Sergei will not care that Boris tried to kill Ivan. He will care about stability, about control, and about the fact that his heir has been recorded doing something that could undermine him.
And I know where I stand in that hierarchy.
I am not a person; I am a malfunctioning tool, a weakness, a correction waiting to happen.
The lock turns.
The sound echoes in the quiet room.
The door opens.
Ivan stands in the doorway. For a moment, I don't recognize him.
Not because his face is bruised or bloody—there are no visible marks. It's worse than that. He looks as if something inside him has been hollowed out and then forcibly reshaped by sheer will. His skin has turned the color of old paper. His eyes are too dark, pupils wide. His mouth is set in a line reminiscent of men walking to their executions.
He steps inside.
The guard remains outside, visible through the crack in the door, hand resting near his belt. The door stays slightly ajar, as if to remind us that this moment is permitted but not private.
Ivan's gaze locks onto mine.
I understand before he speaks: whatever happened upstairs has cost him everything he had left.
"Ivan."
I rise and cross the room in two strides, ignoring the pain in my thigh. My hands find his arms. Solid. Warm. He's here. He's still here.
"What happened?"
He doesn't respond right away. He stands very still under my hands, rigid, as if any movement would make him come apart. His breath is shallow, controlled like a man forcing bile back down his throat.
Then, roughly: "Boris is finished."
The words hit me like a punch.
For a moment, relief floods through me—violent, blinding. The past week collapses into a single line: the cabin, the fire, the blood, the raids, the motel rooms. All of it culminating in one undeniable fact.
We won.
"My father accepted the evidence," Ivan continues, his voice hoarse. "He verified it while I stood there—calls made, accounts frozen. Boris is being taken into custody right now. His lieutenants are being rounded up. Anyone who remained loyal is being contained before they can scatter."
Not "arrested." Not by the police.
By Sergei. By the organization. A clean internal execution.
I exhale, feeling as if I've been holding that breath for five days.
"We did it," I say, needing Ivan to hear it aloud, needing him to know it mattered. "Ivan, we?—"
"No."
The single word is so final that it halts the air in my lungs.
Ivan's eyes remain fixed on mine. They are wet, glassy, terrified.
"I did it," he corrects. "You are leaving."
For a moment, my mind struggles to comprehend the sentence. It processes each word separately—leaving—but fails to construct meaning around it.
