I barely make it to the bathroom before I’m vomiting again, and this time I end up on the cold marble floor with my forehead pressed against the toilet because I can’t hold myself up anymore.
When there’s nothing left, I just sit there.
The wet sound of the nail coming off. Alexei screaming. Roman’s face is completely empty. The gun is rising.Close your eyes, solnyshko. The shot.
The way he caught me before I hit the ground.
My body trusted him when it shouldn’t have, and now I don’t know how to make it stop.
I cry for all of it. For Alexei, who used his killer’s childhood name while he begged for his life. For the cemetery’s worth of people, Roman has done this to. For Roman, who learned this violence young enough that his hands don’t shake anymore. For myself, because I vomited when I saw the pliers, and my thighs still clench when I remember his mouth.
When the tears finally stop, I feel hollow.
The clock says 15:47. The antidotes won’t synthesize themselves. People are dying—real people, not Bratva men who questioned the wrong person at the wrong time—and I’m the only one who can make what might save them.
The work is real. Mishka is safe. And I’m here, changing out of bloodstained clothes, because that’s what monsters’ wives do.
The woman in the mirror looks like someone I don’t recognize anymore.
I don’t look away.
Roman appears in the doorway.
He’s changed into clean clothes. Fresh black shirt, sleeves buttoned, cufflinks back in place. He’s scrubbed away all theevidence except for that faint streak of dried blood at the edge of his wedding ring that he must have missed.
I flinch, and he goes still in the doorway with his hands curling at his sides.
“The work still needs to be done,” he says.
“Did Alexei have kids?” I can’t believe I’m asking this out of all possible questions. “Did they get just a body to identify?”
His jaw goes hard. For just a second, he looks away.
“No kids. A wife. She’ll receive enough money to disappear comfortably.”
Blood money. Hush money.
“I can’t—” My voice breaks.
“You can.” He takes a step toward me, then another, and he doesn’t stop until he’s crowding me. “You’re stronger than you realize. And you’re smart enough to understand that sometimes the only thing standing between bad and worse is someone willing to be the bad.”
I try to step back, but I’m already against the dresser, and Roman just keeps moving forward until there’s nowhere left for me to go.
“I’m not going to apologize for what I am.” His voice is low and rough, and I can feel his breath on my face. “What you saw today is what I am when Vadim orders it. When the empire needs it.”
His hand comes up and cups my jaw, firm enough that I can feel the strength in his fingers, and he tilts my face up so I have no choice but to look at him.
“If I ever become another Alexei to you—” I’m crying now, tears sliding down my face—“do I get the torture first, or do you just skip straight to the gun?”
His hand trembles against my jaw for just a second before his grip tightens.
“Never.” The word comes out rough. “You could burn everything I’ve built to the ground, and I’d hand you the fucking matches.”
“Why?” It tears out of me.
His other hand slides to my throat. I should be terrified, but what I actually feel is something much more complicated.
“Because you’re the only person who’s ever made me wish I was someone else.” His voice drops, and his face is so close to mine I can see the flecks of darker grey in his eyes. “And I don’t know what to do with that.”
