“Done?” Eddie asks quietly.
I nod. “Let's go.”
“Hey, there’s a first time for everything,” Ivan says, pointing me and the boys inside his apartment. “Yes, I’m a private man. But… there comes a time where even I have to open up.”
“It’s an honor,” I say, the pair of us exchanging a sly look of acknowledgement.
We’ve always been close, but this feels like a barrier coming down between us.
The elevator opens directly into Ivan’s penthouse, high above the city’s restless glow. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls frame the skyline. Lights strung like necklaces across bridges and towers.
The space is sparse, deliberate… black leather furniture, low tables of smoked glass, a single abstract painting in violent reds and blacks on the far wall.
No clutter.
No excess.
Ivan lives like a man who might need to leave in thirty seconds and never look back.
I watch as Ivan crosses to the bar cart, pours four heavy tumblers of single malt. The amber liquid catches the city light like liquid fire. He hands one to each of us without ceremony.
“To tomorrow,” Ivan says, raising his glass.
We drink.
Ivan and I laugh as the boys do their best to handle the whisky but both succumb to making scrunched up faces as the burn hits.
For us two, it’s normal. The whisky burns clean down my throat, grounding the adrenaline that’s been simmering since the gallery.
Milo’s blood is still fresh in my memory—hot, sticky, final. And Caulfield is next. The meeting with our finest soldiers and generals is set for before dawn—a neutral warehouse on the edge of the docks. No phones, no outside communication. Just faces we trust and orders that will end this.
We sit.
The boys are on the thick white rug near the windows, legs tucked under them, a scattering of coloring books, markers, and a few candies spread between them. Robbie is giggling at something Eddie’s drawn—a cartoonish hare with exaggerated muscles and a tiny crown. Eddie laughs too, softer, but real.
The sound cuts through the room’s tension like sunlight through smoke.
“If only our life was so easy,” Ivan says.
“Hey, our life isn’t easy!” Robbie sasses, rolling his eyes and kicking his heels on the floor.
I watch them for a moment. They’ve been through a lot, it’s true. And just because it’s not them doing the plotting or killing, it doesn’t make it any easier for them. After all, they’re not from mine and Ivan’s world. Not even close.
Ivan follows my gaze. “He’s good for you,” he says quietly—a statement, not a question.
I don’t answer. I simply nod and sip my whisky.
I set my glass down. “Tomorrow… no survivors who can talk. Caulfield dies last. He watches his people fall, whoever they might be.”
The words hang. Heavy. Final.
“Indeed,” Ivan says. “You’re the Pakhan your family has been waiting for.”
“It could be your family too,” I say—an offer, nothing official, but my way of testing the water. “We’ll talk about it another time. Perhaps when this is over.”
“Perhaps,” Ivan answers.
Robbie glances over, his smile fading as he catches the tone between Ivan and me. Eddie looks up too, pencil pausing mid-stroke. He reads my face and the light in his eyes dims.
