Page 88 of Tattooed Vow

Aleksandr nods, and that familiar strategic glint returns to his eye. “Now we burn his world to the ground.”

Peter clears his throat. “Before we discuss...retaliation...let's talk about your defense. Bail hearing is set for tomorrow morning. Judge Patterson.”

“Patterson?” My eyebrows rise. “He's in Morozov's pocket.”

“We're working on alternatives,” Peter says carefully. “Judicial reassignment.”

I understand the implication. Pressure will be applied, favors called in, and the machinery of our influence will begin to turn.

Peter glances at his watch. “I must file some motions before the court closes. They'll try to rush this through while we're off-balance.”

After he leaves, Aleksandr and I sit in silence. We've faced threats before and survived attempts to destroy our family and our world, but this is different. More personal.

“You remember what Otets used to say?” Aleksandr finally speaks.

I look up, meeting his gaze. “In the game of wolves, only the pack survives.”

He nods slowly. “Morozov forgot who we are. What we're capable of.”

A twisted smile creeps across my face. “Then it's time to remind him.”

Aleksandr leans forward, his voice low. “By the time you walk out of here, there won't be enough left of him to bury.”

I believe him.

The next three days blur into one long, cold smear of time.

I was kept in holding and denied bail. They threw everything they had at me. Constant interrogations, psychological pressure, even threats of solitary. None of it touched me.

Hour after merciless hour under the harsh interrogation lights, my wrists chafed raw from the handcuffs. Their voices became a monotonous drone, questions hurled like stones. The same accusations repeated in different words, hoping to catch me in a contradiction. The detectives traded off like boxers in a ring—one aggressive, slamming his palms on the table, the other calm, almost sympathetic, offering cigarettes and coffee with practiced concern. Good cop, bad cop. A routine so obvious it would've been laughable if my life wasn't crumbling around me.

“Just give us something,” the sympathetic one says, sliding a cup of watery coffee across the table. “Something small. Help us understand.”

I stare at him, letting the silence drag out until he shifts in his seat, uneasy. They don’t care if the confession is real or fabricated, just that I break.

The cell they throw me in after each session is nine by twelve feet of concrete and despair. A metal toilet without privacy. A thin mattress that reeks of disinfectants and other men's nightmares. At night, the sounds are the worst. Distant screams, metal doorsclanging shut, and sometimes, the muffled sobs of grown men breaking down when they think no one can hear.

But I keep my mind on Sandy. I see her face every time I close my eyes. The way her expression broke when they took me. The sound of her voice as she called after me. That desperate, strangled cry carved itself into my memory. The look of absolute horror as they dragged me away, her hands reaching out as if she could pull me back by sheer force of will.

If Morozov wants to try to break me, he should have come himself. Nothing they do can touch the fury inside me, a slow-burning inferno that grows hotter with each passing hour. It isn’t just anger. It’s something darker, more primal. A promise written in bone and blood.

In the rare moments of stillness I find myself tracing patterns on the cell wall, mapping out scenarios and contingencies, every possible angle, every weakness, and every path to retribution. My fingers move methodically, invisibly plotting the downfall of the man who put me here.

The guards try to bait me with headlines. Stories calling me the heir to a brutal empire, claiming the people I'd bled for were turning their backs. They ensure I see the newspapers, sliding them under my door with taunting smiles. “Your own people selling you out,” one guard sneers through the bars. “Nobody's loyal when the ship starts sinking.”

All of it is bullshit. The charges. The doctored recordings. Every word of it is a carefully crafted lie. I can see Morozov's fingerprints all over it. The calculated precision, the strategic leaks, the way every piece fits together to form a perfect, damning picture. This wasn’t just an arrest. It’s an execution by paperwork and procedure.

But the outside world isn’t as controlled as my concrete box. Aleksandr keeps the truth flowing through channels they can’t block. Brief messages, smuggled in by guards who still respect the old ways. Respect loyalty and honor above a paycheck.

Viktor has tightened internal security, sweeping for bugs and informants and purging the weak links. And Lev is out there squeezing every last drop of our contacts for answers, calling in favors that stretch back decades.

No one is resting. Not until this is dismantled brick by brick.

I measure time by shift changes and meal deliveries. Tasteless slop served on plastic trays by men who avoid my eyes. I don’t sleep so much as drift in and out of consciousness, always alert and listening. The concrete walls seem to press closer with each passing hour, but I refuse to let the claustrophobia take hold.

On the fourth day, something shifts in the air, a subtle change in the rhythm of the place. A guard comes to the cell. Not one of the regulars, but a thin man with nervous eyes who checks the corridor twice before approaching. He hands me a note with trembling fingers. Plain paper with one sentence in block letters: DEBT PAID IN FULL.

My heart pounds against my ribs as a chill seizes my spine. No signature. Just the message, plain and deliberate. I let a cold smile pull at my lips as I read it again, committing every stroke of those capital letters to memory. Morozov. He wants me gone, buried. But leaving breadcrumbs? That isn’t strategy, it’s ego. And ego is a weakness. One that gets you killed.

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