At that same moment, in the dark shaft of the locked service elevator, Danylo Moroz climbed down the steel cables like a spider. He landed softly on top of the elevator car, pried open the emergency hatch, and dropped inside. The service doors slid apart with a whisper.
Danylo stepped into the corridor.
He wasn’t trying to be subtle anymore. He entered the room like a nightmare come back from the dead.
The music stopped. Laughter died mid-breath. Nikita turned, glass frozen halfway to his mouth, and looked as if he had seen a ghost rise from hell.
“Danylo… how?” he whispered.
“Get out of my chair, Nikita,” Danylo said calmly.
The room exploded into panic. Guards reached for weapons, but Danylo was faster. He fired not to kill, but to disable. Three sharp shots. Three men dropped screaming, clutching ruined hands and knees.
The room froze.
Danylo stood alone in the center, smoke curling from his pistol, the barrel aimed at Nikita’s chest.
“That’s impossible,” Nikita said, backing away. “You were dead. I saw the report. I saw the photos.”
“You saw what you wanted to see,” Danylo said, taking one slow step closer. “Tell me something, brother. Was it worth it? The money? The power?”
“It was never about money!” Nikita shouted, his face twisting with years of resentment. “It was about respect. You treated me like a boy, like an errand runner. I was the one making deals. I was the one holding this whole operation together while you played businessman in tailored suits.”
“And for that, you sold us all to outsiders,” Danylo said.
“Outsiders?” Nikita laughed wildly. “You still think this was all Odessa?”
His eyes flicked sideways.
From the shadow of the kitchen doorway, Alena followed his glance. It landed on Bohdan Rudenko. The heavy man was slowly reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Not for a cigar.
“Danya—left!” Alena shouted, bursting from cover.
She grabbed the first thing she could reach: a heavy silver fruit platter. With all her strength, she hurled it like a discus.
It wasn’t elegant, but it worked. The platter slammed into Rudenko’s face just as he pulled a snub-nosed revolver from his pocket. His shot went wild, shattering an antique vase.
Danylo spun and fired once.
Rudenko dropped dead on the marble floor.
But Nikita used the distraction. He dove for a pistol dropped by one of the wounded guards. Danylo turned—but a fraction too late. Nikita had the gun up and aimed.
Then a tiny red dot appeared on Nikita’s forehead.
It wasn’t a sniper’s laser. It was reflected city light, caught and thrown by the diamond necklace Alena had quietly taken from Nikita’s opened safe earlier that day and stuffed into her apron pocket. She raised it high and caught the light from the chandelier, flashing it straight into his eyes.
Nikita flinched and threw up a hand.
That one second was enough.
