"Shut up."
"Alena's stronger," Klaus continues. "She won't break like your mother did. She'll survive this."
"She shouldn't have to." My fists clench. "She shouldn't have to survive me."
"But she will. Because she loves you too. Even now. Even after six months of silence."
I close my eyes. See her face in that hospital bed. Bruised. Broken. Alone.
The lieutenant returns. Hands me a phone—burner, but functional. I stare at it. One call. That's all it would take. Hear her voice. Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her I'm coming back.
But Klaus is watching. Waiting. If I call her now, he'll know exactly how much leverage he has. He'll know I'll do anything—anything—to protect her. More than he already knows.
"You call her," he says softly, "and I send someone to that hospital. Right now. While she's vulnerable. While she can't run."
My hand tightens on the phone. I look at Klaus. Look at the phone. Then I throw it—hard, precise, watching it hit the wall and shatter like it was nothing.
Klaus nods. Approving. "Good boy."
"I'm not your boy," I say through clenched teeth.
"No," Klaus agrees. "You're hers. And that's why you'll keep obeying. Because losing her would destroy you worse than anything I could do."
I turn away. Walk to the window. Stare out at the city below, Manhattan stretching endlessly in every direction. A world away from London. From her. From the woman lying in a hospital bed because I wasn't there to stop her from getting in that car.
My reflection stares back at me in the glass. Bratva star on my collarbone. Fresh bruises on my knuckles. Blood—Klaus's blood—splattered across my shirt. I don't recognize myself anymore. Six months ago, I was an architect. A man who built things. Now I'm this. A killer. A monster. My father's son.
And the woman I love is bleeding in a hospital bed across an ocean I can't cross.
"She's getting the car fixed," Klaus says from behind me. "The Mustang. Full restoration. She told her friends it's the one thing she has left that won't leave her."
The words land like bullets. I close my eyes. "She's strong," Klaus repeats. "She'll survive."
"She shouldn't have to," I whisper to the glass. To my reflection. To the man I used to be. But he doesn't answer. Because he's already gone.
• • •
That night, I sit in my penthouse staring at the city. Guards outside my door. Cage with a view. I pull out my burner phone—the one the hacker gave me months ago. Encrypted. Untraceable. Klaus doesn't know about it.
I text the hacker. "Need a favor. Clean phone line to London. One call. No traces."
Response comes in thirty seconds. "When?"
"Now."
"Give me ten minutes."
I wait. Pacing. The penthouse feels smaller with every step, walls closing in. I can still see her face in that hospital bed. The bruises. The cast. The way she looked so small, so broken, so alone. Because of me.
The phone buzzes. "Done. Number's active for 10 minutes. Routing through 4 countries. Klaus won't know. Call now."
He includes a number. Marcus's number. Not Alena's. The hacker's smart—knows I can't risk calling her directly.
I dial.
It rings twice. Then: "Yeah?" Marcus's voice. Wary.
"Marcus."
