The lock turning.
I sit up instantly, spine straight, my hand twitching toward the cuff as if I could cover it. The door opens.
He steps in.
Alexei Sharov doesn’t rush, doesn’t storm, doesn’t draw a weapon. He closes the door with the same deliberate calm he carries into every room, as though he owns not only the space but the air itself. He takes in the sight of me—chained, waiting—and then crosses to the chair opposite the bed.
He sits.
The silence that follows is unbearable. My pulse hammers, but I force my face blank, my breathing steady. If he wants fear, I’ll give him steel.
His gaze drops once to the cuff, then rises to mine. “Comfortable?”
The word is smooth, mocking. I don’t answer.
He leans forward slightly, elbows braced on his knees. His voice is low, steady, cutting through the quiet like a blade. “Who paid you?”
I keep my silence.
“Who else is involved?”
Nothing.
“How long have you been working against me?”
Each question is precise, sharp, meant to draw blood. He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t snarl. He doesn’t need to. The danger is in the calm, in the certainty threaded through each word.
I hold my ground.
Then I let the words slip free, the ones I’ve kept locked inside, buried so deep they almost choke me as they surface.
“Your family ordered my father’s death.”
The room goes still.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. His expression remains carved from stone, but something shifts beneath it. A flicker in the eyes, so brief I might have imagined it.
I lean forward, the chain clinking against the bedframe. “You can keep asking me who I work for, who I serve, how long I’ve been playing this game. None of that matters. This is about you. About what you did.”
His jaw tightens, almost imperceptibly. “Explain.”
The command in his tone sends a shiver down my spine, but I bite it back. I shake my head.
“No.”
The refusal tastes like iron, heavy and final.
“This isn’t negotiation,” I tell him, my voice rough around the edges. “It isn’t bargaining. I don’t want your money. I don’t want your threats. I want you to hear me.”
My chest aches, but I keep going, my words coming sharper, faster, fueled by the rage I’ve tried to smother for years. “You took him from me. My father. You didn’t pull the trigger yourself, but the order came from your family. You built your empire on blood that didn’t belong to you. On families you tore apart. On lives you left in pieces. Now you’re asking me to explain myself?”
The silence presses in again, thicker now.
I laugh once, bitter and raw. “This isn’t my confession. It’s yours.”
His eyes hold mine, unblinking. The weight of that stare makes my skin burn. He doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t confirm it either. His calm expression doesn’t crack, but the stillness of him—the quiet thinking behind his eyes—is worse than rage.
I want to see fury. I want to see violence. I want him to lash out, to prove me right. But he doesn’t.
