"No," I reply.
"He should have," Ivan insists. "It was a breach of tradition."
I remain silent; nothing feels safe to say.
Sergei Baranov permitted me into the sanctum and allowed Ivan to override Boris. The power dynamics in the house have shifted, and everyone senses it.
Ivan climbs into the car.
I close the door and move to the passenger side.
The convoy pulls away from the Estate. I watch the gates shrink in the mirror until they disappear behind the trees.
My hand rests near my weapon.
Inside that house, I am the only shield Ivan has that isn't made of blood. And blood, it turns out, is the most dangerous thing of all.
5
IVAN
The vodka should burn.It should scrape going down, a punishment for reaching for the bottle again.
It doesn't.
It slides into me like warm water, a sign that I have passed the point of chemical utility. I used to have rules about this. Rules that kept me sharp when the city tried to dull the edges. Tonight, I stepped over them without breaking stride.
The penthouse is dark. The only light comes from the city below—headlights dragging lines across the grid, neon bleeding into the low clouds. I left the lamps off when we returned from the Estate. Brightness makes the room honest. Brightness reveals what you are pretending not to see.
The dark hides the smell of stale smoke still caught in the wool of my coat. It doesn't hide the metallic taste in my mouth when I think about the alley. The body. The cut. The neat handwriting pinned to flesh like a receipt.
Maksim is standing by the door.
He has been there for an hour.
Not leaning. Not fidgeting. Just existing in the same space, posture rigid, as if the apartment was built around him. I have been careful not to look at him while I drink. Looking at him rearranges the room. It changes the geometry of my chest.
So I stare at the glass in my hand. The clear liquid catches the city light, turning it into something cold and hard.
Boris knows I suspect him.
He didn't say anything in the study. Boris has spent fifty years learning how to let silence do the heavy lifting. But he gave himself away. A micro-adjustment in his stance when I mentioned Volkov. A fraction of a second when his blinking stopped. The way his hands—clasped politely in front of him—didn't look polite at all.
He didn't show fear. Fear is for amateurs. He showed recalibration.
Now I need to know his next move.
He can't come at me openly. Not with Sergei watching. If Boris makes a move that leaves a blood trail back to his office, my father is forced into a binary choice: son or brother. Legacy or history.
Boris won't gamble on that coin toss.
So he will work sideways. Pressure. Confusion. Little nudges meant to make me look unstable. He will try to thin my world until I am the only thing left in it.
Maksim is the easiest lever.
Boris will move faster now. Whatever timeline he was working on accelerated the moment I walked into Sergei's study with Maksim at my back. It was a mistake to show that card. I made it visible—to guards, to staff, to witnesses—that Maksim stays where I put him. That I prefer him close. That when Boris tries to order him away, I override the command without hesitation.
Boris will dissect that information looking for the seam.
