The wind had teeth that morning.
Snow sifted down in pale sheets, the kind that melted on lashes and bit through fabric no matter how thick your coat was. Calista Okailey Benson tucked her chin deeper into her scarf, muttering a quiet curse as a gust tore through the streets of Moscow. Her fingers, wrapped around a too-cold milkshake, were already going numb — because apparently, her brain had decided that dairy and subzero weather made sense together.
"Thank you," she told the barista, her accent curling softly around the Russian words. She balanced her donut bag in one hand, milkshake in the other, and pushed out of the café, boots clicking on the pavement like a metronome of bad decisions.
She glanced at her watch. 8:07 a.m.
"Oh, shit."
Her eyes widened. She picked up speed, her heels tapping faster, echoing off the icy sidewalks. The air bit at her cheeks; her breath came out in thin clouds. Every step was a prayer not to slip, every turn a gamble. She refused to miss the bus again — she'd already endured the humiliation of sprinting after it last week while her colleagues watched from the windows like smug pigeons.
She cut down the side street — the shortcut, the one that shaved five minutes off her commute — just as a figure rounded the corner from the opposite direction.
Neither saw the other until—
CRASH.
Her milkshake hit the ground with a sad, splattered sound, chocolate streaking across the snow. Her donut bag tore open, powdered sugar scattering like confetti. Calista's breath caught; she braced for the impact, for her knees to meet the pavement—
—but it never came.
A hand — large, strong — wrapped around her waist, pulling her upright before gravity could finish what it started. She blinked, stunned, her pulse hammering as she found herself pressed against a chest that felt solid, like it had never once lost its balance.
Her gaze rose.
And there he was.
Tall — impossibly tall — and broad-shouldered beneath a long white coat dusted with snow. His hair was the pale kind of blonde that looked almost silver under the winter light, his skin a shade too fair for the cold, and those eyes… God.
Icy blue. Sharp. Alive. The kind that didn't just look at you but through you, as if he were cataloging your pulse, your secrets, your sins.
"Are you alright?" His voice was smooth but deep, resonating low in his chest — the kind of sound that could disarm or command, depending on his mood.
Calista swallowed, blinking fast. "Uh… yes. Y-yeah, I'm fine."
His arm was still around her waist, firm and unyielding. Heat spread beneath her coat where his palm pressed lightly against her side — absurd warmth in a morning that felt frozen.
"Uhm… you can let go now," she managed, awkwardly stepping back once he did. Her face felt hot. She smoothed her scarf, brushing invisible snow off her sleeve, and bowed slightly. "I apologize. I wasn't looking. Are you hurt anywhere?"
He smiled — faint, amused, the corner of his mouth twitching upward like he was suppressing a laugh.
"No," he said, a low chuckle slipping through. "I'm fine."
"Good. I— I'm really sorry, but I'm in a hur—"
She stopped.
He had reached up, so casually, and brushed a stray coil of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. The movement was intimate, deliberate. Her breath hitched.
"You should wear glasses," he said, his accent laced with something northern, old money and quiet menace. His thumb ghosted over her cheek as if tracing something invisible. "It mostly snows here. The sunlight reflects off it. Some people lose their eyesight from that."
His tone made it sound less like advice, more like a warning.
Calista froze — startled by his closeness, his confidence, that strange softness in his eyes that didn't match the chill of his words. Then instinct kicked in.
She slapped his hand away, jaw tightening.
"Thank you, but I can take care of myself," she said, her voice clipped but steady. "Excuse me."
Without waiting for an answer, she stepped past him, her heels crunching through the snow.
Behind her, the man chuckled — low, almost to himself. He watched her go, his eyes narrowing in quiet fascination as her figure disappeared down the street, a small flame against the white city.
Then his phone rang.
"Ah, Zhenya," he said into the receiver, his tone shifting — colder now, amused. "Yes, I'm coming. I think…" A smile crept into his voice. "I just found something interesting."
By the time Calista pushed open the door to the small apartment, the sky outside had darkened into a bruised violet. The Moscow skyline glittered faintly through the falling snow — a city that looked soft from a distance but devoured the weak up close.
She toed off her heels at the entrance, sighing as the heat from the radiator kissed her frozen skin.
"I'm hoooome!" she called, her voice hoarse from the long day.
"Ah, welcome home, Calista," her grandmother's voice floated from the kitchen, calm and familiar, like the hum of an old lullaby. "How was work, my dear?"
Calista smiled faintly as she walked in, unbuttoning her coat. Her grandmother — small, wiry, always wrapped in layers of sweaters — was stirring a pot of soup on the stove. The smell of garlic, onions, and smoked fish filled the tiny space, seeping warmth into Calista's bones.
"It was okay," she said, grabbing a glass from the cupboard. "I'm taking care of it."
"That's good." Her grandmother's tone softened but carried a trace of worry. "Alexei just left before you came. It won't be easy, right?"
Calista poured herself water and drank in slow, steady sips, staring at the reflection of the overhead light in the glass.
"No," she admitted quietly. "It won't. But I'll handle it. Tomorrow, I'm going to the senator's office. I'll find out what's really going on. Don't worry, everything's going to be fine."
Her grandmother gave her a gentle smile — the kind that came from faith, not facts. "Alright then. I'm going to bed. Good night, my sunshine."
Calista watched her disappear into the hallway, the soft shuffle of her slippers fading away.
"Mhmm. Good night, Grandma."
When the apartment fell silent, Calista let her shoulders drop. The sound of the clock on the wall ticked in the background — steady, unbothered, like it didn't care how much of her mind was unraveling.
She walked down the narrow corridor to her room, the dim light casting her shadow across the peeling wallpaper.
Her thoughts followed her like ghosts.
Alexei.
A banker. Lives just a few floors above. A decent man — quiet, careful — but now accused of embezzling millions from Senator Boris Volkov's campaign funds.
She kicked off her boots, opened the door to her room, and sank onto the bed with a soft thud. The air smelled faintly of vanilla lotion and paper — traces of the woman who lived by both reason and stubborn fire.
"This doesn't make sense," she murmured, staring at the ceiling.
She replayed everything she'd seen in Alexei's case file — the bank statements, the fake signatures, the conveniently missing documents. It was too clean. Too arranged.
If Alexei had truly stolen that money, there would've been mess — traces, hesitations, panic. Instead, the trail was perfect, too perfect.
Her jaw clenched.
"Volkov," she whispered, the name tasting bitter. The senator's grin had always struck her as reptilian — too polished, too eager. A man who shook hands with the same people he would destroy hours later.
And the rumor — that his campaign had received "private funding" from unnamed organizations — wouldn't leave her mind.
"There's a high possibility the mafia's involved," she thought, rubbing her temples. "Seeing how the senator moves, who he meets, who he doesn't… There's a network under that suit. Something powerful."
She looked at the city lights outside her window, glowing faintly through the frost.
A chill ran through her, but not from the cold.
"Someone's helping him. Someone deep in the system."
She took off her earrings, her blazer, her scarf, moving through her nighttime ritual like a woman trying to shake off the day's ghosts. But the more she tried, the louder her thoughts became.
What if the "someone" wasn't just a corrupt aide or accountant?
What if it was one of the city's crime families — the kind whose influence reached through banks, courts, even police headquarters?
Her breath slowed. She remembered the man from that morning — his glacial stare, the way he touched her face like he already knew her.
A strange unease twisted in her stomach.
"This is going to be more difficult than I thought," she murmured. "And maybe… more dangerous."
She lay back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Somewhere beneath the quiet hum of the heater and the distant sounds of traffic, Moscow pulsed — a living, breathing beast.
And tomorrow, she'd be walking straight into its heart.
The room reeked faintly of gunpowder and expensive tobacco.
"Aa—ah! Please, I'm begging you! Please—please beg Knyaz for me, I'll do anything, I'll—" the man's plea cracked into a sob, his hands shaking as he tried to crawl backward across the floor slick with blood. There were bodies everywhere—his colleagues, his brothers, maybe his friends—crumpled in a grotesque stillness that filled the apartment with the heavy, metallic scent of death.
The man holding the gun didn't blink. His face was blank, expression carved from ice.
Pow!
The shot silenced everything.
Yuta exhaled once, like it was just another Tuesday. He wiped his gloved hands clean and walked down the corridor, boots echoing against the tiles, out into the bitter Moscow wind. The black Volga waited quietly outside, sleek and tinted, the kind of car you never wanted to see parked near your building.
He opened the back door.
"Sir. It's been done," he said.
The man sitting in the back seat didn't move right away. Just a slow inhale, the glow of a cigar lighting the sharp edge of his cheekbone.
Vsevolod Rurikovich Svyatopolsky—known only as Knyaz to those who valued their lives—watched the city lights smear across the tinted window, his reflection cut by them like fractured glass. He was silent for so long Yuta started to sweat beneath his coat.
"Boss isn't saying anything… Did I take too long?" Yuta thought, throat tight.
Seva finally exhaled, voice low and deliberate.
"What's going on with the Volkov affair?"
"Everything is going smoothly, sir. There was resistance, as expected, but it's rolling as fast as possible—"
"Not fast enough," Seva interrupted, flicking ash into the tray built into the car door. His tone wasn't loud, but it was the kind of quiet that made grown men feel like prey.
"I—I'm sorry, sir. But an unexpected matter came up at Alexei's side," Yuta said quickly.
A pause.
"What matter?" Seva's gaze cut toward him, eyes cold and sharp.
Yuta hesitated. "A woman. A lawyer. She's… interfering."
The senator's voice was already cracking under his own panic.
"Knyaz! I need a direct answer—I need a guaranteed answer! It's about that annoying little black lawyer! She's been on my neck for days, I can't even do my work properly because of her—she's a menace!" Boris was pacing, sweating through his suit jacket, his voice echoing off the marble walls.
Seva was leaning against the senator's desk, a half-burned cigar balanced between his fingers. He didn't even look at Boris as he spoke.
"Senator Boris," he said slowly, each word measured like he was slicing the air with it, "I'm a very busy man. Yet you called me here just to whine."
He pressed the cigar into the ashtray, the ember dying with a hiss. Then he stood upright, his height swallowing the senator's space. Boris instinctively stepped back.
"If she's just a mere attorney as you say," Seva continued, voice low, "then there's no reason for you to get so worked up, is there?"
He smiled—a cold, beautiful thing that didn't reach his eyes.
"I don't accept deals I can't handle in the first place."
Boris's jaw trembled. "I—I just don't want this getting out of hand, you know how these things—"
"I'm going to let this pass for my father's sake," Seva interrupted, leaning close enough that Boris could smell the smoke on his breath. "But don't pester me like this again."
He turned slightly, adjusting his cufflink, his attention already fading when the door burst open.
"Sir! I—I'm sorry, sir, but you have a visitor!" the senator's assistant stammered, eyes darting nervously between the two men.
"A visitor?" Boris snapped, clearly on edge. "Tell them to go away, I'm busy!"
But before the assistant could retreat, a calm, sharp voice cut through the tension.
"I know I came unexpectedly…"
The assistant was pushed gently aside as a woman stepped into the room. Her heels clicked once against the polished floor, her chin raised high despite being noticeably shorter than both men.
"…but you're not going to kick me out, are you?" she said, a half-smirk playing on her lips.
The room seemed to shift.
Even Seva turned his head, just slightly.
Her voice was confident but not careless—warm, yet layered with iron. Her coat was dusted with snow, her curls tucked behind one ear, and her eyes—hazel, bright against her deep bronze skin—met Boris's like she was measuring him for a coffin.
"A citizen of this city should be able to see you, right?" she said. "Well then, good day, gentlemen. My name is Calista Okailey Benson. Please excuse my intrusion."