And kings—real kings—are ruthless bastards who burn the world before they let it take what’s theirs.
Nico’s life.
Oksana’s blood.
The betrayals running under our feet like rot.
All of it demands a version of me I’ve avoided becoming, a version I no longer have the luxury to hold back. The part of me that was tempered in fear, in loss, in three years of ghosts and unanswered questions… that part finally stands up.
Cold. Clear.
Crowned.
I’m not a prince anymore.
The door gives way, and the man who steps through it isn’t the one who climbed in through the roof. That man thought rescuing Nico was a mission, an operation, an adventure.
This man knows better.
This man has seen the distance between life and death shrink to a hair’s breadth. He feels the thin line under his boots,feels how easily it can snap, how effortlessly he can cut it for anyone who stands in his way. And it hits him—hard—that it isn’t a privilege anymore. It’s a responsibility.
A crown made of choices no one else can bear.
This one walks like heat doesn’t touch him, like fire parts for him, like hell itself would bow or burn at his command. A king carved from war and promise, cloakless, but crowned all the same.
If there were a cape, it’d be smoke. If there were a throne, it’d be built from the bones of anyone who tried to take what’s his. Like the unlucky guard who staggers into view. I put two in his chest without slowing. Another at a burning vehicle—I catch the swing of his rifle, knock it wide, jam my barrel under his chin, fire. Bone, spray, silence.
My boots hit the uneven concrete, and everything I’ve been holding in—the fear, the rage, the guilt, the love—burns in my throat like acid.
Wife.
If I lose her now…
After everything…
After Mexico carved a monster out of me…
I don’t know who the fuck I’d be next. And that terrifies me more than any bullet ever could.
Hummers burst through the peeled fence, our guys hanging out the sides, shooting in disciplined, controlled bursts. I sprint through a curtain of dust and tracer fire, lungs hot and small. One of my men swings a door open at a skid. I dive into the passenger seat and slam it shut.
"Drive," I bark. "Now."
We peel onto the road, tires screaming. Seven men with me, all good ones. Two in the back are already changing mags with the lazy competence that means we’ll live. Another slaps a fresh drum into the SAW and grins like he’s going to get laid. I jab the tracker link open. A red dot flares on the map like a fresh wound. An hour north, a warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
I put the map on the screen for the driver to see. "It says an hour. Make it thirty minutes."
Even thirty minutes will drive me insane. Thirty minutes without knowing what's happening to Oksana. Part of me says she'll be fine, she is Metelitsa, after all, but the other part, the one that insists she is my wife, tells me that she's barely recovering from her wounds.
"Traffic?" the driver asks, already weaving through the debris.
"Just us and whatever dies in the way," I reply, keeping my eyes on the dot that won't tell me if she's dead or alive. "Headlights off in the last ten. We ghost it."
"You've got it, boss."
The adrenaline starts to betray me; it always does when there’s a lull long enough to think. My hand finds my hair and drags it back hard. "Fuck… fuck, fuck," I breathe, not sure if I’m cursing her for being taken or myself for not chaining the world to the floor.
I drop the half-empty mag from my pistol, slam in a fresh one, check the slide, check the chamber, check again because checklists keep men alive when feelings try to drown them. I grease the bolt on the rifle across my lap with a thumbprint of oil, click the light, click it off, settle the sling against my shoulder like a promise.
