Someone I watched grow up, someone we all often still think of as just a kid compared to the rest of us, is dead to me now. He must be. I would never betray Roman, and his word is law.
Sasha is a traitor, and now he’s our enemy.
The truth of that hits firm and clear, slicing through the frost.
Wildly, I think of Jordan and her calm stare in the mirror as I tried on penguin suits.
What I wouldn’t give to have her wrist in my hold, steadying me, anchoring…
Mikhail rises and moves to Roman’s side in silent support. The man’s face is grim, his eyes hard as flint. But he backs up his leader, ready to do what must be done.
Igor remains frozen, caught between loyalty to Roman and love for his son. His position, his years of service, and the code we’ve all learned to live by decide for him. But the cost shows in the new lines etched into his skin and the slight tremor in his hands.
Sasha gawks at his father, disbelief and betrayal warring on his face. He frantically gazes around the room, desperate for any ally or sign of mercy.
When he finds none, all hope withers within him, replaced by animal instinct.
Survival at any cost.
He erupts from his chair. In a wild surge of motion that rips through the room, he barrels past one of the guards at the door. The other man lurches, late to react because he hadn’t expected the violence of Sasha’s desperation.
Sasha flees. His footsteps thunder down the hallway, each beat receding like a pulse about to flatline.
No one goes after him. Not me. Not Igor. Not any of the others. We’re paralyzed, ensnared in this charged hush, a family tableau shattered and suspended in the moment of rupture.
Roman doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. His heavy, absolute judgment hangs in the air. The chase will come. It’s just a question of when.
The glue holding the Kozlovs together is dissolving right in front of us, and nobody knows how to halt the unraveling, or how to gather the splinters and remake what’s lost.
Jordan ghosts through my mind. Her endless talk of energy, of sensing the truths that live under every surface.
She would have seen this coming, would have heard the shift in the foundation, long before it split open beneath our feet.
She would know what to say now to smooth the edges of this fracture.
My stomach knots. Not with fear, but with something deeper and more elemental. With the sense that the floor’s about to collapse and a storm I can’t outrun is rolling in, slow and colossal and inevitable.
What does any of this mean for Jordan? Is she safer away from me or naked to threats I can’t even see? Have I shielded her or served her up to wolves?
Despite my swarming doubts and concerns, I remain silent, waiting for Roman to speak or dole out orders.
That’s who I am. This is what I do.
Chapter 36
Kirill
Roman’s face matches his office. Red, wooden, unyielding, and showing decades of hard use.
Everything here radiates with the kind of grim energy that settles in your marrow and ices your blood.
I almost flinch.
Grim energy.
Jordan’s words, not mine, take root in my head like an invasive species. I push the intrusive thought away so I can focus on the room, the men around me, and the growing threat brewing beneath the surface.
The silence, elastic and dangerous, stretches.
