I look down at my hands, half expecting them to shake, to reach for tears that don’t come. Instead, they’re steady. My chest is hollow, my throat dry, but there is no grief. No guilt. Only the weight of the choice, solid and immovable.
That night, alone in the dark, I stare at my palms as if blood still stains them. I could cry. I should cry, but the tears never come.
I’ve crossed a line, and deep down, I don’t want to go back.
***
Back in our room, the silence presses down heavier than any argument could. The walls seem too close, the shadows too long. The taste of smoke and gunpowder lingers in my mouth, even though I never touched the gun. It doesn’t matter, because I gave the order. That makes the blood mine too.
Alexei moves around the room with the same restless energy he carries after every confrontation, shoulders tight, jaw clenched. He pulls his jacket off, tosses it onto the chair, but his hands keep moving: grabbing a glass, pouring vodka, drinking it in one swallow. He doesn’t look at me.
The weight of what we’ve done sits between us, thick and choking. I don’t want to speak, but the silence is worse.
“You were going to let him talk longer,” I say.
His head lifts sharply, gray eyes cutting across the room. “I was going to confirm before deciding.”
“He confessed.” My voice is sharper than I mean it to be. “What more did you need?”
His hand tightens on the glass. “He was still one of mine.”
The words land like a blade. I step forward, fury rising to meet his. “One of yours who was selling us out. You wanted to hesitate? That hesitation would’ve killed us.”
“I don’t hesitate,” he snaps, turning fully toward me now. His eyes burn, the mask he wears with his men stripped away. “I weigh. I measure, because when I make a choice, it’s final.”
“So do I.” My chest heaves, heat rushing up my neck. “I made a decision. He deserved to die.”
For a long moment, we stand there, breaths colliding, neither of us willing to yield. Then he shakes his head, muttering low, “You’re becoming me.”
The words should cut. They should break something inside me. Instead, they ignite.
I step closer, closing the gap until I can feel the heat of his body. “Maybe that’s what you wanted all along.”
He exhales sharply, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a curse. He moves as if to walk past me, to put space between us, but I catch his wrist. “Don’t you dare walk away from me now.”
That’s all it takes.
The argument explodes, our voices colliding, accusations thrown like knives. Every word drips with venom, with grief, with the truth neither of us wants to admit—that we’re too far gone to crawl back to who we were before. My hands shove at his chest, his slam against the wall beside me. I should be afraid. I’m not. The fury in him mirrors my own, and for the first time, I don’t feel like I’m drowning in it alone.
Then it crashes. His mouth claims mine, all teeth and fire. I bite back, nails digging into his skin, yanking him closer. He lifts me without hesitation, my back slamming into the wall as his hands grip my thighs. Our kiss is brutal, unrestrained, nothing like the careful dances we tried before.
I taste the violence in him, and he tastes it in me.
Clothes come off in a frenzy, ripped, shoved aside, forgotten on the floor. His body pins mine, every thrust of his tongue, every scrape of his teeth a reminder that neither of us is untouched anymore. I gave the order tonight. I crossed the line.
He takes me like he knows it. Like he sees the blood on my hands and doesn’t flinch.
We collide on the bed, tangled in sheets, in rage, in want. His hand fists in my hair, mine claws down his back, both of us marking, claiming, erasing everything but the desperate need to burn. The world outside doesn’t exist. Only this: his weight, his heat, the raw violence of our bodies demanding more, more, more until I can’t breathe, can’t think, can only drown in him.
His mouth drags over mine, hot and bruising, teeth scraping until I gasp against his lips. He swallows the sound, his tongue forcing past mine as though he can claim the air from my lungs.
His hands are everywhere at once—fisting in my hair, gripping my thighs, pressing me harder into the wall. I cling to him, nails raking across his back, and the guttural sound he makes only feeds the fire licking through me.
He shoves me onto the bed again, the impact rattling through my bones, and follows me down before I can draw breath. His mouth is on my neck, biting, sucking, leaving marks I know he won’t apologize for.
“Fuck, Vivienne,” he mutters against my skin, the words low and broken. His hand slides between my thighs, fingers slipping against me, rough and sure. I arch, a cry tearing from my throat as he presses two inside, filling me fast and deep.
His thumb circles my clit with punishing precision, and I can’t hold still. My hips buck against his hand, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
