Ivan: A Dark Mafia Romance (Underworld Book 1)

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Sun Tzu

The more I study Ivan Petrov, the more I realize I might have made a terrible mistake in taking this job. He’s going to be extremely difficult to hit. He lives inside a veritable fortress—an old monastery outfitted with every possible piece of modern security. He’s constantly surrounded by his soldiers, particularly his younger brother, who is just as tall and stacked with muscle as Ivan himself.

There aren’t many female assassins for a reason. Despite what movies and TV shows would have you believe, there’s almost no way that a woman can win a fistfight against a man of above-average height and strength. When some ninety-pound actress takes out a beefcake stuntman with one punch, I can only roll my eyes.

My success has always been a result of stealth and the element of surprise. I’m no hero—I take my targets while they’re sick, while they’re sleeping. I poison them, suffocate them, or snipe them from a distance.

I try never to get close enough that it comes down to a fight, because there’s a good chance I’d lose, even with the endless hours of training I received from my father. That’s the unfortunate reality of being 5’9 and 135 lbs.

To kill Ivan Petrov, I’ll probably have to get a lot closer than I’d like. He doesn’t follow a regular schedule or routine. He’s unusually watchful. And he travels around in an armored Hummer that’s basically a tank.

Plus, he’s jumpier than usual because, apparently, he’s in conflict with some other Bratva boss. Details are thin on the ground, but I’ve watched him visiting the heads of various families, plotting alliances for whatever’s about to go down.

I don’t know anything about Bratva rivalries, but I wonder if Petrov’s nemesis is the person who hired me. It would be the quickest way to end the conflict before it even starts.

The Bratva usually dole out violence personally—they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty. So they’re not my typical clients or targets. But I don’t think Petrov’s rival is a typical Bratva. The way people talk about him, he sounds more like a boogeyman.

If he is the one who hired me, it’s all the more reason why I can’t drop this job, much as I might like to. I don’t want the boogeyman after me.

And I couldn’t back out of it anyway—it would destroy my reputation. Once you have the full file, you have to carry out the hit. Or risk having a contract put out on your own head.

I’ve got to do the job, and I’ve got to do it soon.

The more I try to follow Petrov around, the more likely I am to be spotted. It’s already become clear to me that the only place he goes regularly is his compound. That’s where I’ll have to take him. Which means I need to figure out a way to break inside.

My first tactic with a break-in is to find the firm that did the security system and steal the schematics. However, it appears that Petrov did the work himself, or had his men do it. I can’t find a record with any of the usual firms, or even any permits filed with the city.

However, scouting the compound, I can see some of the systems I’ll have to bypass: two guards stationed around the perimeter at all times. Cameras mounted all around. Twelve-foot-high medieval-era stone walls. Dogs patrolling the grounds.

The dogs scare me more than anything. A dozen Caucasian Ovcharkas—Russian prison dogs. Big, heavy beasts that are fearless, intelligent, and ruthless. Their brindled coats protect them from knives or blows or the coldest winter winds. Six of them can take down a full-grown bear. They’ll rip me to shreds if they get a scent of me.

It’s the problem of these dogs that gives me my entry point. I’ve been wracking my brain all week, trying to think how I can get inside the compound without them smelling me.

I have to drop down on the roof, or tunnel underground.

And that’s when I realize, the tunneling may already have been done, four hundred years ago. While I haven’t found any maps of the monastery online, that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

So I visit the archives of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. There I find a map so faint that I have to sneak a photograph of it, then enhance the faint brown lines on my computer, extrapolating the areas that have been completely eradicated by friction and crumbling paper.

There are tunnels beneath Petrov’s monastery.

And one of them begins outside the walls. It might be caved in or bricked up—generations have passed since this map was made. But I won’t know until I try.

I gather my gear and ready myself to break into Ivan Petrov’s house.

The entrance to the tunnel is down an old well, on the backside of Petrov’s property. It takes me nearly an hour just to find the well, which has lost so many stones that it rises only a few inches off the ground and has been boarded over as well. With the thick leaves on the ground, and several inches of dirty snow, I might never have found it at all if I hadn’t happened to step directly on it, hearing the hollow sound of my foot striking the rotted wood.

I pull up the covering and peer down into the black hole of the well.

I’m not entirely certain how a well can also be an entrance, but this is an exploratory mission. I don’t expect to get all the way to Petrov tonight—though I’m ready if I do.

Strapping myself into a rappelling rig, I wait until I’m fully inside the well to turn on my headlamp. This well is only a few hundred yards from Petrov’s walls, and I can’t risk his guards spotting my light.

I expect it to be cold inside the well, but it’s actually warmer than it was above ground. There’s no wind down here. The thick earth and stone all around me provide insulation.

It smells like wet dirt, worms, and decay.

When I look down, I see my headlamp reflecting on black water far, far below me. If my rope breaks, I’ll be trapped like a bug in a test tube. Assuming I survive the fall.

No point in thinking about that. I try to focus on the walls instead. If there really is some kind of door, it must be above the waterline, or else the tunnel would flood.

It’s hard to tell stone from the dirt in the dim light, especially with the tangles of roots that have burst through the walls of the well. It gives the shaft an unpleasant, animalistic feel. As if I’m descending into the throat of a beast.

I almost miss the door, until my headlamp glints off the ancient iron handle. I grip the metal ring and try to pull the door open. It’s so intractable that I think it must be locked. I tear away the creeping roots to see if I can find a keyhole. I’m quite good at picking locks.

I see only the iron ring, however. So I try to pull it once more, bracing my feet against the slippery stone walls on either side. With a shrieking groan, the door inches open.

I climb into the tunnel, unhooking my harness.

I had thought the well was dark, but it still received a little starlight from the sky above. The tunnel has the true blackness of the heart of the earth. Without my headlamp, I wouldn’t be able to see my hand two inches in front of my face.

The tunnel is narrow. I can’t stand upright. I have to walk along slowly, hunched over. Any moment I might come to a pile of rocks, or a brick wall, or a steel security door.

My hope is that Petrov doesn’t know about this tunnel, wherever it comes out within his compound. I saw on the map that it ended in what used to be a cellar, but of course I don’t know if that room exists now, or to what use Petrov might have put the space.

It’s difficult to judge how far I’ve come. I’m losing sense of time and space, with the darkness and my slow, hunched over gait,

Unexpectedly, the tunnel comes to a fork. Two paths branch off to the right and the left.

That’s not what my map shows. One of these routes must have been dug later. I have no idea which way to go.

The tunnel hasn’t run straight thus far—there have been several long, winding changes in direction. I don’t know where I stand in relation to the compound.

So all I can do is guess.

I go left.

I walk and walk for what feels like forever. The tunnel seems to stretch on interminably. Surely I should have come to the end by now?

I’m starting to get claustrophobic and paranoid. What if the tunnel branches again and again? What if there’s a labyrinth under here, and I’m lost and wandering for days, not able to even find my way back to the well?

And what if when I get back, someone has found my rope and cut it?

I can feel my heart rate rising, my skin starting to sweat. The tunnel feels hot, as if it’s going deeper and deeper into the earth.

I touch the walls.

It’s not my imagination—they really are warm.

I look up and see a wooden hatch in the roof of the tunnel. I push up on it.

This is the most dangerous part so far.

I have no idea where I’m coming up. I might be entering the middle of the dining hall, with a dozen men all around me. I’ve come at night when they should be asleep, but I’m dealing with a houseful of bachelors—I doubt they’re all tucked in bed by midnight.

I can hear noise, a sort of hollow, clanging sound. A groaning and rushing. There’s a dim red light as I crack the hatch.

Once the hatch is up, I have to jump up to get my arms out so I can pull myself up. It’s hotter than ever, and the banging noise is very close.

I peek out and find myself in the boiler room, right behind an extremely large and ancient copper water heater. The hatch can only open partway, because it’s wedged between the heater and the furnace. That’s why it’s so hot and noisy.

I have to squeeze out, trying not to burn myself against the copper.

I ease the hatch closed behind me, watching the lid nearly disappear into the patterned grain of the floorboards. The hatch has no handle or lever to pull it up again—I won’t be able to get it up quickly if I have to escape this way when the job’s done.

Still, I feel a sense of calm now that I’m actually inside the monastery. My heart rate slows. My breathing steadies.

It’s as if my body goes into a kind of hibernating state, allowing me to be perfectly quiet and still. As I slip through the monastery, I will have to be as silent as a shadow, as unobtrusive as a piece of furniture. I pull my stocking down over my face and sneak out of the boiler room.

It must be 3:00 a.m. by now—the quietest hour of the night.

The stone hallways of the monastery are deserted and only dimly lit. The compound has electric lights of course, but they’re set in rustic wooden sconces. In fact, all the decor seems to be old-fashioned in nature. I see several side tables, mirrors, and tapestries that I’m sure are antique.

I’m surprised by the elegance of this place. I expected a gaudy gangster’s palace. Whoever chose these pieces has taste, refinement. They appreciate the history of the building.

In the silence of night, I might almost believe I’ve gone back in time to the era of the Orthodox monks. But, of course, if I encounter someone, it will be a Bratva brother, not a man of god.

I have to find Ivan Petrov’s room. Since he’s the boss, I assume he has the largest and most private quarters. I have an idea they’re in the west wing of the compound. The few times I watched Petrov entering the main building, he seemed to turn in that direction before the doors closed behind him.

I move slowly, ever so slowly through the main building. I slip from one hiding place to the next. From a set of velvet drapes, to a pillar, to a stone statue in its niche.

As I draw close to what seems to be the dining hall, I hear low voices inside. I’ll have to pass by the open doorway to continue on my way. I wait, hearing at least two men in conversation. When they start chuckling at some joke, I hurry past the doorway, resisting the urge to glance inside.

In my relief, I almost run into another soldier patrolling the hallway. I have to dart blindly into the nearest room to avoid him, without checking to see if anyone is inside. It’s a billiards room, with an impressive bar along the far wall. Mercifully, it’s empty, except for a young man snoring on the sofa.

He looks like a teenager, his caramel-colored hair long and shaggy, and his feet, propped up on the arm of the sofa, encased in bright orange Spalwarts. He’s got a bag of chips spilled on the floor next to him and his phone resting on his chest. It looks like he fell asleep mid-text.

I don’t like seeing someone that young here. I’m only thirty-one, but he looks like a kid to me.

Well, it shouldn’t surprise me. The Russian mafia is a family business, after all. They’re raised in it.

Not that different from my own situation, I suppose.

I was only six years old the first time I fired a gun. Eight when my father forced me to hold my breath again and again in a bathtub full of ice water. Twelve when he made me survive three nights alone in northern Maine in the winter.

I know my father wasn’t right in the head. The problem is that when you work for the CIA most of your adult life, it’s hard to distinguish between paranoia and actual threats.

It took me longer than it should have to figure out something was wrong. That some of the things my father was seeing weren’t actually there. The cars “following” us. The “messages” he was being sent.

I had no frame of reference. I’d never attended a normal school. I had no friends. My father was my whole world. He was the smartest, most capable person I knew. The idea that he might be crazy was just . . . too horrible to accept.

I push those memories to the back of my mind. I can’t get distracted.

I’ve cleared the ground floor of the west wing. If Ivan Petrov’s rooms are on this side of the house, they must be upstairs.

I climb the stairs, entering a hallway that seems to lead to several bedrooms. All the closed doors are identical. Which one is Ivan’s?

As I keep walking, there’s a break between the doors, with a library on the left, and what looks like an office on the right. And then beyond that, at the end of the hallway, a set of double doors.

Bingo.

If there’s a master suite beyond those doors, it surely belongs to Ivan Petrov.

Does he lock his doors at night?

I carefully test the old-fashioned handles. They move easily beneath my hand.

With aching slowness, I crack the right-hand door.

It’s dark inside the suite, the blinds drawn. I slip through the door, closing it silently behind me. I stand still, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom.

I believe I’m in a sitting room, with the bedroom somewhere beyond.

Holding my own breath, I think I can hear the slow inhale and exhale of someone sleeping close by. It’s the breathing of a large man, broad in the chest. Large lungs, a vast, slumbering body.

Ivan Petrov. I know it.

I’ve watched him from a distance. I’ve seen his intensity, his ferocity. The way his men snap to attention when he comes close, the way they obey his orders without question. I’ve seen his vigilance, the look of intelligence on his face. And, of course, I’ve seen his massive, powerful body. He wears a suit every day, but I’ve seen the round muscles of his shoulders and biceps even beneath the thick material of the suit jacket.

I don’t want to get in a scuffle with this man. Nor do I want to risk firing a gun in a house stuffed full of his soldiers, not even with a silencer and a pillow wrapped round it.

So I’ve brewed up a special cocktail for Ivan Petrov. I take it out of my pocket now.

A single syringe of clear amber fluid. Once I drive it into his neck, he’ll be immobilized in moments. It will flood through his bloodstream, turning his limbs to stone. His chest will seize up until he won’t be able to draw a single breath. Remembering his mass, I’ve used enough paralytic to freeze a racehorse in its tracks.

It won’t look like an accident, but that wasn’t a requirement of the job. I just have to kill him and get out without getting caught.

I move through the sitting room, into the bedroom beyond. With the minute amount of light coming through the cracks in the blinds, I can just barely see Ivan’s vast form, laying on the bed. He’s sprawled out on his back, one thick arm flung up over his head. His heavily muscled and tattooed chest is bare. There’s a patch of dark hair in the center of his chest, and a thin line trailing down the center of his stomach, disappearing under the sheet.

I suspect he’s completely naked under there, without even a pair of boxer shorts. I can’t help glancing toward the bulge under the thin sheet. It’s a shame to kill a specimen like this, right in his prime.

But there’s half a million dollars on the line. And if I don’t kill Ivan Petrov, someone else will.

So I might as well get my money.

I approach the bed. Nothing could be more silent than my feet, taking step after step across the thick oriental rug. I wear the same kind of shoes that rock-climbers wear—thin, flexible, grippy. Little more than leather slippers, and quiet as bare feet.

Petrov’s head is thrown back on the pillow, his throat exposed. His dark hair tumbles across his eyes. His lips are slightly parted. His breathing hasn’t changed—it’s still a steady metronome. But I’m about to put a stop to it.

I slip the cap off the needle. I grip the syringe in my fist, my thumb above the depressor.

As I raise my right hand in the air, above his neck, I can’t help glancing one more time at Ivan’s face.

His dark brown eyes are open, staring up at me.