Chapter 5 The First Leak

The hotel room reeked of fear and expensive cologne.

Nikolai Zakharov trembled beneath Aria's blade, his smirk long gone, replaced by wide, frantic eyes. His bravado dissolved the moment her hand didn't shake. She wasn't bluffing-and he knew it.

"I don't know anything!" he croaked.

Aria pressed the blade closer, drawing a crimson line across his throat-just enough to sting, to remind him how easily she could end him.

"You're lying," she whispered coldly. "You supply Mikhail Vetrova's guns. You fund his shipments. You eat off his blood trail. Start talking."

He gulped. "I... I'm not the only one! There's a network. We don't ask questions. We just move product. Vetrova's careful. Nobody meets him unless he wants to be seen."

Aria arched a brow. "But you've seen him, haven't you?"

Zakharov hesitated.

She twisted the blade, not enough to kill-but enough to make him scream.

"Yes! Once!" he spat. "A yacht party in Monaco. Five years ago. We didn't speak. But I know it was him."

Aria leaned closer. "Who else was there?"

"Bankers. Politicians. Arms dealers from Berlin and Dubai. I don't know their names. Vetrova doesn't keep records. That's what makes him untouchable."

She could feel his heart pounding through his shirt. He wasn't entirely useless. Just pathetic.

"Where's the next shipment going?"

He blinked, blood dripping from his collar.

"Marseille. Port 7. Two nights from now."

She stepped back, her pulse slowing as clarity returned.

"You're going to vanish tonight, Zakharov. Go somewhere warm. Disappear. And if I ever see your name surface again..."

She didn't finish the sentence. The look in her eyes did it for her.

He bolted the moment she let him go.

Aria exhaled slowly, adrenaline still burning through her veins. She touched her earpiece.

"It's done," she said.

Back at La Fiamma, Dante stood at the edge of the rooftop, overlooking the neon wash of the city. He was silent when she arrived.

She stood beside him, her voice level. "He gave us Marseille. Two days."

Dante nodded slowly. "Then we hit them hard."

"You're sure Vetrova will be there?"

"No," he said. "But his money will be. And his message will be clear when it disappears."

She studied him. "You want a war."

He turned to her, eyes shadowed. "There's already a war. I just plan to win it."

That night, Aria sat in her apartment, staring at the cracked photograph of her father. A younger version of herself sat on his lap in a sunlit garden. His laugh was frozen mid-air, eyes filled with pride and peace.

The kind of peace Vetrova's world had stolen.

"I'm doing this for you," she whispered. "Even if it breaks me."

The next two days passed in a blur of motion.

Disguises. Plans. Surveillance.

Dante's team was precise. Ruthless. They didn't question orders, and they didn't leave trails. By the time they boarded the private jet to Marseille, every checkpoint had been bought or bypassed.

Aria sat beside Dante, her gaze fixed on the stormy clouds outside the window.

"You've done this before?" she asked.

He didn't look at her. "More times than I can count."

"And you still sleep at night?"

He chuckled bitterly. "Sleep is a luxury I gave up when I buried my first brother."

She turned toward him. "How many people have you lost?"

He finally met her gaze. "Enough to stop counting."

There was a sadness in his voice that surprised her. Not weakness-just history.

She turned back to the window, both of them wrapped in silence.

Port 7, Marseille.

The night was black velvet, pierced only by flickering lights and the low hum of cargo machinery.

Dante's crew moved like shadows-four SUVs parked strategically around the dock. Each man armed, each position covered.

The target was a container labeled SARGO-511, just offloaded from a foreign vessel.

"Intel confirms it's filled with encrypted weapon crates. Untraceable," said Matteo, Dante's second-in-command.

"And Vetrova's fingerprints?" Aria asked.

"Bank wires. All routed through one of his shell companies," Matteo said. "We hit this, we bleed him."

Dante turned to her. "You're not going in."

"I need to," she insisted. "He needs to know I'm not just watching-I'm coming."

Dante hesitated, then nodded once. "Stay sharp."

Everything was going smoothly-until it wasn't.

As Dante's men approached the container, a deafening blast shook the dock. One of the SUVs exploded into flames.

"Ambush!" Matteo roared.

Gunfire erupted from the far end of the dock. Shadows moved. Muzzle flashes lit the night like fireflies of death.

Aria ducked behind a crate, her gun drawn. She fired instinctively-one, two, three shots-hitting a masked figure who dropped instantly.

Chaos.

Screams. Shouts in multiple languages.

Then a familiar voice crackled through the chaos on her radio.

"Aria... run."

Dante.

She didn't.

Instead, she pushed forward, toward the container. If Vetrova was here-if he was watching-she wanted him to see her in the storm.

She reached the container just as Dante slammed the last guard to the ground.

"You're insane!" he shouted.

She laughed breathlessly. "You knew that when you recruited me."

They opened the container-empty.

No weapons. Just a single chair with a red envelope taped to the back.

Dante grabbed it, ripped it open.

Inside was a photo.

Her.

Aria.

Taken from across the street just hours ago, standing in her apartment window.

Beneath it, a note in slanted Cyrillic handwriting:

"You don't play chess with ghosts, Miss St. James. But thank you for the invitation."

Aria's hands trembled.

He had been watching her. All along.

Back at their hideout, Aria stood in front of the mirror, blood on her knuckles, ash on her cheek.

"I thought I was getting closer," she whispered.

Dante stepped behind her.

"You are," he said. "This is his way of flinching."

She turned, her eyes hardening. "Then next time, I make him bleed."

Dante met her gaze.

"He already has your scent, Aria. But now... he has your shadow."

And in the darkness, something inside her smiled.