“My sister sold me to the mobster.

Chapter 6: The Price of Silence

The success of the first mission brought no rest. On the contrary, it was like opening a

doorthat could no longer be closed. From that night on, the air around me seemed

denser, heavy with invisible expectations and gazes that no longer observed me

with curiosity, but with calculation.

He had crossed a line.

The morning began with a terse message on my secure phone:

“Private meeting. One hour.”

He didn't need a signature to know it was Aleksandr.

The journey to the central building felt different. The men guarding theAt the

entrance, they no longer looked at me as an unwelcome guest or as a mere favor

that had to be tolerated. Now there was something more: recognition… and

caution. That, in their world, was dangerous.

Aleksandr was waiting for me in a room smaller than his usual office. There was

noNo windows or city views, just a dark wooden table and two chairs facing each

other. The atmosphere was designed to intimidate, to expose truths.

"Sit down, Valeria," he said without raising

his voice. I obeyed.

For several seconds he didn't speak. He observed me. Not my posture or my

gestures, but something deeper, as if trying to measure how much I had changed

since the first day.

"The mission was a success," he continued. "But success always comes at

a price."I felt a slight knot in my stomach.

"One of the men involved talked," he added. "Not to the police. To someone

worse."

My mind started racing. An inner traitor. A mistake. A crack.

"I want you to find out who it is," he said. "Without violence. Without threats. Just

intelligence."

"What if he refuses to talk?" I

asked. A shadow crossed his

expression.

—Then you will learn why silence is more valuable than feigned loyalty.

He handed me a thin folder. Inside were reports, financial records, incomplete

communication logs. Nothing obvious. All designed to confuse.

"You have twenty-four hours," he concluded. "And Valeria..." He leaned slightly

toward me. "This time I won't be watching from afar."

That was a warning.

I started with the simplest thing: observing. I spent the day moving between offices,

common areas, and small meetings. I didn't ask directly. I listened. I watched. I

waited.

That's when I noticed it.

Sergei.

Until now he had been discreet, almost invisible. Too proper. Too much.

Punctual. Too… clean. In that world, perfection was a red flag.

I followed him without him noticing, observing patterns. Irregular schedules. Brief

calls. Deleted messages. Nothing concrete, but enough to arouse suspicion.

That night, I decided to confront him in the only way possible: without confrontation.

I invited him to talk under the pretext of an administrative review. I chose a neutral

room.no visible cameras, no witnesses.

"I didn't expect to see you here," he said, tensely.

"That's good," I replied. "It means you still don't know what to expect from me."

I showed him some of the documents. Not the most incriminating ones. Just

enough to make him uncomfortable.

"Someone spoke," I said calmly. "And Aleksandr wants answers."

The silence fell like a dead weight.

"I haven't betrayed anyone," he replied quickly.Too fast.

"I didn't accuse you," I replied. "I just gave you the opportunity to explain

something before others do it for you."

I saw fear creeping in. Not panic. Rational fear. The most dangerous kind.

"It wasn't betrayal," he murmured at last. "It was

survival."That word pierced me.

"Who did you talk to?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

I got up slowly.

“Aleksandr doesn’t forgive silence,” I said. “But I can still decide how to tell it.”This

story.

That's when he spoke. No names. No details. Just a partial truth: he had leaked

minor information toProtecting someone outside the circle. A mistake. A human

act in a world that punished humanity.

I left the room certain that the problem was bigger than it seemed.

When I returned with Aleksandr, it was already early morning. He was standing

there, without his jacket,with the hard expression of someone who already knows

the answer but wants to see how it is presented to them.

"Speak," he ordered.

I told him everything. Without embellishment. Without lies. Without

omitting the human element.Aleksandr listened in silence.

"Do you think he deserves a second chance?" he finally asked. It

wasn't a real question. It was a test.

"I think letting him live will be more useful than eliminating him," I replied. "But

taking away the..."Access. Turn it into a warning, not a martyr.

For the first time, Aleksandr smiled. Barely. Just enough to make me shudder.

"You're learning," he said. "And that worries me."

"Why?" I asked. He

approached slowly.

—Because the more you learn, the less control I have over you.

The tension between us was no longer just about power. It was a clash. Will against

will.

"Silence has a price," she continued. "Today you decided what that price would be.

I hope you're prepared to pay it when the time comes."

I left there with a new certainty: I was no longer a passive figure. I was having an

influence.Changing decisions. Altering balances.

That made me dangerous.

And in Aleksandr Dragov's world, the dangerous doesn't always survive... but it never

goes unnoticed.

Chapter 7: When the Enemy Watches

The problem with power wasn't obtaining it, but learning to live with the

consequences.of possessing it.

After the decision made regarding Sergei, the atmosphere within the organizationIt

changed. Not obviously, not with open confrontations or brazen stares, but with

something much more unsettling: calculated silence.

Conversations stopped when I entered. The meetings became morecareful. Words

were measured.

He had ceased to be invisible.

And that, in Aleksandr Dragov's world, meant that someone—more than one—was

beginning to observe me with other interests.

The first sign came that same morning.

It wasn't a direct threat, an ambush, or an intimidating message. It was something

more subtle: an altered report. A figure moved. A piece of data that

appeared...insignificant, which would have gone unnoticed by anyone.

Not for me.

I had spent the last few weeks training my mind to detect patterns,

inconsistencies, silences that didn't fit. And that small mistake wasn't carelessness.

It was a test.

Or worse: a message.

I took him directly to Aleksandr.

"This isn't internal," I said as soon as he closed his office door. "Someone is..."testing

our limits.

Aleksandr didn't respond immediately. He looked at the document, then at me.

—Are you sure?

"Too much," I replied. "It's the kind of mistake you make when someone wants to

see if you're paying attention."

He got up slowly and walked to the window. The city stretched out before him.like

a living board.

"So you're not just part of the game anymore," he said. "Now you're a target too."I

didn't feel fear. I felt something more dangerous: lucidity.

"Who?" I asked.

"I don't know yet," he replied. "But I do know one thing: they won't attack head￾on. They'll do it through you."

That was the moment I understood that Aleksandr's protection wouldn't come in the

form ofNo promises, no words. It would come in cold decisions. In invisible

movements.

In control.

That same afternoon, Aleksandr made a decision that he did not

discuss with me.He assigned me a permanent escort.

No conspicuous men, no shadows around every corner. Intelligent protection:

altered routes, interchangeable vehicles, unpredictable schedules. Security that

didn't feel like a cage, but like a net.

"I don't want bodyguards," I told him when I found out.

"You don't have them," he replied. "You have layers."

I didn't insist. I knew arguing about it would be pointless. In their world, security was

non-negotiable.when the risk was real.

And the risk was real.

That night, while checking information in my apartment, I noticed something that

made my pulse quicken: a light on in a building across the street, always on thesame

time, always turning off when I closed the curtains.

Observation.

No paranoia.

I didn't

sleep.

The next morning, Aleksandr took me to a place that was not on any official map of

the organization: a discreet house, far from the center, surrounded by trees and

silence.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"A blind spot," he replied. "Where no one looks... except those who know it exists."

There, for the first time, he didn't speak to me as a subordinate or as a strategic

asset.

"Valeria," he said. "I want you to understand something. What's happening isn't

by chance. Someone is testing how far I'll go with you."

"With me?" I repeated.

"Yes," he affirmed. "Because you've changed the balance. And that's unsettling."

She held my gaze with a different intensity. Not possessive. Evaluative.

"If you break down," he continued, "that will be one sign. If you stand firm, that will

be another."

"And you?" I asked. "What will you

do?" Her answer was immediate.

—What I always do. Anticipate.

It was then that I understood something essential: Aleksandr wasn't protecting me

out of affection, norOut of necessity. He was protecting me because I had become

a strategic variable.

And that gave me power… and danger in equal measure.

The attack did not come that week.

It arrived in the form of information leaked to an intermediary. A carefully crafted

rumorSown. An insinuation that I was the weak point. That all it took was pressing

there to cause a mistake.

Aleksandr did not react violently.He

reacted with silence.

For days, he allowed the rumor to grow. He let the enemy believe he was right.That I

was isolated. Vulnerable.

I also remained silent. It was

a perfect performance.

Until Aleksandr moved the final piece.

A fake meeting. A meeting that never happened. A communication channel thatIt

could only be intercepted if someone was listening.

And someone was.

That night, Aleksandr returned late. His expression was not one of triumph, but of

confirmation.

"We already know who," he said. "And you're no longer the main target."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you didn't break down," he replied. "And that forces them to change their

strategy."

He came closer than usual. He didn't invade my space, but he reduced it enough

to...so that the tension would become palpable.

"Today I protected you without you noticing," she added. "Tomorrow, you'll have

to learn to do it on your own."

"Is that a warning?" I asked.

"It's an investment," he corrected. "And I don't usually invest in what I consider

replaceable."That was the most dangerous moment of all.

Not because of the external enemy.

But because I understood that Aleksandr Dragov no longer saw me as something

fleeting in his world.

And when someone like him decides that something is irreplaceable… the price

always comes down to it.charges interest.

Chapter 8: The Unforgiving Decision

The first mistake was thinking that the attack would be noisy.

The second, even more dangerous, was believing that it would come from outside.

Valeria understood it too late, at the exact moment when betrayal ceased to be a

hypothesis and became a tangible presence, breathing within her very being.system

that Aleksandr had built over years.

There were no

gunshots. There

were no screams.

Just an absence.

A name that did not

respond.A message that

never arrived.

A door that took too long to open.

In Aleksandr Dragov's world, absences always meant something.

Valeria was reviewing reports in the secondary office when she felt it. It wasn't a

sound or a specific sign. It was a disturbance in the rhythm of the place. As if the

house itself had held its breath.

He got up slowly, without apparent hurry, but with his senses fully alert.Too much

silence.

He picked up the phone. There was no internal signal. That alone was a death

sentence.He did not call Aleksandr.

Not because he didn't trust him, but because he understood something essential

in that secondExactly: if the attack was happening, he already knew it.

And if I hadn't contacted her yet... it was because I couldn't.

Or because it shouldn't have been.

Valeria walked down the corridor, measuring each step. She remembered every

instruction, every detail she had learned without it seeming like a formal lesson.

Aleksandr neverHe taught directly. He observed. He corrected only once. Then he

waited for results.

The first person he found was one of the security guards. Unconscious.

Alive.

Neutralized with surgical precision.It

was not an impromptu assault.

It was a message.

Someone had entered, taken control of the inner perimeter, and decided

Don't touch it yet.

That enraged her more than if they had tried to kill her.

"Cowards," he

muttered. He didn't

shout.

He didn't run.

He thought.

If the enemy wanted to expose it as the weak point, they had to force a

reaction.emotional. To provoke panic. To make her flee. To seek refuge in

Aleksandr.

Valeria wouldn't give them that.

He changed course. He headed to the secondary communications center, a space

few knew about and which only existed because Aleksandr always assumed that

betrayal was a possibility, not an exception.

The door was closed. Forced

open.

That confirmed his suspicions.

Someone on the inside had

collaborated. He got in.

The screens were off, but not destroyed. They had been unplugged.

Careful, as if the intruder had intended to leave the place usable… afterwards.

"They're sure I don't know what I'm doing," he

thought. That was his mistake.

Valeria activated the manual system. It wasn't fast, nor elegant, but it was

independent.Aleksandr had ordered it installed months earlier, saying only one

sentence:

—What is not used, is not tracked.

The screens slowly came back to life.And

then he saw it.

An encrypted message, not addressed to her, but left for her to find.A name.

A face.

A traitor with high access.

Valeria felt the true weight of the situation. It wasn't a minor threat. It wasn't an

attempt at intimidation. It was a move to destabilize Aleksandr from within.using his

closeness to her as a catalyst.

And then the unthinkable

happened. The internal

communicator activated.

—Valeria— Aleksandr's voice came through distorted. —Listen to me carefully.

"I'm listening," he replied without hesitation.

—They've taken over one of the mirror houses. It's not this one. They want you to

think you're isolated.

Valeria closed her eyes for just a second.

"I'm not," he said. "I know who it is."

Silence.

Not an alarming

one.One

evaluator.

"Tell me," Aleksandr finally ordered.

Valeria mentioned the name.

This time the pause was different. Longer. More dangerous.

"That complicates things," he finally said. "You shouldn't have figured it out on your

own."

"I shouldn't have been the test either," she replied with icy calm. "And yet I

was."Aleksandr did not respond immediately.

“Now listen to me,” Valeria continued. “If you react the way they expect, we’ll

lose our advantage. They’re betting that you’ll come after me or try to crush them

with brute force.”

"So what do you propose?" he

asked. Valeria inhaled slowly.

—Let me finish this.

The refusal was implicit.The

tension was absolute.

"No," Aleksandr replied. "I won't expose you."

"You already did it," he replied. "The difference is that now I can decide

how."The silence that followed was not tactical.

It was personal.

"Valeria…" he began.

"Trust what you created yourself," she interrupted. "Or admit that you never

thought it would work."

Aleksandr then understood that he had crossed an invisible

line.She no longer asked for permission.

He demandedrecognition.

"You have one hour," he finally said. "One. After that, I'll intervene, with or without

your approval."

"That's enough," she replied. She

hung up.

And at that moment she knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

Valeria didn't

run away. She

didn't hide.

It was shown.

He activated visible protocols. He turned on lights. He left traces. He moved like

someone whoShe felt alone, vulnerable, unprotected.

The traitor took the bait.

He appeared less than forty minutes later.

Not with

weapons. With

words.

"I didn't expect you to be so intelligent," he said from the doorway. "That makes

you more dangerous."

"I didn't expect you to be so stupid," she replied. "That made you predictable."

He smiled.

"Aleksandr has changed you," he said. "Before, you were just a shadow. Now you

think you matter."

Valeria took a step forward.

"I don't think so," he said. "I know."

And that's when he made the decision that no one—not even Aleksandr—

anticipated.He didn't hand it in.

He didn't

delete it.He

recorded it.

Confessions.

Names.

Routes.

Allies.

All.

Then he let him go.

With a warning that didn't need to be spoken aloud.When

Aleksandr arrived, the place was calm.

Too much.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"Running," she replied. "Straight to the end of his world."

Aleksandr looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first

time.

"You made a decision that I can't undo," he said.

—Exactly —Valeria replied—. And now you'll have to live with

her.It wasn't an argument.

It wasn't a reproach. It

was something more

definitive.

Aleksandr understood that he could no longer protect her from

above.Because Valeria was already walking beside him.

And in their world, that meant only one thing:

Love, power, and war had just merged into something impossible to control.