Page 76 of Imperfect Desires

Lev

I wake with a start, heart racing, my fingers clenched around the edge of the desk. The war room is quiet, the kind of quiet that wraps around your ribs and squeezes. For a second, I forget where I am—then I see the maps, the photos, the red strings stretching like veins across the walls.

My chest tightens.

I fell asleep here again.

I push myself upright, ignoring the stiff ache in my back, the pull in my shoulder where I’d been leaning against the hard edge of the table. The light seeping in through the blinds tells me it’smorning—or close enough. Another day, another hour that she’s gone.

Alina.

Her name isn’t just a thought. It’s a wound that keeps reopening.

I reach for the photo at the center of the table—the blurry traffic cam still from the night she vanished. I’ve stared at it so long the pixels are etched into my brain. A black SUV. Tampered plates. Barely any identifying features. Too clean. Too careful.

I’ve been chasing ghosts.

My jaw locks as I drag a hand over my face. Every lead from the night before replays in my head like a broken record. Names. Faces. Whispers. All dead ends. I’ve been through every cartel contact, every Bratva rival, every outsider who might’ve had the guts to make a move.

Nothing.

But something about the vehicle—it won’t let me go.

I pick up the image again and narrow my eyes. Not just the SUV, but the way it was parked. The angle. The slight tilt of the body. Whoever was driving that night knew the cameras were there. Knew how to avoid them. Almost too well.

I squint. My pulse starts to rise—not in panic, but in awareness. I’ve seen a setup like this before.

My mind sharpens.

Not the car. The job.

I don’t know where yet—but the style, the method, the execution... it’s familiar.

I stare harder at the edges of the photo, as if willing it to speak.

It’s not a memory. Not yet. Just a sensation crawling beneath my skin, trying to take shape. I grip the edges of the desk until my knuckles go white.

Come on. Come on, damn it.

I’ve seen this before.

The thought circles like a vulture above everything else in the room.

And the second I figure out where—it’s going to lead me straight to her.

The mechanic's shop is tucked into a crumbling block of East Brooklyn, surrounded by rusting fences and rows of stripped-down cars. Inside, the place reeks of diesel, grease, and stale cigarettes.

I toss the SUV photo on his oil-stained workbench.

“You ever work on something like this?”

He barely glances at it. “Nah. Never seen that ride.”

Lie.

I say nothing. I just pull out my gun and set it on the bench, barrel pointed toward the floor. He stares at it like it might jump on its own.

“Try again,” I say calmly.

---