The other laughs, a snort so careless it makes my stomach turn. “Let them pretend. After what happened, who would take their peace offering seriously? The girl, the nephew, it doesn’t matter.”
A chill prickles my skin. I press myself closer to the wall, hoping the shadows will swallow me whole. Their voices drop lower again, just out of reach.
Then, clear as glass, the younger man says, in English this time, “The peace offering died before the ink could dry.”
The words echo in my head, shoving aside the last shreds of doubt.
Enzo’s name is never spoken, but it hangs there—heavy, obvious, devastating. Why else would my brother have risked a meeting with a Sharov? If our families were supposed to be at war, what kind of bargain had Enzo tried to make, and who had betrayed him?
My hands tremble as I pull away from the wall. I replay the images: Enzo’s easy smile in that photograph, the way he leaned in toward Emil Sharov like they were partners—or enemies trying to become something else.
All my life, I’d been kept out of the real family business, my uncle’s world of whispered threats and old vendettas. I see it all for what it is: a war fought in shadows, alliances built on lies, and now, a brother buried with his secrets.
It has to be them. There’s no other explanation. The Sharovs killed him, or at the very least, let him die. My pulse thrums with a cold, hard certainty. The truth isn’t just out there, waiting for me to find it. It’s dangerous, and it’s close.
The rest of the evening blurs by. I slip back into the main gallery, my face arranged into the same polite smile I’ve worn since childhood. Collectors thank me for my help, Clara loops her arm through mine and whispers about the afterparty, and I nod, make excuses, pretend I’m just tired.
Underneath, everything is sharper: anger, fear, a mission that’s no longer about curiosity or even grief. It’s about justice. I want to know exactly what Emil Sharov did to Enzo, and why he still carries that silver ring.
At the end of the night, I gather my things in the staff office. My hands are steadier now. The shock has cooled into resolve.
I sign out, thank Mr. Grayson for another wonderful event, and duck outside into the crisp night. The city air feels raw, a little bitter against my cheeks, but it helps clear my head.
I glance back, just once, through the glass doors of the gallery. Emil is still there, standing half in shadow by the entrance, suit immaculate, his posture relaxed and watchful. His eyes meet mine.
Even from across the empty hall, I feel that same strange pull, the way he looks through people instead of at them. I don’t let myself look away first. I hold his gaze, daring him to blink, daring him to show any sign that he remembers Enzo, remembers me.
He doesn’t. His face is a mask of calm. Unreadable, impossible to crack. If he feels anything, he hides it well.
Finally, I turn and disappear into the cold, the click of my heels echoing over the concrete. The gallery shrinks behind me, swallowed by city lights. I force my breath slow, one step at a time, repeating the same promise with every stride:I won’t rest until I know the truth.Not just about my brother’s death, but about the man who watched me with those ice-gray eyes—Emil Sharov, who, for all his control, can’t erase what happened between our families.
The city swallows me up, neon and shadows threading between my footsteps as I hurry away from the gallery. My mind spins with fragments: Enzo’s laughter echoing down memory’s hallway, Emil’s cool gaze dissecting me across a crowded room, those careless words about a peace offering dead before the ink dried. I know what that means now. I know, and I can never un-know it.
My fingers tighten around the strap of my bag. The night air is sharp, scraping cold into my lungs, but I hardly notice.
All I can think of is the way Emil stood there, calm and untouched, as if none of it could ever touch him. How many others has he watched walk away like this, shivering with knowledge, half afraid and half determined?
I don’t let myself slow down. Anger keeps me moving. It’s a bright, steady flame burning away the fear. I replay every word he said, every small deflection, the moments he let me get close only to close the door in my face.
He knows who I am. Maybe not my name, but he knows I’m a threat. Or maybe he just thinks I’m another bystander, too small to matter in the world of men like him.
I want to prove him wrong. I want to drag every secret out of the dark, no matter what it costs. For Enzo. For the years I spent believing the accident was just that—an accident. I won’t be lied to again.
At the end of the block, I stop under the hard blue glow of a streetlight and look back one last time. The gallery’s doors are dark now, the party fading behind its walls. My reflection stares back from the glass of a parked car—eyes wild, jaw set. I don’t look like a woman running from something anymore. I look like someone running toward it.
Tonight, I became my own witness. I heard the truth, or close enough to reach for it. The Brunos and Sharovs both have blood on their hands, and I intend to find out whose blood it really is. Emil Sharov may hide behind careful words and a polished mask, but he’s not untouchable.
Not to me.
Chapter Six - Emil
The music at the club is a living thing: heavy bass shuddering through the floor, every beat rattling bones and cutting conversation to scraps. The whole place stinks of sweat, perfume, spilled vodka. Out in the main room, bodies move in a writhing, oblivious mass, limbs lit by flashes of neon. Up here, behind smoked glass, it’s quieter. Just the three of us and the city’s old secrets hanging in the air.
Lukyan lounges in the booth, tie loosened, his laugh a sharp counterpoint to Dimitri’s dry monotone. “Six containers, fresh off the dock, and you’re telling me there’s already trouble?” Lukyan leans over, topping up my whiskey without waiting for an answer.
Dimitri shrugs, eyes sharp despite the easy posture. “There’s always trouble,Koshechka. That’s why you pay me.”
I sit back, glass in hand, half listening to their talk of shipments and bribes, alliances turning over like cards in a rigged deck, guns pressed hard against ribs under tailored jackets. All around us, the club hums with risk, people looking for something they can’t name, or running from what they already found.
