The meeting runs late. The air in the study feels heavier than it should, weighed down by cigar smoke and the thick silence of men who don’t like what they’ve just heard. Numbers don’t lie, but they wound, and tonight they’ve carved deep. Alexei dismisses the others one by one, his voice calm, his eyes sharper than knives.
By the time the last man leaves, the room is stripped bare—only the smell of smoke and the low hum of the city pressing through the windows remain.
I gather my notes, ready to excuse myself, when his voice cuts across the space.
“Stay.”
It isn’t a request.
I straighten slowly, folding the papers into my bag before turning back toward him. He’s seated behind the heavy desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled back to reveal forearms marked with faint scars. He pours amber liquid into two tumblers, sliding one across the polished wood toward me.
“Drink.”
I hesitate, pulse quickening. Every instinct screams not to. To keep the line sharp, to keep the mask unbroken. Something in his gaze makes refusal feel more dangerous thancompliance. I lower into the chair across from him and curl my fingers around the cool glass.
He watches me closely as I take a sip. The burn coats my throat, stronger than I expected.
“You’re sharper than most of the men here,” he says, leaning back, voice quiet but steady. “Don’t let that be a weakness.”
The words hit harder than they should. Compliment, warning, threat…? It’s impossible to tell which. I keep my expression neutral, forcing the liquor’s heat into silence.
I don’t respond. Instead, I study him. Up close, he’s less immaculate than he seems in the boardroom. There are lines at the corners of his eyes, shadows under them that hint at sleepless nights.
His knuckles are rough, one hand scarred, his hair a shade too long at the temple as if he forgot himself for a few days. He should look less human for what he is. He doesn’t. That’s what unsettles me most.
Before I can speak, Dimitri bursts in, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. His eyes flick to me, then back to Alexei, sharp with urgency.
“We found him,” he says in Russian-accented English.
Alexei sets his tumbler down with a soft click. “Bring him in.”
The door closes, and moments later, two men drag someone inside. He’s younger than I expect—late twenties, maybe. His face is bruised, one eye swelling shut. He stumbles as they shove him forward, landing on his knees before the desk. His voice trembles as he begs in Russian, words spilling too fast for me to catch.
I freeze, blood rushing in my ears.
Alexei stands slowly, coming around the desk. His presence fills the room, deliberate, suffocating. He crouches in front of the man, speaking in low, measured Russian. The traitor shakes, stammers, his palms pressed flat against the carpet.
The air feels razor-thin.
Then Alexei’s voice sharpens, colder now, a command instead of a question. The man breaks, sobbing, spilling words that even I can piece together: betrayal, money, enemy. Confession.
Alexei’s expression doesn’t change. He rises, pulls a pistol from the holster at his side.
My breath catches.
The room tilts around me, the edges blurring as the barrel levels against the man’s temple. The traitor weeps, hands clasped, desperate. Dimitri doesn’t move. No one does.
“This,” Alexei says, his voice low, even, “is what happens when you betray a Sharov.”
The gunshot cracks like thunder.
The man’s body crumples to the carpet, blood spreading dark against the expensive rug. The silence that follows is louder than the shot itself.
I don’t move. My fingers are locked around the glass in my hand, but I can’t feel it anymore. My chest is tight, breath shallow. I force my eyes not to close, not to flinch. I can’t let them see me break.
Alexei sets the pistol back in its holster, calm as if he’d just signed a document instead of ended a life. He glances at me then, gray eyes unreadable.
“This is what loyalty means. This is what happens without it.”
