the gut. "Who's dumb enough to carve a new face for a revenge run? Think, dipshit."
Rook stared, seconds bleeding, then it hit—Drey, Viktor, GROM's ghost. They crashed into a hug, brief, raw, like hugging a corpse.
Rook was quiet, no old chatter, no barstool bullshit, "death" had hollowed him, left a shell with killer's eyes.
"Nice to see you, Drey—shit, Viktor," Rook said, a flicker of humor crawling out, weak as a dying rat. "long fucking time."
Viktor smirked, skipping the tease. "You too, Rookie. I thought the fishes would be done with you by now."
Zara stalked the ruins, Aslan hauling Rook forward, rifle clattering. Her eyes were hellfire, voice a lash. "You missed Lev, you fuck. Scope slipped? I'll slip a blade through your ribs."
Rook's face stayed dead, eyes haunted. "Won't happen again, I winged him though" he said, voice flat, a man half-buried.
Zara's glare could've burned bone, but she waved Aslan off. "Don't miss next time or you're dog food."
She spun to Nastya and Viktor, voice low, lethal. "Lev's bleeding, running. You're closer to him, so sniff him out. We will hunt—together—or I feed you both to the rats."
Nastya's fierce stare didn't crack, but her thoughts screamed—Dmitri…
Viktor and Rook stood shoulder to shoulder, watching Zara's men regroup, rifles glinting in firelight.
Nastya lingered, her Zara alliance a tightrope over a pit of knives. The warehouse smoldered, corpses stiffening, sirens wailing closer—cops, sniffing blood.
Viktor's Makarov felt like a curse, Lev's escape a wound that wouldn't close. Rook's silence was worse—GROM's ghosts clung to him, same as Viktor.
Viktor observed him. His hands are steady. Too steady. The Rook Viktor knew would've been cracking jokes about the Chechens' shitty armor or how Lev's men shot like drunk babushkas.
"You're not dead," Viktor said. "Explain."
Rook exhaled. "You really wanna know?" He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a jagged scar from wrist to elbow. "After the bridge, current dragged me downstream—right into a Chechen smuggling boat, they saved me "
FLASHBACK
Water choked his lungs. The bridge's wreckage burned above him, orange flames licking the night. His leg was snapped backward, his vest soaked in blood.
He grabbed a floating tire, blacking out as the river carried him.
Voices. Hands hauling him onto a boat. A woman's face, sharp as a knife, eyes evaluating. "This one's GROM," a man said. "Waste of bandages."
The woman—Zara—tilted Rook's chin. "No. This one's got hate in him. Like us." She pressed a vodka-soaked rag to his wounds. "You want Lev dead? Live first."
Back in the present, Rook smirked, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Turns out, the Chechens hate Lev more than they hate Poles. Who knew?"
Viktor tossed him a grenade. "And you just… joined them?"
Rook's grin faded. "Nah. I died on that bridge. What crawled out was something else."
"Lev's mine," Viktor muttered, low, for Rook alone.
Rook nodded, no words, eyes like graves. The old Rookie would've cracked a shit-eating grin, but this one was a blade, forged in death.
Viktor didn't push—some ghosts screamed louder than words.
Rook lit a cigarette, eyeing Viktor. "Did you hesitate with Lev. Why?"
Viktor stared at the NexCorp tower blueprints. "My old man was a cop. Bratva killed him, made it look like suicide."
"Ah." Rook exhaled smoke. "So Lev dies, but he won't die easily."
"No.. but he won't escape it either" Viktor agreed.
Zara's voice slashed through, sharp as a flayed nerve. "Move, you sorry bastards. Lev's bleeding somewhere. Find him, or I will start carving trophies."
her eyes met Viktor's cold stare— Ninety minutes ago, they'd had plans. Now, they had blood, fire, and a city howling for more blood. Hell's pit was open, and Moscow was its altar.