Page 132 of 10 Days to Surrender

Sasha says nothing.

Feliks again, rain plastering his hair to his forehead: “Boss. Kosti’s trail is still fresh. If we move now, we might catch him before he vanishes completely.”

Sasha says nothing.

“Sasha, goddammit, you have to decide! Do something, for fuck’s sake! Choose!”

51

SASHA

I thought I would’ve been better prepared for this. How many times have I watched men die at my feet, cursing my name with their last breaths? How much blood have I seen oozing into the ground right in front of me?

I’ve seen death. Hatred. God knows I’ve seen blood.

Nothing made me ready for this, though.

The storm howls like a living thing. In front of me, lying prostrate in the dirt, Ariel screams like the exact opposite: like something unholy and wrong. Through the curtain of rain, I watch as her face—my wife’s face, my fuckingwife—contorts in pain. Every bolt of lightning illuminates it whiter and whiter, worse and worse.

Another contraction hits. Ariel’s fingers dig into the ground. Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth where she’s bitten through her cheek to keep from screaming.

My feet won’t move. I’m caught between the magnetic poles of duty and love, paralyzed by the choice before me.

Feliks’s phone buzzes. He answers, listens, then curses violently in Russian. “Blyat’. Boss?—”

“Not now.” My voice sounds strange, distant.

“You need to hear this.” He grabs my shoulder, forces me to look at him. “Roza just called. Dragan’s men are hitting us everywhere at once. The warehouse on 49th. The clubs in Brighton Beach. The shipping terminal. Even the old safehouse in Queens. They knew exactly where to strike.”

The implications sink in slowly, like poison spreading through my veins. “Kosti.”

“He must have been feeding them intel for weeks. Maybe months.” Feliks runs a hand through his rain-soaked hair. “Everything we rebuilt after the last attack—it’s all burning, boss. Right fucking now.”

My empire is crumbling. Again. But this time, the betrayal cuts deeper because it comes from within.

Fromfamily.

Another bolt of lightning splits the sky. In its flash, I see Ariel’s jaw open wide, but no sound comes out.

“The contractions are too close together,” Zoya says, her voice tight with worry. “The babies are coming.”

The old me wouldn’t have hesitated. The old me would already be in a car, racing toward the coordinates on Kosti’s burner, leaving a trail of blood and bodies in my wake. The old me would’ve chosen power over love every single time.

But I’m not that man anymore.

… Am I?

I close my eyes. Everything I’ve built, everything I’ve killed for, is slipping through my fingers like water. One word from me could save it all. One choice.

Another scream tears through the storm. This one isn’t thunder—it’s Ariel.

My eyes snap open. “Tell Roza to get everyone out. Save what they can.”

“And Kosti?”

“Let him run.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Sasha?—”

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