Alena moved around the table like a ghost, refilling water glasses, clearing plates, pouring wine.
She tried her best to blend into the background. The men spoke in low voices about shipments, labor trouble, and a recent bloody incident in Brovary. At 9:58 p.m., something happened that changed everything. Alena was walking toward the booth with the dessert menu when Danylo leaned back against the velvet seat and began unbuttoning his jacket.
He took a sip of red wine, and his gaze drifted lazily toward the entrance. Alena stopped cold. She was no more than three feet from the table. In the reflection of the heavy window behind him, she saw something odd. It wasn’t city light.
It was a tiny red flicker. Rhythmic. Steady. Alena frowned and looked directly at Danylo. There, over his heart against the white fabric of his shirt, sat a bright red dot. Small as a ladybug. Perfectly still.
In that moment, time did something strange. It didn’t slow down the way it does in movies. It stretched. Alena looked from the dot on his shirt to the dark window behind him. Her mind started doing the math: angle, distance, the office building across the street, likely roof access.
Sniper. Her brain supplied the word before she had time to breathe.
Danylo reached casually for his wineglass. If he leaned forward now, the bullet might miss his heart. But he didn’t move. He stayed exactly where he was—still, exposed, a perfect target.
In that instant, Alena forgot about the rent, her mother, the bills. She forgot that touching a man like Danylo Moroz without permission could get a person killed. She let the dessert menu drop with a slap onto the floor.
“Get down!” she shouted.
It wasn’t polished or professional. It was raw fear. Before Danylo could even turn his head, Alena launched herself at him.
She didn’t just shove him. She hit him hard enough to knock the breath out of him, driving her shoulder into his chest and sending both of them crashing backward into the booth just as the window behind them exploded. The crack was deafening.
The bullet tore through the air where his chest had been a split second earlier. It punched through the heavy wooden table, spraying splinters and shattered glass. The restaurant erupted. Guests screamed and dropped to the floor.
Ilya had his pistol out before the second shard of glass hit the marble. He flipped the remains of the table into a crude barricade. “Everybody down!” he roared, scanning the shattered window. Alena lay sprawled across Danylo, her face pressed against his neck, breathing in sandalwood cologne and burned powder.
She was shaking so badly she could barely move. His arms locked around her—not gently, but instinctively, shielding her while debris rained down. Finally she pulled back, gasping, and looked at him. His eyes were wide now, the boredom gone, replaced by something sharp and animal.
He looked at the hole in the table. Then the ruined window. Then back at the terrified waitress still half on top of him. He lifted a hand and touched her cheek. When he pulled it away, his fingers were streaked with blood.
“You’re hurt,” he said.
His voice was remarkably calm. Alena touched her temple and realized a shard of glass had cut her. “I—I saw the light,” she stammered. “The red dot on your shirt.”
“Move them out now! We’re leaving!” Nikita shouted into his radio, pale as paper. Ilya grabbed his boss by the jacket and hauled him up, but Danylo refused to let go of Alena. He clamped a hand around her wrist so tightly it would leave bruises.
“She comes with us,” Danylo said.
“Boss, she’s a civilian,” Ilya protested. “We need to move.”
“She saw something. She comes.”
Alena had no say in the matter. Surrounded by armed men, she was rushed through the kitchen, down a dark service stairwell, and shoved into the back seat of a black armored SUV idling outside. As the tires squealed on wet pavement, she looked back once at the shrinking outline of the restaurant. The small, hard life she knew was gone.
Now she was inside the beast.
The drive blurred into nausea and fear. Alena sat rigidly between Danylo and Ilya in the back seat while Nikita worked a radio up front, coordinating routes and security. No one talked.
Danylo stripped off his ruined jacket and checked the heavy pistol he’d pulled from an ankle holster. He chambered a round, clicked the safety, and turned to look at her. In the passing streetlights, his face looked harder than before. He studied her the way a scientist might study a specimen.
“Tell me your full name,” he said.
“Alena,” she whispered. “Alena Lynnyk.”
“Now tell me who you really work for.”
