Page 111 of 10 Days to Surrender

As we drive, the anger builds, slow and cold, familiar as breathing. This is my city. My streets. My people. And this fucking Serbian dog thinks he can just waltz in and take it all?

I think of Ariel back in Italy, crying in our ruined garden. Of the twins growing in her belly. All the things I left behind to come fight this war.

She’s wrong about what she said: I didn’t come here to die. I came here to take back what’s mine—not just for me anymore, but for them. For the family I never thought I’d have.

And Dragan? He’s about to learn exactly what happens when you wake a sleeping bear.

The kitchen at Zoya’s restaurant is full of my men. Bratva captains crowd around the scarred steel prep table, their faces drawn tight with eight months of barely-contained rage. They all look worse for the wear. Ilya’s tailored suit hangs loose from too many skipped meals. Roza’s lacquered nails click against a tablet, the only sign she’ll ever show of the anxiety bubbling beneath her surface. Viktor’s knuckles gleam raw pink and ooze blood.

Roza spreads out a map of New York, and as a group, we run again through what Feliks told me the night he arrived in Italy. Brighton Beach. Coney Island. The docks. Little Odessa—everything that used to be mine, it’s all Dragan’s now.

Ilya fills in the legal side of the thorns in our side: unannounced IRS audits hampering our businesses, union disputes hamstringing our workforces, permitting issues suddenly cropping up everywhere we’ve tried to build or expand. It’s all Dragan, pulling strings, fucking with us in every way he knows how.

As they talk, I trace the familiar streets with my fingertip. My territory has been reduced to a few scattered blocks. But what catches my attention isn’t the map—it’s my own hand.

Rock steady. Not a tremor in sight.

I toy with my Glock, checking the action. The weight settles into my palm like it never left. My shoulder doesn’t scream when I sight down the barrel. My fingers don’t shake on the trigger. The rest and rehabilitation have done their work. The weakness Dragan carved into my body is gone.

“That’s enough,” I say, cutting off their litany of losses. “We’re not here to count wounds. We’re here to inflict them.”

My captains straighten, hunger gleaming in their eyes. They’ve been waiting for this—for me to come back, to give them purpose again.

I’m ready to deliver.

The map is already bleeding red push pins, but I stab a fresh one into Red Hook. “Dragan’s Achilles’ heel isn’t his army—it’s his reflection.” Case in point: I flick a photo of Dragan’s new Midtown penthouse across the table—floor-to-ceiling mirrors in every room. “He’s Narcissus. Pure fucking ego. He’ll chase every threat personally. So, to tempt a narcissist out of his cave… we give him threats everywhere.”

Viktor leans in. “Hit the gambling dens and diamond district same night?”

“Samehour.” My finger traces circles around key points on the map. “Here. Here. Here. And here. We hit them all at once. Make him dance.” I tap the central Brighton Beach warehouse. “Roza,clone his burner phones. I want his men getting conflicting orders from a dozen different numbers.”

She grins, shark-like. “I’ll make his comms scream.”

“Viktor, check our old protection network. See who’s still breathing, who might be willing to flip back if properly motivated. Then give them that motivation, however you deem necessary.”

I slide my gaze to Ilya. “And you—I want everything on his legitimate businesses. Tax records, health code violations, union complaints. Find me pressure points, then poke them.”

“What about the docks?” Feliks asks.

“That’s where you come in.” I trace the shoreline. “Watch his shipments. I want to know exactly what comes in, what goes out, and most importantly—what he handles personally.”

My captains lean forward, hungry for more.

“We have twenty-four hours to line it all up,” I tell them. “That’s a tight window, so it means the work must be clean. No mistakes. No assumptions. When we move, we move with perfect intel or not at all.”

I study the map again. Dragan’s empire looks vast on paper. But paper burns. And every empire has its weak points—you just have to know where to shove the knife.

Feliks’s phone buzzes against the steel prep table. He answers with a grunt, then his face darkens. “Boss. Serbian scouts, three blocks away. Moving this direction.”

Roza’s taser clicks on. Viktor’s chair screeches back. I catch Ilya’s eye across the table—he’s already reaching under the counter for the sawed-off shotgun that Zoya keeps taped there.

“How many?” My thumb strokes the Glock’s grip. Steady. Always, always steady now.

“Three, maybe four.” Feliks peers through the blinds. “Snapping pictures of the storefront.”

“Shit.” Ilya adjusts his tie with trembling fingers. “They found us.”

“No.” I rise, rolling tension from my shoulders. The old bullet wound beneath my ribs stays silent. “If Dragan knew I was here, he’d send forty. Not photographers.”

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