Behind him, his men spread out in formation. Twenty of them, maybe more. Armed. Silent. The particular discipline of soldiers who'd been trained by someone who tolerated nothing less than perfection.
"Dmitri Pavlovich." Anton's voice had gone thin. Reedy. The particular sound of someone who'd just realized they were in danger and was desperately trying to calculate an exit. "I wasn't expecting—"
"You dishonor the entirety of the Bratva brotherhood."
Deshnev's voice was ice over gravel. Quiet, but it carried. The kind of voice that didn't need volume to command attention.
Anton froze.
"What?"
"You kidnapped women." Deshnev took a step forward. Just one. But Anton's men flinched like he'd drawn a weapon. "A mother. You separated her from her infant daughter. You threatened a child."
"I—the situation required—"
"There is no situation." Another step. "No strategy. No justification. We do not make war on mothers and children. This is not negotiable."
Anton's composure was cracking. I could see it in the way his hands moved—jerky, uncertain, reaching for something that wasn't there. The smug king of twenty minutes ago had disappeared. What remained was something smaller. Weaker.
"Dmitri Pavlovich, if you would allow me to explain—"
"You used my infrastructure." Deshnev's voice hadn't risen, but something in it had hardened. "My networks. My name. To commit an act that violates everything my family has believed for four generations. You made me complicit in your dishonor."
"I never intended—"
"Your intentions are irrelevant."
Silence.
The airfield was completely still. Even the jet's engines seemed quieter, though I knew that was impossible. Everything had contracted to this moment—Anton and Deshnev facing each other across thirty feet of tarmac, and everyone else holding their breath.
I pulled Auralia closer. Felt her confusion, her fear, her desperate need to understand what was happening.
Trust me, I thought at her.Just trust me a little longer.
"The old codes are clear," Deshnev continued. "You know this. You were raised in this world. You understand the consequences."
Anton's face went white.
"Wait—" He took a step back. "Dmitri, you can't—"
"I can."
The shot came from behind Anton.
One of his own men—bought or threatened, I would never know which—had raised his weapon and fired. The sound was sharp, precise, the particular report of a professional's weapon. Anton jerked forward, his expression shifting from fear to confusion to nothing at all as his body processed what his brain couldn't accept.
He crumpled.
Down onto the tarmac, blood pooling dark and immediate beneath him. His eyes stayed open—surprise frozen there, the particular expression of someone who had never truly believed he could die.
I watched him fall.
Felt nothing but cold satisfaction.
He'd taken my little bird. Chained her in a basement. Used her dreams against her. And now he was bleeding out on concrete while Deshnev's men stood over him like monuments to a justice older than any court.
Auralia made a sound against my chest. Not quite a gasp. Not quite a sob.
