Aleksandr’s POV

There were three rules I lived by.

Don’t form attachments. Don’t ask questions you can’t afford the answers to. And never, ever fail a Moretti.

Tonight I was on the verge of breaking all three. When she called on the phone, screaming and hysterical, I almost went crazy and the few minutes it took the elevator to get to the penthouse felt like years.

After calming her down, I called Matteo to bring me everything concerning her.

Now, I stood in the elevator, hands in my coat pockets, my gun pressed under my ribs, watching the digital numbers tick down.

Floor 22. She was safe, at least for now.

But the red envelope meant someone had breached our perimeter.

Someone with a personal vendetta.

When I stepped out of the garage, Matteo was waiting for me. He wasn’t part of my circle, but he had been loyal to Siena, so I had no choice but to trust him. Also, Enzo entrusted him with Siena.

“Did you get the files?” I asked.

He handed me a flash drive. “Every training record, clean urine sample, time stamped meal plan. All legit. That girl is cleaner than a Vatican priest.”

I pocketed the drive. “Yeah, we know someone powerful wants her dirty. Very dirty in fact.”

“Why her though? I mean, she is just a runner. A very good one at that.”

“No one is just anything when they carry the Moretti name.”

Matteo rubbed his chin. “How deep are you in this Aleksandr?”

“Deep enough to burn cities for her, if I have to.”

“Just keep her safe. Please.”

By the time I got back upstairs, she was awake.

Sitting on the couch. Pale. Holding the red envelope like it was a bomb.

“You weren’t supposed to open the door,” I said.

“I told you earlier. I didn’t. It was already in the door.”

“I took the envelope, scanned it with a UV pen.”

No fingerprints. No traceable ink. It was like whoever sent this was a ghost.

“They dug up my mother”, she whispered.

“They wanted to get to you. It is a psychological warfare. A warning.”

“I got the message clearly.”

I felt all the emotion in that single sentence. I looked at her, really looked. Beneath that stubborn façade, there was something else. Not fear, but anger. And when you also look beyond that, you would see how helpless she felt.

She stood up and walked to the kitchen to pour herself a glass water, with hands that trembled ever so slightly. “Do you know who did this?” she asked.

“No, but I have my suspicions”

"Then take me to them."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because the moment you step outside, you become a weapon. And weapons get used."

She flinched and then straightened. "Then teach me how not to be one."

I stared at her. Maybe she wasn’t a girl who needed saving. Maybe she was the storm they feared.

Two hours later, we arrived at an underground facility that I rarely used. This one had steel walls, fluorescents, with no windows but echoes and bloodstains.

“Welcome to your crash course on survival.”

“Charming”, she said raising an eyebrow.

“First rule”, I said while passing her a burner phone. “No social media, no internet, and no calls. You are only allowed to send encrypted messages to me and your father.”

“What is the second rule?”

I walked over to a metal cabinet and pulled out a gun. For someone who grew up in a mafia family, she has funny reactions to guns.

She blinked. “Do we have to do this, Aleksandr?”

“Yes, you need to learn how to shoot. Even if it is only to scare, not to kill.”

“I am not pointing a gun at anyone, not alone shoot. Please, don’t make me do this.”

“Then you are not ready.”

“I am an athlete, not an assassin.”

“Not anymore”, I answered. “Now let’s get to it.”

It took almost 30 minutes of back and forth to convince her. She fired the first shot with trembling hands and missed by a mile. By the time she fired the fifth shot, she was breathing evenly and by the time she fired the tenth shot, she was able to hit the target on the shoulder.

I didn’t smile, I just nodded at her. At least she’s getting there. “You’ve got nerve.”

“No”, she said. “I’ve got rage.”

One the way back to the penthouse, I checked my phone. A single message popped up on the screen. Sasha, they know you care and that makes a liability.

My stomach twisted, but I deleted it immediately.

I have killed men for less, and for this one I would do it again.

I looked over at her, and she had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, her head against the window. When asleep, she looks younger, more vulnerable. In the beginning I had told myself I was just the cleaner, here to protect her as a favor to her father. But now, as I stared at her, I kept wondering if it was too late to detach from her.

As we stepped back into the penthouse suite, she walked ahead of me, still reeling from the training. I almost bumped into her as she stopped suddenly.

“Aleksandr”, she whispered.

I looked over and right on the coffee table was a chessboard, with one piece missing. The Queen.

Instead, there was a blood stained note in its place. It reads, “Check! Now your next move decides whether she lives.”

The blood wasn’t dried yet. “We’ve been breached again”, I said as I scanned the rooms.

She stepped back, trembling all over. “How did they get in here? We’ve been gone for only…”

“Thirty minutes”, I finished for her. “That is long enough.”

I moved quickly through the rooms, checking everywhere. The air vents, the restrooms, all was clear. Nothing was disturbed. They left no traces.

Just as I was about to make a call, my phone rang. Ah, good timing. It was a call from Enzo Moretti. Only as I picked, the voice I heard on the end was not Enzo’s.

“Your time is up, Volkov”, the voice said. And then the line went dead.

I stared at my phone in my hand. I hadn’t heard that voice in five years.

Valentin Kross.

I thought the bastard had died. At least, that’s was everyone thought. The rumor was that he died in a prison fire accident in Bucharest. An enemy from my past. Kross was dangerous, merciless, brutal and vicious. He was very intelligent too.

And now he was speaking from Enzo’s phone.

“What is it? I heard Siena say from behind me.

“Pack a bag”, I said instead. “We leave here in five minutes.” I pointed to a closet where she can get the things I had delivered earlier.

“We are going somewhere even Kross cannot find out.”

“Who is Kross?”

The reason I sleep with a gun under my pillow.