Chapter 4 - SECRETS IN THE ASHESThe fire crackled low in the hearth, casting long, eerie shadows across the living room floor where the two bodies had been dragged out to the porch, hidden beneath heavy tarps by Viktor’s chillingly efficient direction.
Mara sat at the wooden table, her fingers tracing the rim of her cold coffee mug. Her chest felt hollow. She looked at Viktor, who had managed to hoist himself into an old wooden rocking chair she had dragged from the guest room. He looked pale, lines of exhaustion carved deep around his eyes, but his hands were steady as he cleaned the pistol with a strip of cloth torn from his ruined shirt.
"You should leave," Mara said quietly, her voice devoid of fear now, replaced by a dull, aching fatigue. "Take one of their trucks outside. Go back to your city, your war, your family. Just leave me and Bear out of it."
Viktor stopped cleaning the gun. He looked up, his dark eyes studying her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
"You think they’ll stop looking for me because two men didn't report back?" Viktor asked, his tone flat. "Dante knows I'm alive now. The moment those men missed their check-in, a clean-up crew was dispatched. This cabin is compromised, Mara. You are no longer safe here."
"Because of you," she fired back, her voice rising. "I was just trying to pay my bills! I was drowning in medical debt, trying to save my farm, and now I have corpses on my porch and a mob war sitting in my kitchen!"
Viktor didn't flinch. He didn't raise his voice. He simply reached into the inner pocket of his ruined, expensive jacket, pulled out a heavy leather pouch, and tossed it across the wooden table.
It landed with a heavy, metallic thud. The pouch slipped open, spilling thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills onto the scarred wood. Thousands of dollars. More money than Mara had seen in her entire life.
"That clears your foreclosure," Viktor said softly. "Ten times over. Enough to pay your hospital debts, fix your roof, and leave this valley forever."
Mara stared at the money. Her breath caught. It was everything she had prayed for, wept for, broken her back for over two years of endless, grinding poverty.
She looked from the cash to Viktor’s unblinking eyes.
"Blood money," she whispered.
"Survival money," Viktor corrected. "In my world, there is no other kind. But I am not offering it as charity, Mara. I am offering it as a contract."
Bear walked over, resting his massive chin on Viktor’s knee. The mafia boss paused, his scarred hand hesitating for a fraction of a second before slowly, awkwardly, resting on the dog’s thick black fur.
"What kind of contract?" Mara asked, her voice trembling.
"You help me get to the city," Viktor said, his eyes locking onto hers with a desperate, burning fire. "And I will ensure that no one ever touches you, your home, or this dog again. Because if you stay here alone tonight, Dante's executioners will burn this place to the ground before sunrise."
May you like
Before Mara could answer, a sharp, metallic sound echoed from the front porch.
The tarp rustled. Someone—or something—was testing the front door.
