Page 64 of The Mafia King's Baby

She nods. “I will.”

Leonid and I cautiously approach the building, weapons ready but not obviously displayed. It’s the kind of alertness that comes from years of walking into situations where the difference between suspicious and dead is measured in milliseconds.

Inside, our contact waits with obvious nervousness radiating from every movement. It’s a man, and younger than I expected, probably in his early thirties, with the kind of pale complexion that suggests too much time in front of computer screens. His gaze darts constantly to the broken windows and doorways, fingers twitching with barely controlled anxiety.

“You came alone?” His voice carries the strain of someone operating far outside their comfort zone.

“As agreed.” I keep my own voice neutral and professional. “You said you had something we need to see?”

He produces a manila folder from his jacket, thick with documents and photographs. “I’ve been compiling this for a while and had planned to turn it over to internal affairs, but I realize how that would end now. I’d be dead, and nothing would change. You see, Lang was never the top of this thing. He was only middle management. The Belovs financed his entire operation, but they’re not the only family involved, as you’re aware.”

I accept the folder and flip through its contents quickly. There are black and white surveillance photos, financial transfer records, and internal memos with official letterheads. One document stops me cold. I curse as I lift a forged federal warrant with my name typed clearly across the top, authorization for lethal force if I resist arrest.

“They’re planning to frame you for the murder of Assistant Director Patricia Hendricks. She’s a clean agent, twenty-year veteran, and has two kids.” The contact’s voice drops to barely above a whisper. “They plan to make it look like you killed a hero to cover your tracks and get every clean agent in the Bureauhunting you personally.” His voice trembles. “Notice the name on the warrant?”

I curse again as I read aloud, “Director Stephen Frayne.” I look at him. “This goes all the way to the director?”

The young man nods, looking sick. “You’ll see now why I’m turning it over to you and pulling a Snowden. I have a flight booked for Moscow that leaves from Tacoma in three hours.”

The information is like a fist to the solar plexus. They’re so desperate and so outside the bounds of law that they’re not just corrupt. They’re willing to commit murder and frame innocent people, and the Director of the FBI is authorizing it. Whatever I’ve done in my life, it’s nothing compared to this.

A sound from outside freezes all conversation. It’s the distinctive crack of a high-powered rifle. Our contact’s expression shifts from nervous to terrified in the space of a heartbeat. Then his chest explodes.

Blood sprays across the folder in my hands as he crumples forward without ceremony. Leonid curses and drops to one knee behind fallen debris that used to be part of the wall. I slam the folder shut and dive for cover as another round splinters the wooden beam above our heads.

“Sniper on the east hill!” Leonid’s voice cuts through the chaos as he draws his sidearm.

We return fire toward the tree line, using short controlled bursts designed to suppress rather than eliminate. The goal is survival and escape, not prolonged engagement with an unknown number of attackers in an unfavorable position.

During a brief lull in incoming fire, we bolt from the building in a controlled sprint toward the SUV. The clearing feels endless, with every step measured against the possibility of another rifle shot finding its target.

More rounds crack past our heads as we close the distance, finding cover among the trees once we leave the cleared area. As we get closer to the parking area, I see Celia in the driver’s seat through the SUV’s windows, but something about her posture looks wrong. She’s too rigid and too still.

As we reach the vehicle, I realize why.

23

Celia

The Glock 19 weighs heavier than I remember in my hands as I watch Yefrem and Leonid disappear through the trees toward the abandoned building. The SUV idles quietly beneath me, its engine purring with the kind of mechanical reliability that feels reassuring in moments like this. Through the binoculars positioned on my lap, I can track their movement until the forest swallows them completely.

The parabolic microphone Leonid installed picks up fragments of conversation from inside the building. The voices are too distant and distorted to make out individual words, but they’re enough to confirm the meeting is proceeding as planned. I adjust the headphones and try to find a frequency that cuts through the static while my fingers tremble slightly as I work the controls.

Everything about this situation feels wrong. The isolation, the remoteness, and the fact that we’re trusting someone desperate enough to request a face-to-face meeting in the middle ofnowhere weighs on me like a millstone. My father always said that when something feels off, it usually is. Right now, every instinct I have is screaming danger.

The forest around us stretches for miles in every direction. Tall pines create a canopy so thick that sunlight barely penetrates to the forest floor. It would be beautiful under normal circumstances, but now, it feels oppressive and full of hiding places and potential threats. Every shadow could conceal a sniper, and every rustle in the underbrush could signal approaching enemies.

I shift in the driver’s seat, trying to find a position that gives me clear sight lines to both the building and the access road we used to reach this location. The leather seat creaks softly as I move, and I wince at the sound because it’s too loud in the oppressive quiet of the forest.

Through the binoculars, my eyes dart along the tree line, looking for anything that doesn’t belong, like movement that’s too regular, reflections from optical equipment, or disturbed vegetation that might indicate recent passage. It reminds me of sitting in the hunting blind with my dad one autumn, waiting for deer, and how he instructed me to find them visually before ever trying to shoot one. When I had a shot, I’d deliberately missed but so had my father. The hunting trips were for bonding, not actually taking down animals.

A sharp crack echoes through the forest, distracting me from the memory, and is followed immediately by shouting. The parabolic microphone picks up the chaos of multiple voices, more gunshots, and the unmistakable sound of Yefrem cursing in Russian. My heart hammers against my ribs as I comprehend the meeting has gone catastrophically wrong.

The sound of shattering glass behind me comes too late for evasion. Cold metal presses against the base of my skull before I can turn around, and a voice I recognize from surveillance recordings speaks directly into my ear.

“Don’t move. Don’t scream. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Agent David Kim. I’ve heard his voice a couple of times on recordings our surveillance teams captured during late-night meetings with cartel representatives to discuss evidence tampering and witness intimidation. Seeing his face in the rearview mirror confirms what the voice already told me. This was a trap, and we walked directly into it. Either the informant is on it, or they were aware of his investigation and followed him here.

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