I walked out of the kitchen on autopilot, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floors. The penthouse felt too big suddenly, too empty despite knowing my friends were waiting in the living room. Too full of shadows where threats could hide.
In the open living room, Cassandra, Hailey, and Illyana sat on the sectional sofa, chatting and laughing about something I couldn’t process. They looked up as I entered, and I watched their expressions shift from relaxed to concerned in the span of a heartbeat.
“Barbara?” Illyana’s sharp eyes missed nothing. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
I tried to speak, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. Just stood there, clutching my phone, probably looking as terrified as I felt.
Cassandra shook her head, her expression going grim. “No. No, I don’t like this.” She stood up, moving toward me. “Don’t tell me it’s Sebastian.”
The name was enough to break through my paralysis. I nodded, and Cassandra cursed under her breath.
“What did he do?” Hailey was on her feet too, her protective instincts kicking in immediately. “What did that bastard say?”
I held out my phone with trembling hands, letting them read the message. Watched their faces harden with anger, Hailey’s fury immediate and blazing, Cassandra’s colder but no less intense, Illyana’s going flat in that way that meant violence was being calculated.
“Forty-eight hours,” Hailey read aloud, her voice tight. “That motherfucker is threatening you again? After everything?”
“He won’t stop.” The words came out broken. “He’ll never stop. Even with Kirill, even with Bratva protection, even married, he’ll just keep coming back. Keep using that video to control me. Keep—”
“Stop.” Hailey moved closer, her hands gripping my shoulders. “Listen to me. You are not alone anymore. Kirill is with you. You have us. You have resources now that Sebastian can’t compete with.”
I wanted to believe her, but five years of terror didn’t just disappear because I’d gotten married. Five years of Sebastian’s threats didn’t vanish because I had people on my side now.
“I don’t want Kirill to kill him.” The admission came out before I could stop it, and I saw confusion flicker across their faces.
“What?” Cassandra asked carefully. “Barbara, Sebastian tried to murder you. He’s been torturing you since you were sixteen. Why wouldn’t you want….”
“Because he killed my mom.” The words exploded out of me, raw and desperate. “He murdered her when I was two years old, and he’s tortured me my entire life, and I….” My voice cracked. “I want him to pay for that. I want him to suffer for what he did to her. To me. But I want….”
I stopped, not sure how to explain the twisted desire for vengeance that lived in my chest. The need to see Sebastian face consequences for everything, not just die quickly at Kirill’s hands and escape into the mercy of death.
Illyana’s expression shifted to something that might’ve been understanding. “So what’s the problem?” She said it like the solution was obvious. “Just tell Kirill to let you kill him.”
I squinted at her, caught between incredulity and hysteria. “Illyana, not everyone’s life is as black and white as yours.” The words came out sharper than intended, but I couldn’t help it. “Kirill isn’t letting me descend the stairs since I got pregnant without hovering like I’m going to fall apart. He’s protective to the point of suffocation. And besides”—I gestured helplessly—“I don’t even know how to hold a gun.”
The admission felt pathetic. Here I was, married into the Bratva, surrounded by people who knew violence intimately, and I couldn’t even hold a weapon properly. What kind of revenge could I possibly get when I was this useless?
Illyana studied me for a long moment, then placed her hand on my shoulder. The gesture was surprisingly gentle from someone who usually radiated controlled violence. “Then tell Kirill,” she said simply. “Before Sebastian releases the video. Tell him about the threat. Let him handle it.”
“But I just said I don’t want him to….”
“I know what you said.” Illyana’s ice-blue eyes held mine steadily. “But here’s what you’re not understanding. Kirill will do whatever you need him to do. If you want Sebastian dead quickly, he’ll make it quick. If you want him to suffer, Kirill will make sure he suffers. If you want to be there when it happens, he’ll find a way to make that work too.”
“She’s right,” Cassandra added, moving to my other side. “Kirill loves you. He’ll move heaven and earth for you; we all saw that at the wedding. But he can’t protect you from threats he doesn’t know about. You have to tell him.”
“And you have to tell him now,” Hailey emphasized, her voice urgent. “Forty-eight hours isn’t a lot of time. If Sebastian’splanning to release that video, Kirill needs to know so he can stop it. Can find it. Can destroy it before it goes public.”
I looked between the three of them, these women who’d become my closest friends, my chosen family. Hailey with her fierce loyalty. Cassandra with her quiet strength. Illyana with her brutal honesty. They were right. I knew they were right.
But the thought of telling Kirill, of admitting that Sebastian had contacted me again, of watching his expression darken with that controlled fury—it terrified me almost as much as the video itself.
“What if he can’t stop it?” The question came out small, afraid. “What if Sebastian releases it anyway? What if everyone sees…?”
“Then we deal with it,” Cassandra said firmly. “Together. All of us. But hiding this from Kirill won’t make it better. It’ll only make it worse when Sebastian does exactly what he’s threatening to do.”
“And it will piss Kirill off,” Illyana added with brutal practicality. “He’ll be furious that you tried to handle this alone. That you didn’t trust him enough to tell him.”
That thought made my chest tighten for a different reason. Because she was right. Kirill would be hurt if I kept this from him. Would see it as a lack of trust, a rejection of the partnership we’d promised each other.
