Chapter 20

Apartment in Maputo

“Where is this man now?” Sergei asked, his voice low and measured, though the question carried an edge that betrayed his growing unease.

“He has a law firm in Johannesburg, with offices in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Durban, and Cape Town,” the voice on the line replied. “He was last seen at the Pretoria office, but since then...” There was a brief hesitation. “He has simply vanished off the face of the earth. No public appearances. No court records with his name on them. Nothing. Some sources say he took the death of that prosecutor very hard and withdrew completely from public life.”

Sergei exhaled slowly, leaning back into the sofa as he stared into the darkness beyond the window.

“That ... is disturbing,” he sighed.

“It also makes him dangerous,” the voice continued, sharper now. “If he is on your trail ... well, we don’t know what he knows, what he plans ... but most of all, how and where he will strike.”

Sergei’s eyes narrowed.

“With all those satellite offices, he also seems to be a wealthy man,” he said thoughtfully. “The kind of man who can buy information. Buy loyalty. Buy people.”

“Exactly.”

A heavy silence settled between them, broken only by the faint crackle of the line.

“What do you plan next?” the voice finally asked. “How can I help?”

“Stay near your source,” Sergei replied coldly. “Milk him for everything he knows. And don’t get caught.”

Without waiting for a response, he ended the call.

The apartment fell into silence.

He sat in the darkness, the phone still loose in his hand, his eyes fixed on nothing. The apartment was silent except for the faint rhythm of the city beyond the windows and the ticking of the clock on the wall, each second cutting through the room like the measured beat of an executioner’s steps.

Adrian Grobler. A lawyer. A ghost. A man with money, reach, and enough intelligence to disappear.

Sergei’s jaw tightened. Dangerous men did not vanish.

They hunted.

Slowly, he leaned back into the sofa, his fingers tapping once against the armrest. Not nervousness—calculation. His mind was already moving through possibilities, reducing them to patterns, weaknesses, opportunities.

A grieving man could be reckless. A wealthy man could be bought. A frightened man could be manipulated. And every man, no matter how careful, could bleed.

At last, Sergei rose.

The movement was deliberate, predatory, like a beast unfolding itself in the dark. He crossed to the window and stood there, staring down at the sleeping streets far below. Maputo glittered beneath him, indifferent and vulnerable.

“Well,” he said softly, almost amused, “attack has always been the finest form of defence.”

His reflection in the glass smiled back at him—thin, sharp, merciless.

“My mule inside Interpol will have Adrian Grobler’s location soon enough,” he murmured. “When he does, I will not wait for him to make the first move.”

His voice dropped lower, colder.

“I will cut the move from his hands.”

He let the thought settle, savouring it.

Then something darker, more elegant, crept into his mind.

Why chase a shadow when the shadow could be summoned?

Sergei’s smile deepened.

“No...” he whispered. “Better to draw him out.”

His eyes narrowed, gleaming with cruel intelligence.

“Make him believe he has found something. A witness. A file. A name connected to the prosecutor.” He paused, already shaping the lie. “Something irresistible.”

He turned from the window, the darkness seeming to gather around him like a cloak.

“Men like him always come when grief is involved. Guilt makes them predictable.”

His voice hardened into steel.

“I will drag him into the open, strip away every illusion of safety, and when he finally realises what this is...” He gave a low, humourless laugh. “It will already be too late.”

Sergei walked to the desk and placed the phone down with quiet precision.

“Then I end him.”

Not anger. Not passion. A decision. Cold and absolute.

He rested both hands on the polished wood, bowing his head for a moment as if in prayer.

But there was nothing holy in the darkness that settled over his face.

“Not just him,” he said softly. “Anyone around him. Anyone helping him. Secretaries, partners, investigators, police contacts—if they become useful, I use them. If they become a risk, I bury them.”

His lips curled.

“Fear spreads faster than blood.”

Outside, thunder rolled in the distance.

Sergei lifted his head, and in his eyes there was something far worse than rage.

Patience.

The patience of a man who enjoyed the hunt.

“Run, Adrian,” he said to the empty room, almost tenderly. “Run as far as you like.”

A beat.

“I always find what I want.”

Skukuza, early the next day.

The morning unfolded as just a normal routine. Get up, dress, brew coffee, wake up Kait ... and while she enjoys a sleepy coffee-in-bed, I step out onto the wooden deck of the bungalow and into the first light of the Lowveld dawn.

The mug is warm in my hands, grounding in a way nothing else is at that hour. I lean against the railing, letting the wood press lightly into my forearms, and take that first slow sip. Strong. Slightly bitter. Exactly how I like it. The kind of coffee that doesn’t rush you awake but coaxes you there, gently.

Out here, the day doesn’t begin all at once—it seeps in.

The sky is still undecided, hovering between charcoal and pale gold, and the air carries that cool, fleeting softness that will burn away within the hour. Somewhere in the distance, a dove repeats its low, rhythmic call, like a metronome keeping time for the bush. Closer by, I hear the dry rustle of leaves—something small moving through the undergrowth, unseen but entirely at home.

I breathe in deeply. Dust, dry grass, a hint of woodsmoke from somewhere far off ... and underneath it all, that unmistakable scent of the Lowveld. Ancient. Layered. Alive.

A francolin bursts into its morning announcement, loud and unapologetic, and I can’t help but smile. The bush doesn’t do subtle when it decides the day has begun.

I take another sip of coffee, slower this time, and let my eyes wander beyond the railing, over the sparse trees and the open stretch beyond. There’s a stillness to it, but not silence—never silence. Just a thousand small lives moving, calling, beginning again.

Inside, I know Kait is still curled up, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, cradling her mug. For a moment, everything feels ... easy. Predictable. Like the day has chosen to start gently.

But there’s something about mornings like this—too calm, too measured—that makes me wonder if the bush is holding its breath.

I was somewhere between craving and commitment—mentally assembling a proper breakfast in my head. Not the rushed kind. A real one. Full English. Sausage with that perfect snap, bacon just on the edge of crisp, sunny-side-up eggs bleeding gold across the plate, toast soaking it all up. The kind of breakfast that makes a man believe the day might actually behave itself.

The bush had other ideas.

My phone buzzed against the wooden railing beside me, rattling just enough to pull me out of that perfect, imaginary plate of food. I frowned at it for a second, as if ignoring it might rewind time.

No such luck.

I picked it up.

“Good morning, Mister Windsor. What’s up?”

“Top of the morning to you, Adrian,” Ash replied. His voice carried that familiar mix of mischief and momentum—like a man already three steps ahead of the day. “Just a progress report from my side.”

I took a slow sip of coffee, eyes drifting out across the waking bush. “Okay...”

“Roxy has been busy. She transferred funds from both the entities that SVR has been dealing with and then merged the accounts of his into one account having all the funds. Then she cleaned out that account and transferred the money to a numbered account in Switzerland.”

I let out a quiet breath, more impressed than surprised. “And ... how is that going to fly?”

Ash chuckled, the sound crackling lightly through the line. “She has been busy the whole night, poor girl. She transferred the funds out of the numbered account in small amounts and scattered it across untraceable accounts all across Europe and the Caymans.”

A hornbill flapped lazily across my line of sight, landing somewhere out of view. I watched the trees instead. “Okay ... Any indication if SVR got wind of it?”

“That’s the million dollar question,” Ash replied. “If he did, he is very quiet about it. Roxy left him just five hundred dollars in his personal account. Surprise if he wants to buy an airline ticket to anywhere.”