"Happy birthday, little ballerina!" Dmitri called from the kitchen as twenty‑year‑old Aria walked down in her pajamas.
"I'm not little anymore," Aria said, smiling.
"You'll always be little to me," Dmitri said, handing her coffee just how she liked it. "Mama and Papa are already at the gallery. A big client wants to see the Faberge collection."
Aria yawned and looked at the kitchen clock. "What big client meets on Sunday morning?" she asked.
"Someone with more money than sense," Dmitri said. "They've been planning this meeting for weeks. Mama was so nervous she burned breakfast twice yesterday."
"Are you coming to dinner tonight?" Aria asked.
"I wouldn't miss it," Dmitri said. "But I have errands first. The new security system is to be installed tomorrow, and I want everything ready."
"Why do we need new security?" Aria asked, frowning.
"We've had break‑ins in the neighborhood," Dmitri said, his face growing serious. "Art galleries are targets. Papa thinks we should upgrade."
"Has someone threatened us?" Aria asked softly.
"No, nothing like that. Just being careful," Dmitri said.
"I'm going to shower and get dressed," Aria said. "Will you be back before they return?"
"Should be. The meeting's only supposed to last an hour," Dmitri answered.
Aria took a shower. Then she got dressed in jeans and a sweater and sat in the living room to read. The house was quiet.
She heard a gunshot.
She dropped her book and ran to the window. A black van was outside. Three men in masks and dark clothes walked to the front door.
She grabbed her phone to call the police. More gunshots followed.
She heard her mother scream and her father shout in Russian. Then there were more shots.
She ran to the bookshelf and pressed a hidden button. A small panic room opened, and she went inside. It had screens that showed camera feeds from the gallery and the apartment. Her hands shook as she turned them on.
On the screens, the gallery looked destroyed. Glass lay on the floor, and several paintings were missing. Her father lay behind the main counter with blood under his head. Her mother knelt beside him, crying and pressing her hands to his chest.
Three masked men moved through the gallery as if they knew where to go. They went straight to the back room that held the private collection and the most valuable pieces.
Aria reached for her phone to call for help. But she froze when she heard footsteps upstairs.
"Check upstairs," one of the men said. "Make sure there's no one else."
Two men entered the living room and began checking the rooms.
One man entered the bathroom. "Someone was here recently. Towels are damp," he said.
"Find them," another man ordered.
She held her breath, watching them search every room. The panic room was hidden behind the bookshelf, invisible to them.
On the gallery monitor, Aria saw her mother trying to drag her father behind the counter. He did not move anymore, and there was a lot of blood.
"Please," Aria's mother said to the third man. "Take whatever you want. Just let us go."
The man pulled off his ski mask. He looked ordinary, like someone you'd pass in the street.
"This isn't about money, Mrs. Kozlov. This is about sending a message," he said.
"What message? We haven't done anything wrong," her mother said.
"You refused to sell to our employer. That was a mistake," the man said.
"We can negotiate. Please. My husband needs a doctor," her mother begged.
"Your husband is dead. And you're about to join him," the man said, raising his gun.
He shot her mother in the chest. She fell backward, her body hitting the floor with a sound Aria would never forget.
The front door opened, and Dmitri's voice sounded faintly. "Mama? Papa? I'm back early."
On the monitor, Aria watched her brother enter the gallery, see the bodies, and freeze.
"What the fuck?" he whispered.
The man without the mask smiled. "The son. Perfect."
Dmitri spun around, but two guns were already trained on him. "Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded.
"We're contractors. We were hired to solve a problem," one of the gunmen said.
"What problem?" Dmitri asked.
"Your family's refusal to deal with our employer," the man said.
"If this is about money, we can work something out," Dmitri said, raising his hands.
"This isn't about money anymore. It's about respect. When you refuse a reasonable offer, there are consequences," the man said coldly.
"Who's your employer?" Dmitri asked, voice full of fight.
"Someone who doesn't like being told no," the man answered.
"You killed our parents for some rich asshole's art collection?" Dmitri shouted.
"We killed your parents because they didn't understand business. But don't worry. You'll join them soon," the man said.
Dmitri looked at the hidden camera. He mouthed one word: "Run."
Then he lunged at the nearest gunman.
He was strong, but outnumbered. They shot him three times before he fell.
His attack gave the other two men time to move upstairs. Aria heard them walking above the panic room.
"Someone's definitely here," one of them called down. "Fresh coffee, shower still running. They can't have gone far."
"Keep looking. No witnesses," the other said.
Aria sat in the dark and watched her family die on the monitors. Her parents. Her brother. Everyone she loved.
The searchers spent an hour looking through every room. They never found the panic room. After they left, Aria waited two more hours before coming out.
The gallery was destroyed. Blood everywhere. Her family's bodies were lying where they had fallen. The most valuable pieces from their collection were gone, including the Fabergé eggs that had been in their family for generations.
Aria called the police from her mother's phone. When they arrived, she said she had been at a friend's and came home to find the massacre. The police believed her because she was twenty and looked innocent and traumatized.
Which she was.
The case went cold in six months. No witnesses, no fingerprints, no leads. The stolen artwork never reappeared. The killers vanished.
Aria knew who was responsible. She had heard them talking. Some rich employer who didn't like being told no. Someone who thought he could take whatever he wanted and kill anyone who got in the way.
The insurance money let her continue with ballet, but she couldn't focus on dancing anymore. All she could think about was the look on her brother's face when he mouthed "run" before dying to save her.
She quit ballet after six months and disappeared into London's underground. She used the last of the insurance money to get new papers, a new identity, and a new life. She spent two years learning things they didn't teach in ballet school: how to kill with her hands, how to seduce someone completely, and how to disappear without a trace.
Then a woman named Vera found her. Vera said she worked for people who wanted justice for families like the Kozlovs. Vera said she had proof that Marcus Thorne was behind murders like this one. Vera said she would help Aria get revenge if she was willing to do whatever it took.
Aria was willing.
For five years, she trained, planned, and prepared. Five years of turning herself into a weapon aimed at one target. Five years of dreaming about the moment she'd look Marcus Thorne in the eye and tell him exactly why she was going to kill him.
Now she was close enough to touch him. Close enough to make him pay for what he did to her family.
But sitting in her Plaza suite, thinking of his blue eyes and devastating smile, she realized something that terrified her more than anything. She was starting to understand why women did foolish things for men like Marcus Thorne.
Her phone buzzed with a text.
Marcus: "Looking forward to tomorrow night. Sleep well, Elena."
Aria stared at the message long before deleting it. Marcus Thorne thought he was texting a woman attracted to him. He had no idea he was speaking to the only survivor of the family he destroyed.
Tomorrow night, she would sit across from him at dinner. She would pretend to enjoy his attention, laugh at his jokes, and let him think he was seducing her. All while she planned exactly how to make him suffer.
Her parents and brother were dead because of him. The least she could do was make sure he enjoyed his last few weeks of life before she took it all.
But first, she had to make sure she didn't fall for him herself. Because that would be the ultimate betrayal of everything her family died for.