I stare at his hand. In the shadows, I feel Volk's ever watchful eyes. He’s waiting to see what I choose. I think aboutMomochka. About the girl I was. About the woman I've become. About whether family can mean something when it's built on death and lies. About whether I'm still capable of trust, or if that died in the desert along with everything else.
And I make a choice.
CHAPTER 8
Volk
SONG: ALL I WANTED BY PARAMORE
I watchher in the rearview mirror. She hasn't noticed me yet, too busy processing whatever the fuck just happened in that library with Dimitri. Her fingers curl slightly, her jaw tightens—stress tells. She’s so fucking beautiful when she's conflicted. That's not something I should be thinking. Not something that's supposed to matter when I'm on the job, but I can't help it. I can't stop noticing the way her throat moves when she swallows or the way she presses her lips together like she's physically holding words back. The small tells that would get her killed if anyone else was paying attention. Good thing I'm the only one who sees them.
She's playing with fire walking into the Pakhan's mansion for a delivery designed to test her loyalty. Subjecting herself to an embarrassing initiation then meeting with Dimitri in a private room where anything could happen. Taking his hand—I saw that part through the crack in the door, watched her make that choice in real time. She's playing with fire and it's going to burn her. But God, I want to burn with her.
I've been at the mansion most of the evening , ostensibly handling business for the Pakhan. Actually, monitoring Sofiya'severy move like the obsessive bastard I've become. Watching her escorted through halls she used to run through as a child and her realizing this delivery was bringing her deeper into the Pakhan's world than she ever intended. Watching her stand in his office—the same office where her mother died—looking at him like she was memorizing every flaw, every weakness, every vulnerability. I know what she was thinking. She was calculating whether this was the moment. Whether she could move fast enough, strike hard enough, kill efficiently enough to take him down right there. And I know she decided against it.
That decision tells me everything about how Dimitri's revelation affected her. The old Sofiya—the one from a week ago—would have tried, taken the risk regardless of consequences. But this new Sofiya, this one who knows she has family, who has someone standing beside her, is thinking beyond her own destruction. She's thinking about the cost. About what comes after. About whether it's worth it.
I’m not sure if I'm helping or hindering. Protecting or using. Not sure if I feel for her or if I'm just obsessed with the idea of her—the girl from the desert who should have died, who came back as a weapon, who somehow made me human again when I thought that part of myself was gone forever.
She shifts in the backseat. Her reflection catches the passing streetlights, and for a moment she looks ethereal. Untouchable. Then the light changes and she's just a woman in a black jacket, carrying too much weight on shoulders that shouldn't have to bear it. I want to reach back. Touch her. Tell her everything, but I don't move.
Aleksandr sits beside her, scrolling through his phone like an oblivious idiot. Doesn't he see what I see? Doesn't he understand that the woman in his backseat is a loaded gun pointed at all of us. Let him stay ignorant. Makes my job easier.
I think about Dimitri and the fact that he knows who she is now. What it means that she took his hand instead of running. Will Dimitri finally make his move against the Pakhan now that he's found his sister? He now has someone who understands why he wants to steal power from the Pakhan. There's a moment where everything could shift approaching. Where Dimitri and Sofiya could act together—combine their resources, their knowledge, turn their shared trauma into something that could actually bring him down.
And For the hundredth time I ask myself do I stand with the Pakhan? Or do I stand with her and Dimitri and help orchestrate the end of the man who's controlled my life for years?
The vows I took when I becameVor v zakonemean nothing in comparison to her. The answer will always be her.
I watch her in the mirror and see the moment recognition hits and she realizes I'm here. Her eyes widen slightly. She doesn't know I've been orchestrating this from the beginning, that I brought her into the Pakhan's circle intentionally, helping Dimitri prepare for this exact moment for years without his knowledge. And I'm not going to tell her yet. Sometimes people need to believe they're in control, that their choices are their own, even when they've been guided every step of the way. She needs that illusion right now. She'll figure it out eventually. She’s too smart not to. But until then, I'll let her think she's running this show. I'll sit back and watch her be brilliant and dangerous and beautiful. I'll try very hard not to think about what it's going to feel like when she finally understands I've been manipulating her the whole time.
Because when she feels like I’ve cheated her, she will kill me.
But I'll let her do it anyway. Because that's what you do for someone who has consumed your every waking moment. You let them destroy you if that's what they need to become whole.
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror and hold for a beat too long. Something passes between us—acknowledgment, maybe. Or challenge. The recognition of two predators circling the same territory, unsure whether to fight or fuck. I'd prefer the latter.
She looks away first, out the window at the city sliding past, processing something I can't quite follow. But I see the moment when clarity hits. The moment when another choice crystallizes in her mind.
I wonder if it's the right one. Or if it's the one that's going to cost us everything. Either way, I'm all in. Committed beyond any rational thought or self-preservation instinct. I'm hers, whether she knows it or not. Whether she wants me or not. Despite repeatedly asking myself the question, my answer always remains the same. She will always come first. That's the most terrifying thing I've ever felt.
The car slows, Lush appearing ahead—neon bleeding pink and purple into the night. Her hunting ground. Her stage. The place where she's been gathering intelligence and building trust for two years, all while planning the destruction of everyone inside. Including me.
Aleksandr reaches for his door handle, but I stay still, watching Sofiya gather herself—see her shoulders straighten and her face smooth into that carefully constructed mask she wears so well. The transformation is remarkable, like shape shifting.
"Sofiya." My voice stops her, hand frozen on the door handle.
She waits. Doesn't turn around. Just waits with that preternatural stillness she has, like a deer that's spotted the wolf but hasn't decided whether to run yet.
"Be careful." Two words. That's all I can give her right now. But they carry weight—concern wrapped in warning. The acknowledgment that we're both walking tightropes over chasms waiting to swallow us whole.
"Always am," she says.
Liar. She's the least careful person I know, throwing herself into dangerous situations like she’s immortal. Like she's trying to die but hasn't quite figured out how to.
She steps out, the Arizona heat swallowing her immediately. I watch her walk toward the entrance—a confident stride, head high, every inch the woman who belongs here. Who's earned her place.
Nobody else sees the girl from the desert in her movements. Nobody else sees the way she favors her left side slightly, protecting the arm that never healed quite right. Nobody else sees that she’s a weapon wrapped in silk and determination.
