I hate that my skin warms under that thought. “You can’t manipulate me.”
“No,” he says gravely, “but I can manipulatehim. That is your problem.”
“He’s your brother. Your own flesh and blood,” I grit out. “And you’re willing to destroy him like this?”
“Given your brother’s latest track record, I don’t think you have room to talk when it comes to sibling dynamics,” Gavriil replies evenly before leaning a degree closer. “I’d never sell my brother out like yours has done to you. That’s the difference between us.”
His words echo in my head, the weight of them pressing down on my chest more and more.
What’s messed up is that he might be right. He’s a manipulative ass to Dominik, but I don’t see him stabbing his brother in the back the way Archer has done to me. Gavriil might torture his brother, but I don’t think he’d ever trade him away.
He doesn’t say anything else, just stands too close to me, close enough that I can feel his breath along my cheek, like he’s trying to intimidate me.
But I’m not scared of him. The fear clawing up my throat isn’t about Gavriil.
My body’s response terrifies me more than his threats. I don’t know what scares me worse—the man in front of me, or the part of me that doesn’t recoil from him fast enough.
The door suddenly flies open without a knock. The room warms a few degrees when Dominik enters it. I didn’t even hear the elevator arrive because I was so consumed by Gavriil.
He takes in the room fast—me, his brother, the small distance between us—and something in him goes very still. He looks at me for one breath, and I feel it in my body like his hands on me:Are you all right?I nod before I decide to nod. He doesn’t smile or look relieved. He doesn’t seem to know what he wants to do.
“Little brother,” Gavriil says, and he makes the words sound like a lesson, a degradation. “You’ve been busy. Too busy to take my calls.”
“Say what you came to say,” Dominik returns, stepping between us as naturally as breathing. He smells like steel and ahint of the garage that still clings to him no matter how many floors he rides. His back brushes my chest, and my pulse drops and spikes. I take a step back.
And it hits me, nauseating and electric — that I didn’t step back from Gavriil until Dominik walked in.
Gavriil considers his brother. The resemblance between them isn’t just in their faces; it’s in the way they command a room. “I came to collect progress,” he says. “You sent me a messenger instead of answers.”
“I sent you what you wanted,” Dominik says evenly. “Half of the money.”
“Not quite,” Gavriil grits out.
“Close enough.”
“Where are the rest of my guns?” Gavriil asks.
Dominik doesn’t blink. “On their way home.”
“And Archer?”
“On a short leash,” Dominik says. The subtle throb of the wound beneath his shirt must hurt when he lifts his chin like that. He doesn’t let it show. “Twenty-four hours.”
“Not your twenty-four,” Gavriil says, and the civility leaves the room. “Mine.” He takes a small step forward, and the space between them flees in fear. “You don’t get another week. You don’t get another excuse. You will bring me Archer, the rest of the money, and all inventory. In one day.” He lets the words fall like coins stacked until they topple. “Or you will bring me her.” His eyes cut to me so cleanly I feel it like cold air on an open wound. “If you bring neither, you will be removed as my second, and I will give the position to a man who knows what to do with it.”
My mouth opens and closes, and nothing dignified comes out. “You can’t—” I start, because even now some small part of me still believes in rules.
“I can,” Gavriil says, not to me, but to the world at large. He returns his gaze to Dominik. “Tomorrow. Noon.”
The sound that comes out of Dominik isn’t a sound. It’s a pressure change. “No.”
“You can keep only one thing if you fail: your pride,” Gavriil says, softer. He’s telling a prophecy and a fact at once. “Choose carefully, little brother.”
“I’ve already made my choice,” Dominik says, and stops himself. The danger in the sentence is of the kind that leads to funerals. He swallows it. When he speaks again, his voice is more measured. “You’re done in my house.”
For a second, I think Gavriil might enjoy that remark. He smooths his jacket as if anyone but him could have wrinkled it. “Don’t make me teach you the price of disobedience that neither of you will enjoy.” His gaze clips mine one last time. “Think about my offer,Alina.”
I don’t want to know which offer he means—the selfish one, where I walk out and save a pair of men I don’t know how to choose between, or the cruel one, where he takes me because he can. I give him nothing. He smiles and accepts it as if it is a gift to him anyway and finally leaves.
