Ivan's father doesn't need to torture me to hurt
him; he only needs to remove me.
I feel my hands curling into fists at my sides. I want to hit something, to shatter the one-way mirror, to tear this room apart until it stops feeling like a coffin.
Then I force my hands open.
Control. No visible defiance. No display. Everything I do here is information. Everything I do here gets reported upstairs.
Sergei built this place, and he knows the room continues its work even when he's not in it.
"How long?" I ask.
Ivan leans in, pressing his forehead against mine. He trembles slightly, a vibration that passes from him to me.
"Five minutes."
My throat tightens with a painful ache.
Five minutes to say goodbye after weeks of war and years of hunger.
Five minutes to distill everything we've become into something that can be carried across an ocean.
Outside the door, the guard clears his throat—quiet yet pointed. A reminder that time is slipping away.
Here, time exists as pressure.
"Ivan—"
"Don't say goodbye." His voice sharpens, desperate, as if he could slice the word from my mouth if he acts quickly enough. "Don't frame it as the end. I will find a way."
He speaks like it's a vow, a plan, a command to the universe.
"I will earn his trust. I will prove I can function without you. I will be the heir he desires until he stops watching. And then I will bring you back."
"He will never allow it," I say, the honesty tasting like blood. "He knows what we are now."
Ivan's eyes flash—something cold and calculating, inherited.
"He will not live forever."
Those words are a blade. We both know it, and though it's treasonous to say in a room wired for sound, he doesn't care.
I also know Sergei Baranov could outlive both of us out of spite.
I don't say that.
Instead, I focus on what I can control: I direct Ivan toward survival.
"Don't do anything reckless," I tell him. "Not now. Not while he's watching for signs of compromise."
"I know."
"Survive first," I insist, because it's the only instruction that matters in a world like this. "Whatever he demands. Whatever he threatens. Survive first."
Ivan's hands slide into my hair, gripping with a desperation bordering on pain. He pulls me down.
I let him.
