Scamming the Devil

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

IRINA VOLKOV

Something had changed in the compound while I was in my room being bored.

I noticed it the moment I stepped into the hallway — the density of it, the way the enforcers were positioned differently, more of them, closer together, the particular alertness of men who'd been given new instructions. Two of them flanked my door specifically. One tried not to look at me and failed.

I looked at his gun. Then at him. Then kept walking.

Viktor had made his move and Nikolai had responded by wrapping the building in an extra layer of controlled violence. Which meant the threat was real enough to take seriously, which meant my stepfather had found something useful to offer Alexei Morozov, which meant I was now a variable in a war between two Bratva organizations and my own survival instincts were telling me things my brain hadn't fully processed yet.

Think. Don't panic. Think.

I moved through the compound looking for Nikolai, which I noted without examining — that he had become the person I looked for when something was wrong. Not because I trusted him. Because he was the only one here who would tell me the truth, and I'd learned that much about him at least.

One of the enforcers tracked me as I passed. I felt it before I saw it — that specific quality of attention that sits wrong on the skin. I glanced back.

He was watching me with something that wasn't professional assessment. It was hungry and deliberate and he didn't look away when I caught him.

I held his gaze for exactly two seconds, long enough to make clear I'd seen it, then turned and kept walking.

One more thing to file away. One more thing to deal with.

I found Nikolai outside.

Through the long window at the end of the corridor I could see the private range on the compound's south side — and him, shirtless in the morning air, rifle raised, the kind of stillness before a shot that looked like something carved rather than something alive.

I stopped.

The tattoos I'd been catching fragments of for weeks were finally visible in their entirety, and they were — extensive. Dark ink covering both arms nearly to the wrists, climbing his chest and shoulders, wrapping around his back in patterns I couldn't fully read from here. A skull on his forearm, a snake threading through the eye socket, dark red and black. Words in Russian across his ribs — I could see them but not read them at this distance.

On his chest, above his heart, a single phrase in Cyrillic I could just make out:

Кровь не предаёт. Blood does not betray.

I stood at the window longer than I intended.

You're staring at your kidnapper, Irina.

Yes. I was. I was aware of that. I was going to stop.

I went outside instead.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

He sensed me before I spoke — I saw the slight tension move through his shoulders, the adjustment in his stance. He fired the shot anyway. The bottle at the far end of the range disintegrated cleanly.

He lowered the rifle and turned.

"You should be inside," he said.

"You doubled my security detail." I crossed to the range table, keeping my voice even. "I want to know why."

"I told you why this morning."

"You told me Viktor knows I'm here and Morozov sent you a message you wouldn't show me. That's not a full answer."

He set the rifle on the table and looked at me with that measuring expression. "You're safe. That's the full answer."

"That's not—"

"There's a ball next Friday." He picked up a different weapon — a handgun, heavier than it looked. "I've decided you're coming with me."

I folded my arms. "Decided."

"Alexei will be there. A politician's birthday — the kind of event that powerful people attend because refusing the invitation is its own message." He set the gun down and faced me properly. "I want him to see you beside me. I want him to understand what that means before he makes any further decisions about whether to involve you in his problems with me."

"So I'm a message."

"You're under my protection. Which, in that room, is the same thing."

I looked at him for a moment. There was something almost reasonable about the logic — infuriating, but reasonable. "And if I refuse to go?"

"Then I go alone and Alexei draws his own conclusions about why you weren't there." A pause. "I'd prefer he not have that opportunity."

I exhaled. The morning air moved through my hair and I pushed it back impatiently. "Fine. I'll go."

Something in his expression shifted — satisfied, but quietly. He picked up the rifle again.

"Do you want to learn to shoot?"

I blinked. "What?"

"A practical skill." He held it out toward me, then seemed to reconsider and set it aside, reaching instead for the handgun. "You're working intelligence. You should know how to defend yourself if a situation develops faster than backup can respond."

"Or," I said, "I could use it on you."

"Yes." The corner of his mouth moved. "That too. I'd rather you know how to aim properly if you're going to try."

He was completely serious. I stared at him.

"You're going to teach me to shoot you more accurately."

"I'm going to teach you to shoot. What you do with the skill afterward is your business." He moved behind me and I felt the shift in the air before his hands came up — one guiding my right hand around the grip, the other adjusting my left. His chest was close behind my shoulder. Not touching. Close enough that the heat of him was present, distinct from the cool morning air.

"Feet shoulder width," he said, his voice dropping to something quieter with proximity. "Left foot slightly forward. Don't lock your elbows."

I adjusted. His hands moved with me, correcting the angle of my wrists.

"Sight line here." His chin came close to my temple, guiding my eye to the notch at the top of the barrel. "Don't hold your breath. Breathe normally and fire between exhales."

I was aware of every point of near-contact. The warmth along my back. The steadiness of his hands over mine. The way his voice, in Russian-accented low register directly beside my ear, did something to the air in my lungs that I had absolutely no intention of examining.

I fired.

The shot went wide — three inches right of center on the target.

"Again," he said. Still quiet. Still close.

I fired again. Two inches left. Overcorrecting.

"Stop fighting the recoil before it happens." His hand adjusted my grip fractionally. "Trust the stance. Let the gun do what it does."

I breathed. Lined up the sight. Fired.

Center mass.

The satisfaction was immediate and involuntary — a small sound escaped me before I could stop it, not quite a laugh, something lighter than that.

Behind me, I felt more than heard the shift in him. Not movement. Just — a change in quality. The way a room changes when someone in it smiles.

I stared at the target and told myself the warmth along my back was just the morning sun.

It wasn't the morning sun.

Irina. Stop.

Any dirty thoughts, get away from me.

I stepped forward, putting distance between us, and lowered the gun to the table with careful hands.

"I hit it," I said, to the target rather than to him.

"You did." His voice was back to its normal register. Composed. Like the last four minutes had been entirely professional.

I turned around. He was already picking up the rifle, attention on the range. The tattoos across his back caught the light — more ink there, something large between his shoulder blades that I couldn't read before he raised the weapon and the muscle obscured it.

I looked away.

"The ball," I said. "I'll need something to wear."

"It's handled."

"Of course it is." I started back toward the building. "Nikolai."

He lowered the rifle. Waited.

"The enforcer on the east corridor. Third post from the stairwell." I kept my voice even. "Replace him."

A pause. Something went very still in his expression.

"Why."

It wasn't a question. He already knew. I saw it in the way his jaw set.

"Just replace him," I said, and went inside.

Behind me, I heard him say one quiet word in Russian.

Then silence.

Then footsteps — not mine — moving fast toward the east corridor.