THE DEVIL’S ON CALL

The falling veil

Consciousness didn’t return to Zoya all at once. It returned in brutal, fragmented waves, preceded by a dull, throbbing ache at the base of her skull that vibrated with every beat of her heart.

When she finally forced her eyelids open, the world was a blurred, watery smudge of deep charcoal and muted gold. She blinked aggressively, trying to clear the static from her vision, but the movement only sent a sharp, agonizing spike of pain directly behind her eyes.

She rolled her head to the side, her cheek brushing against fabric that felt entirely too soft thick, high thread count silk sheets that smelled faintly of lavender and expensive wood smoke.

Where am I?

The question hadn’t even fully formed before the memories of the previous night came rushing back, crashing into her mind with the force of a physical blow. The industrial estate. The broken perimeter sensors. The sudden, terrifying shift from lethal boredom to absolute combat readiness in the twins' eyes.

She remembered the panic clawing at her throat. She remembered the massive guard stepping into the hallway, blocking her only path to the exit, treating her like an inanimate piece of luggage to be moved at his masters' discretion. She had demanded to be let out. She had screamed that she had a family, a nephew, a life that didn't belong to them. And when the guard had reached for her arm, treating her with the casual arrogance she so deeply despised, her instincts had taken completely over.

Zoya had never been a victim. She had lunged forward, channeling every ounce of her adrenaline into a brutal, well aimed kick directly into the guard’s groin. The man had doubled over with a breathless, choked gasp, and Zoya had bolted for the grand foyer, her heavy medical bag swinging wildly against her hip. She had been so close. She had seen the heavy oak doors, seen the faint gray light of the courtyard…

And then, the world had exploded into a blinding flash of white light. Someone, or something, had struck the back of her head with a heavy, unyielding force. Her knees had buckled, the floor had rushed up to meet her, and the darkness had swallowed her whole.

Zoya slowly lifted a hand to the back of her head, her fingers wincing as they brushed against a tender, swollen knot just above her neck. The skin wasn't broken, meaning she hadn't been hit with a blade, but the concussion was real.

She forced herself to sit up, but the room instantly spun in a violent, nauseating circle. Nausea rose in her throat, forcing her to lean back against the plush, oversized pillows, her breathing shallow as she waited for the vertigo to pass.

As her vision finally stabilized, Zoya gave the room a thorough, calculating view.

Two things were entirely, terrifyingly certain. One: she had been kidnapped. Two: she needed to find a way out before the morning turned into a permanent disappearance.

The room she was in didn't look like a dungeon or a cell. It was vast, easily twice the size of her entire three bedroom apartment. It could have passed for a suite in a five star luxury hotel or a high end penthouse overlooking the billionaire district. The furniture was minimalist but extraordinarily expensive dark mahogany dressers, a plush velvet armchair in the corner, and a massive king sized bed with a headboard that carved into the wall like a modern sculpture. Heavy, floor to ceiling charcoal curtains were drawn tightly across the expansive windows, keeping the sunlight out, but faint slivers of brilliant morning gold leaked through the edges. It was clearly daytime.

How long have I been out? Zoya thought, a cold dread twisting her stomach. Leo. Kirill. Alina. They would think I'm missing. They would think I'm dead.

Suddenly, the faint, distinct sound of a heavy brass handle turning echoed through the quiet space. The door began to push open, slowly, a sliver of light from the hallway cutting across the dark hardwood floor.

Zoya’s medical training and survival instincts synchronized in less than a heartbeat. She didn't panic. Instead, she instantly melted back into the mattress, letting her head fall limp against the pillows, her eyes closing as she forced her breathing to become slow, heavy, and rhythmic. She simulated the exact state of deep, trauma-induced unconsciousness.

Through the thin veil of her lashes, she tracked the approaching figure.

It was a soft, lighter step than the heavy, rhythmic thud of the guards' tactical boots. The figure moved quietly, the rustle of fabric indicating a long skirt or a dress. As the person drew closer to the side of the bed, Zoya clutched the silk sheets beneath her palms, her knuckles hidden under the heavy duvet. She breathed a silent, fierce prayer of thanks to the universe for one critical detail: they hadn't tied her up. She wasn't restrained. They had assumed she was entirely broken, entirely conquered by the blow to her head.

That was their first mistake.

Zoya felt the figure lean over the bed. A soft hand reached out, intending to brush against Zoya’s shoulder to check her vitals or wake her up.

In one swift, explosive motion, Zoya’s eyes snapped wide open.

Before the person could even register the movement, Zoya reached up, her fingers locking around the figure's wrist like a steel vice. With a violent, leveraged yank, she utilized the mattress for traction and pulled the figure heavily toward the side of the bed.

The figure let out a loud, high pitched scream of pure terror.

Only then, in the fractured light of the room, did Zoya realize the intruder was a woman slender, with sharp features and elegantly styled blonde hair, wearing a high end silk blouse. But Zoya didn't care. Gender, status, innocence none of it mattered when her family’s survival was on the line.

Without a single second of hesitation, Zoya dragged the woman completely off the bed, sending her crashing heavily onto the hardwood floor.

The woman was still screaming her lungs out, her hands clawing wildly at the air as she tried to scramble backward, her expensive leather flats slipping against the polished wood. But Zoya was already moving. She threw herself off the mattress, landing on top of the woman with a feral, unyielding aggression. She grabbed a fistful of the woman’s blonde hair, yanking her head back, and instantly locked her forearm around the woman's throat in a textbook, suffocating headlock.

"Where the hell am I?" Zoya hissed, her voice vibrating with a raw, murderous intensity that belonged to the dark underbelly of the city.

She didn't give a damn that she was actively draining the life out of the woman. Her forearm dug deeper into the trachea, restricting the airflow, her knees pinning the woman’s flailing arms against the floor.

"Answer me!" Zoya screamed, her vision tunneling into a red haze of pure desperation. “Where is this?"

The woman choked, her face turning a dangerous shade of crimson as her fingers weakly beat against Zoya’s arm. "P-Please…”

Bang!

The heavy mahogany door was flung open with an explosive force, slamming against the interior wall. This time, it wasn't a soft step. A couple of towering guards in dark tactical vests rushed into the room, their movements precise and lethal. Two of them instantly raised their weapons, the heavy black barrels of their semi-automatic pistols pointed squarely at the center of Zoya’s chest.

"Drop her! Now!" the lead guard bellowed, his voice a deafening roar in the enclosed space. "Step away from her or we fire!"

Zoya didn't move an inch. If anything, she tightened her grip, her forearm compressing the woman’s throat until the woman's eyes began to roll back into her head. Zoya glared up at the guards through the curtain of her dark hair, her expression so fierce, so entirely unbothered by the firearms, that the guards actually hesitated. They recognized the look of a person who had nothing left to lose.

"I promise to snap her neck before you can even fire a single shot," Zoya snarled, her knuckles turning white as she anchored her weight. "So you better tell your little friend to answer me right now, or she dies on this floor!"

The guard’s eyes flicked between Zoya and the suffocating woman in her arms. The tension in the room was a live wire, ready to snap and coat the walls in blood.

"Tell her!" the guard barked at the woman, his weapon steady but his forehead slick with sudden sweat.

The blonde woman, gasping for a fraction of an inch of oxygen, clawed at Zoya's arm with a desperate, terrified strength. "S…Starkov..." she managed to wheeze out, her voice a broken, raspy splinter. "Starkov... mansion..."

The name echoed through the luxury room like a thunderclap.

Starkov.

Zoya’s mind fractured. The puzzle pieces she had been deliberately ignoring for the past forty eight hours suddenly slammed together with a terrifying, blinding clarity. The identical twins. The absolute control over the city's shipping docks. The men who ordered executions over breakfast. The sheer, untouchable arrogance that could only belong to one family. They weren't just Lev and Ivan, two high-level gangsters using her illegal clinic.

They were the Starkovs. The undisputed rulers of the city’s Russian syndicate. The apex predators of the entire criminal empire.

The sheer weight of the realization sent a physical shockwave through Zoya’s system. For less than a second, her clinical focus wavered. Her protective armor cracked under the absolute gravity of who she was dealing with, and without realizing it, her grip on the blonde woman’s throat loosened by a fraction of an inch.

It was a big mistake. A rookie mistake that her concussion addled brain shouldn't have made.

The blonde woman wasn't just a helpless maid or a civilian socialite. The moment she felt the pressure leave her trachea, her eyes flared with a sudden, vicious focus. Utilizing the leverage of the floor, she violently raised her elbow, driving it straight back into Zoya’s exposed stomach with a practiced, brutal accuracy.

The air exploded from Zoya’s lungs. A sharp, blinding pain shot through her abdomen, forcing her body to instinctively fold forward.

Before Zoya could recover, the woman twisted her body within the loose grip, planting her palms against Zoya’s chest, and shoved her backward with an immense, unexpected surge of force.

Zoya flew backward across the polished hardwood floor. Her coordination was already ruined by the concussion, and she had no way to break her fall.

Thud.

The back of her head collided violently with the solid plaster wall.

A white hot burst of agony erupted at the base of her skull, entirely eclipsing the previous injury. The room didn't just spin this time; it dissolved into a fractured kaleidoscope of gray and black. Zoya slid down the wall, her limbs turning completely into lead, her fingers twitching uselessly against the floorboards as her strength drained out of her like water from a broken vial.

Her vision began to tunnel into an absolute, suffocating darkness, the sounds of the room fading into a distant, underwater echo.

Through the heavy, rising static in her ears, the last thing she heard was the blonde woman’s voice, no longer terrified, but vibrating with a frantic, high pitched panic as she scrambled toward her.

"Oh God... oh God, did I kill her? The wall she hit it too hard!" the woman cried out, her footsteps rushing closer. "Lev and Ivan won't let me hear the end of it if she's dead... call someone ! Move!"

And then, the heavy, velvet curtain of darkness took her once again, dragging her down into the quiet where the devils couldn't reach her.