Bound by the Blood

SEVEN SECONDS

POV: Sasha

---

I've been dead for six years. It's the only way to survive when your father is a monster.

Sasha Volkov died in a fire when she was twenty-three. That's what the records say. That's what my uncle Dmitri told everyone who asked. There was a funeral. Flowers. Tears. A grave with my name on it, in a cemetery outside Moscow.

The real Sasha – the one who'd trained since she was a child to kill, who'd watched her mother die, who'd learned to smile while her father's enemies bled – walked out of that fire and never looked back.

She became someone else. Someone new. Someone who could walk through the world without the weight of her name dragging her down.

It worked for six years.

Then Viktor died. And Dmitri found me. And the past came back, the way it always does, hungry and patient and never, ever finished.

---

The basement smelled like sweat and blood and cheap beer.

Twenty feet away, two men circled each other in a makeshift cage. The crowd roared – drunk, desperate, hungry for violence. I watched from the corner, hood up, face half-hidden, waiting for my turn.

This was my third fight this month. Not for the money – though the money helped. For the feeling. The only time I felt anything real anymore was when I was bleeding.

"You're up."

The promoter nodded toward the cage. I pulled off my hood, walked past him without a word.

My opponent was a man named Grigori – six-four, two-fifty, a wall of muscle with dead eyes. He'd won his last seven fights. The crowd loved him.

They didn't know me.

I stepped into the cage. The referee said something I didn't hear. The bell rang.

Grigori charged.

I didn't move until the last second – then I dropped, swept his legs, and was on him before he hit the mat. Two punches to the jaw. An elbow to the temple. He went limp.

The crowd went silent.

I stood, barely breathing hard, and walked out of the cage.

Seven seconds. A new record.

The promoter tried to hand me an envelope. I took it, didn't count it, walked toward the back exit.

That's when I felt it.

Eyes on me. Someone watching.

I turned slowly, scanning the crowd. And there – in the shadows at the back of the room – I saw him.

Marco Ricci.

I'd seen his photograph a hundred times. Studied his file. Knew his routines, his habits, his weaknesses. He was supposed to be a target. A means to an end. A weakness I could exploit to get close to Antonio Matteo.

But in person, he was different.

Taller. Broader. His eyes were darker than the photographs captured – and they were fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

I looked away first. Pushed through the exit door into the cold alley.

My hands were shaking.

Not from the fight.

---

I walked home through the empty streets, envelope in my pocket, Marco's face burned into my mind.

He'd found me. Of course he'd found me. He was the best soldier the Matteos had. It was only a matter of time.

But why tonight? Why here? And why had he just watched instead of confronting me?

My phone buzzed. Dmitri.

Progress?

I stared at the screen. My uncle. The man who'd taken over after my father died. The man who'd given me this mission. The man who'd promised me freedom if I succeeded – and death if I failed.

Soon, I typed back.

You have three weeks. Then we move, with or without you.

Three weeks.

I shoved the phone back in my pocket and kept walking.

---

My apartment was small, cheap, forgettable. Just like I needed it to be. I locked the door, checked the windows, then sat on the edge of the bed and let myself breathe.

Marco Ricci.

I'd been watching him for months. I knew he was dangerous. I knew he trusted no one. I knew he'd lost his family to my father's men when he was sixteen.

I also knew he read poetry. That he visited his mother's garden every week. That he'd taken a bullet for his best friend without hesitating.

He wasn't supposed to be complicated. He was supposed to be a target.

But somewhere in the past weeks – watching him, learning him, memorizing him – something had shifted.

I didn't want to destroy him anymore.

I wanted to know him.

And that was the most dangerous thing of all.

---

The next morning, I went to the gym.

It was my sanctuary – a converted warehouse in Brooklyn that smelled like sweat and leather. Here, I wasn't Sasha Volkov, daughter of a monster, ghost of a dead girl. I was just a woman who could fight.

I was sparring when he walked in.

I saw him in the mirror first – tall, dark, dressed in black, watching me from the doorway. My partner threw a punch. I blocked it automatically, my focus already gone.

"Again," I told my partner.

He threw another punch. I dodged. My eyes kept drifting to the mirror.

Marco hadn't moved.

"Take a break," I said to my partner. He nodded, walked away.

I turned to face Marco.

"You're following me."

"You're not easy to find."

"I'm not supposed to be."

He stepped closer. In the bright gym light, I could see the exhaustion in his face – the shadows under his eyes, the tension in his jaw. He hadn't slept.

Neither had I.

"Why are you here, Mr. Ricci?"

"Marco."

"Why are you here, Marco?"

He studied me for a long moment. "You've been asking questions about Viktor Petrov."

"I've been asking questions about the man who killed my husband."

"That's not what I heard."

"Then you heard wrong."

He moved closer. I didn't back up.

"You're lying," he said quietly. "I don't know about what yet. But you're lying."

Everyone was lying. That was the world we lived in. But something about the way he said it – not angry, not accusing, just… certain – made my chest ache.

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe I am. But so are you."

"What am I lying about?"

"That you don't care. That you're empty. That you don't feel anything." I held his eyes. "I've been watching you, Marco. You're not empty. You're terrified."

His jaw tightened. For a moment, I thought he'd walk away.

He didn't.

"Have dinner with me," he said.

"What?"

"I want to know who you are. The real you. Not the widow. Not the ghost." He stepped back, gave me space. "One dinner. That's all I'm asking."

I should have said no.

I should have walked away, changed my name, left the city, disappeared the way I'd disappeared before.

But I was tired of running.

"Tomorrow night," I said. "There's a place on Mulberry. Carmine's."

"I know it."

"Seven o'clock."

"I'll be there."

He turned and walked out.

I stood in the middle of the gym, heart pounding, and watched him go.

What was I doing?

I was supposed to be destroying him. Instead, I was having dinner with him. Instead, I was falling for him.

Instead, I was choosing a path I couldn't come back from.

My phone buzzed. Dmitri again.

Tick tock.

I didn't answer.

Tomorrow night, I'd have dinner with Marco Ricci.

And then everything would change.