Page 120 of Mile High Ruin

Her attention drifts to the city beginning to appear beneath the wing. The landscape changes gradually as we descend, villages giving way to larger roads and low neighborhoods spread across rolling ground. Apartment blocks rise beyond older districts filled with trees, while church domes and newer glass buildings punctuate the skyline.

Sloane leans closer to the window.

The landing is smooth. My men are already waiting when the aircraft taxis away from the runway, although this time every member of the ground team knew the location only after we were within minutes of arrival.

Anton has become obsessive.

For once, I approve.

Sloane waits until the engines shut down before turning toward me. “Can you now tell me where we are?”

“Chișinău.”

She repeats the name carefully. “Moldova?”

“Yes.”

Camille looks toward us from across the cabin. Daniel does too.

Sloane looks through the window at the black vehicles and armed men already waiting beyond the aircraft. “Why here?”

Because this is the center of the Chernovar Bratva, the place where my family built its power, and where Viktor Petrov would have to be suicidal to come after me openly.

I stand and reach for my jacket.

“Welcome to my home.”

19

SLOANE

By the time we leave the airfield, I’m so tired that the city outside the window barely registers.

I have seen more of Europe in the last two days than I managed to see during entire stretches of my career, which is ridiculous considering I spent six years flying internationally. Being cabin crew sounds glamorous until most cities become airport codes, shuttle routes, twenty-hour layovers, and hotel rooms you barely remember because you were too exhausted to do anything except shower and sleep. I have technically been to Paris more than a dozen times, yet I know Charles de Gaulle better than I know the city itself.

In the last forty-eight hours, however, I have gone from New Jersey to Bucharest, survived a shooting on a Romanian tarmac, spent part of the night in one of the most expensive hotels I have ever seen, and now somehow ended up in Moldova with a man who may or may not still think I helped someone track his aircraft.

At this point, I would happily trade Europe for eight uninterrupted hours in a dark room.

Vadim’s home is about forty minutes outside the center of Chișinău, although calling it a house seems deliberately misleading.

The road narrows as we leave the busier parts of the city behind, and eventually high stone walls appear beside us, running far enough in both directions that I initially assume they surround several properties. Then the gates open, and I realize how mistaken I was.

The car passes through two separate security checkpoints before we even reach the main drive. Armed men inspect the underside of the vehicle at the first, another guard walks a dog around the perimeter at the second, and cameras mounted discreetly among the stone pillars follow us as we continue deeper into the grounds.

I glance toward Camille. She’s staring out of the opposite window with the same expression I probably have.

“This is normal?” I ask Vadim.

“Yes.”

“That answer somehow makes it worse, you know?” I say.

He doesn’t seem bothered.

The main house comes into view beyond a long line of mature trees, and I have to revise my expectations again.

I had imagined something darker. A fortress, perhaps, all black marble and enormous gates designed to remind visitors exactly who lived there.