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Because my father had no other sons, he saw me as his only chance at immortality—an angry, hateful lump of clay that he could mold into his own disgusting image. Initially, he’d been training me to take over the Bratva and carry on the family’s gun running, drug muling, and human trafficking businesses, but when Russia began planning to invade Ireland, he enlisted me in the Navy and pulled enough strings to have me start as a lieutenant. He didn’t want me engaged in actual combat—I was far too valuable for that. He’d just wanted to solidify my identity as a Russian by making me participate in the destruction of my own homeland.
It was a ten-story climb from the hold of the ship to the deck, but I wished that it were ten thousand. I stared down at my boots as I ascended the stairs, focused on their rhythmic stomping, but all too soon, the dull black leather began to glow gray. The moment I lifted my head and saw that overcast Irish sky through the porthole, my heart began to pound against my ribs like a prisoner thrashing against the bars of its cell. The final glowing cinder of my boyhood longed to see home, but the betrayed, burned-out husk of a man that I’d become knew better.
Seeing it would only make what I’d been sent there to do that much harder.
With a deep breath and an even deeper sense of dread, I opened the topside hatch and stepped out onto the deck. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see that green coastline without wanting to scream, so I shut everything out, except for what was directly in front of me. I didn’t feel the summer breeze on my skin, I didn’t taste the salt of the Irish Sea in the air, and I refused to hear the cries of the gulls I’d once fed as a boy. Instead, I did what I’d been doing at the Kletka since the day I’d realized that there was no escape.
I accepted my situation, and I armored the fuck up.
By the time I reached the stage, my longing, my rage, my powerlessness and despair were all safely locked away behind the numb, bulletproof facade of a Bratva-trained killer.
Captain Orlov watched me take my place in line next to the other officers with an impatient scowl on his vodka-flushed face, but he didn’t reprimand me. Either my mask was terrifying enough to make him think twice or he was too excited about starting a war to waste his time on me.
Senior Lieutenant Petrov, who’d barked at me over the intercom, stood to my left, back stiff and belly out, leaving nothing to my right but the one fucking place I couldn’t afford to acknowledge.
So, I stared straight ahead at the two thousand troops gathered shoulder to shoulder on the deck. This was what they’d been waiting for, what they’d been promised when they were drafted. The pay was shite. The conditions were worse. But on that shore, they’d be given complete immunity to rape, steal, maim, or kill anything and everything that crossed their path. And judging by the gritted teeth and wild eyes of the men staring back at me, their patience was wearing thin.
“Comrades,” Captain Orlov’s voice boomed through the loudspeakers, and two thousand hands immediately shot up in salute.
Including mine.
Like a fucking puppet.
I could almost feel my father tugging on the invisible marionette strings above me, lifting my chin, squaring my shoulders.
“Today, we fight not for Russia, but for the honor of President Abramov himself!”
Every saluting hand sliced forward with a guttural, “Ura!”
I felt nothing.
“Over twenty years ago, the United Irish Brotherhood ordered the murder of President Abramov’s uncle, Dmitry. But when Alexi came here to avenge his uncle’s death, like a man of courage, of honor, the UIB behaved like cowards. They had him arrested—framed—for unspeakable, heinous crimes.”
The troops booed and spat on the ground, as if their precious president hadn’t done exactly what the fuck he was accused of. Human trafficking, murder, arms dealing—that was probably the least of it. Everyone knew that Alexi Abramov was a Bratva kingpin who’d hijacked last year’s election and taken the Kremlin by force. We just weren’t supposed to say it out loud.
“President Abramov spent two years locked in a prison cell because of these deceitful, lying bastards.” Captain Orlov thrust a hand in the direction of the shore, and without thinking, my gaze followed.
The sight of the Irish coast hit me like a sucker punch, forcing the air from my lungs in a sudden, nauseating rush. Gray stone cliffs sloped down to the sea, blanketed with green grass and dripping with wildflowers. Waves crashed against the rocks hypnotically, like the rhythmic curl of a beckoning finger, calling me home. And behind them, gray clouds gathered where the cliffs met the sky. It looked like smoke.
Like the cliffs were on fire.
An onslaught of childhood memories played over a soundtrack of my own silent, self-hating screams, and for one torturous second, I felt everything. Every useless, agonizing emotion I’d refused to feel for the last five years flooded my body like boiling toxic waste, scalding my skin from the inside out before I finally pulled my mental armor back on and clung to the numbness.
That’s exactly what he wants, I reminded myself. To hurt me. To break me. To control me once and for all.
“Since then, the UIB has branded itself a political party, and like a virus, it has infiltrated every level of the Irish government. They promised to reclaim Northern Ireland from the UK, but in delivering on that promise, they have made themselves weaker than ever. Their military is depleted. Their allies have vanished. They are isolated, defenseless, and ours for the taking!” Orlov roared as the troops shouted and thrust their fists in the air.
I hoped that if anyone noticed my distraction, they’d assume that I was scanning the coastline for threats because I was incapable of tearing my eyes away from that sight. I followed the cliffs as they sloped down to sea level, the rocky beach giving way to a pier that stretched out into the water, dotted with barnacle-crusted fishing boats and a lighthouse that hadn’t functioned in years.
Howth Harbour. I’d been there as a lad. We took a school trip to Ireland’s Eye to see the ruins of a monastery that the Vikings had raided. I’d never been on a boat before that day.
Now, I was back, on a very different boat, and this time, I was the one doing the raiding.
Bile seared the back of my throat, but I forced that down too.
“Like a Trojan horse, this converted cruise ship has already allowed us to breach their defenses. She is too big to take into Dublin Bay without drawing suspicion, so from here, we’ll take Howth peninsula and push through to Dublin by land.”
I scanned the boats, the docks, the paths, the beaches—searching for signs of life and praying that I wouldn’t find any.
