Later, when the others leave, we sit in the silence of the war room, papers scattered, coffee going cold. She looks tired, hair falling in loose strands, ink smudged on her fingers. “They hate me,” she says, not as a complaint but a fact.
“They’ll learn.”
Her brow arches. “What if they don’t?”
“Then they’ll answer to me.”
She studies me for a long moment, something unreadable in her eyes, before she looks away. Still, the corner of her mouth curves again, just slightly.
That’s when I realize it. I don’t just want to keep her alive because of guilt. It isn’t just lust, though the hunger for her never quiets. It’s more. I want to build something with her.
I know it’s dangerous to want anything in this world. Wanting someone is worse: it’s a weakness, a noose around the neck. I’ve already crossed that line. I crossed it the moment I told the Council she was my wife.
Now, when I watch her bent over a map, when I hear her voice steady in a room full of killers, when I see the fire in her eyes as she dares to challenge me, I know I’d burn every rule, every code, every man alive if it meant keeping her beside me.
That’s the most dangerous truth of all.
Chapter Twenty-One - Vivienne
The war room is quieter at night. No smoke from the men’s endless cigarettes, no constant shuffle of boots or muttered arguments over territory. Just me, the creak of the chair beneath me, and the faint hum of the lamp casting long shadows across the maps and files scattered on the table.
I tell myself I’m only here to work through the backlog Alexei handed me earlier. He trusts me with these papers now, classified ledgers and coded reports that most in the Bratva wouldn’t dare leave in another’s hands.
It still amazes me, the way he’s let me into the veins of this empire after I swore to cut its heart out. He doesn’t just tolerate my presence; he wants me to be a part of what I hated, to thread myself into the fabric of the Bratva.
The strangest part is, I don’t hate the work. At first, I thought I’d despise it, that I’d find it all beneath me or sickening, but it’s almost… entertaining. The puzzle of numbers, the coded language, the thrill of finding the weak point in a plan—it hooks into me like a drug.
Some nights I look up and realize hours have passed, my pen smeared with ink, my pulse racing like I’m preparing for trial again, like I’m back in the courtroom fighting tooth and nail.
Tonight, the stack of documents is older. Outdated operations, years-old run through ports and border towns. I sort them idly, slipping each into its proper pile, muttering under my breath about whoever thought it was smart to leave them in such chaos.
That’s when I see it.
A folder mislabeled, tucked deep in the wrong stack. My fingers hesitate on it. The tab readsWest Dock Disputes,2005, in a different hand than the rest, almost an afterthought. Something about the crooked letters makes me pause.
Curiosity wins. I slide the file free and open it.
At first it looks like the others, with typed orders, coded names, signatures of approval. I skim quickly, half ready to dismiss it. A single phrase jumps out. My father’s name.
I freeze, the letters blurring before my eyes.
I read it again, slower this time. Then again. My hands begin to shake. The report isn’t about dock disputes. It’s a record of a joint operation, one that straddled the line between the Bratva and government officials. A collaboration. The kind of collusion whispered about but never proven. The kind of thing that makes the world tilt on its axis.
In the middle of it, my father. Target.
The signatures are there. Meetings logged. A final order scrawled in sharp ink, signed by Alexei’s father. Not just a Bratva hit. Not revenge. It was orchestrated. Political and criminal power hand-in-hand, deciding my father’s death like they were crossing another item off their to-do list.
My stomach lurches. I push the papers away, shutting the folder hard enough to make the lamp rattle.
It doesn’t change the fact that my father is gone. That I buried him, swore vengeance, let grief fuel me into this mess. The betrayal cuts deeper now I’ve had time to get to know him. I can’t hold him at arm’s length anymore.
Knowing that the man I’ve started to let close—the one whose touch still lingers on my skin, whose voice still echoes in my head—is the son of the man who signed the order.
I close my eyes and the memories flood back. My father’s paranoia in those last weeks, the way he jumped at shadows, double-checked the locks, spoke in half sentences like someonemight be listening. I thought it was just fear of the Bratva tightening their grip. Everyone said it was a vendetta, that he’d finally stepped too far. Too quick. Too easy.
Now I see it for what it was. Not just underworld politics. Not just the Sharov name. The whole damn system conspired to bury him, and Alexei’s blood runs through the same veins that bled mine dry.
I press my hands flat on the desk, willing them to stop shaking. The folder lies there like a loaded gun, daring me to pick it back up, to confront him with it. To demand answers he might not even know how to give.
