I sit, but my hand stays near my holster. Every muscle in my body is coiled tight, ready. Waiting.
Klaus leans back, swirling his vodka, and his eyes never leave my face. "You think I do not see it? The way they look at you now. The way Konstantin stands closer to you than to me. The way even Viktor hesitates when I give an order." He takes a slow sip. "You have been busy, have you not? Building your little army while I was sick."
I say nothing. Let him talk. Let him reveal exactly how much he knows.
"I do not blame you," he continues. "I taught you to survive. But you forget one thing: I built this. Every drop of blood, every deal, every body in the ground—that was me. You were just the pretty face I put in front. The heir I made." He leans forward. "And now you think you can take it because you found a girl?"
My jaw tightens, but I keep my face neutral.
Klaus smiles—thin, cruel. "Your mother did the same thing. Thought she could leave me. Thought she could take you with her. So, she swallowed pills and tried to take you too." His voice drops to a whisper. "Disloyal. Weak. Women always are. And you still carry that scar, do you not? Still wake up thinking she chose death over you. Over us."
White-hot rage floods through me, but I force it down. Force myself to stay still, stay calm, even as every fiber of my being screams to put a bullet in his skull right now.
"That girl out there? Alena?" Klaus continues. "Same story. Beautiful, yes. But she will do the same. She will make you soft. Make you hesitate. Make you choose her over the family. And when she does—when she runs or betrays or simply cannot handle what we are—she will destroy you. Just like your mother destroyed me."
He sets his glass down hard enough that I hear it crack. "I am doing you a favour, son. Tonight. Right now. I will take care of her. Quietly. No mess. You will grieve, you will hate me for a while, but you will thank me later when you are sitting in my chair with no distractions. No weakness. Just power. That is what this life demands."
Every word is a knife. Every syllable makes me want to tear him apart with my bare hands. But I stay frozen, letting him finish, letting him condemn himself with his own words.
"Or..." He spreads his hands like he is offering mercy. "You can refuse. Keep playing house. And when she inevitably breaks you—when she leaves, or dies, or turns on you—I will still be here. Waiting. Because blood is thicker than love, Drogo. And I am the only family you have left."
He smiles. Slow. Cold. Certain. "So, what is it going to be? Her... or the empire I built for you?"
I stand slowly. "Neither." My voice is deadly calm. "Because you are going to die tonight, and I am taking both."
He laughs. Then he pours two glasses of vodka, offering me one. This I take. "To family," we say as we empty our glasses.
"So, son, you chose the first option." My blood freezes for a heartbeat. He looks behind me, giving someone a nod. Damn. This is happening now. He will take her now.
I turn and walk out before he can talk, slamming the door behind me. My hand is already on my gun as I stride back toward the main hall, and what I see makes my blood run cold.
Two men are approaching Alena. Not my men—Klaus's men. Moving with purpose, with intent, and she sees them coming. I watch her stand, watch Konstantin move to intercept, and then one of Klaus's men swings—a brutal punch that catches Konstantin in the temple and drops him like a stone.
The entire room goes silent. Eighty pairs of eyes turn to watch as the man reaches for Alena, his hand outstretched, and she backs up until she hits the table with nowhere to go. Damn no. Seeing her helpless like that is a scene I damn myself for allowing. I was unworthy, letting her feel fear because I am too slow, too stupid.
I am already moving. Running. Crossing the distance faster than I have ever moved in my life.
Klaus emerges from the office behind me, his voice booming across the hall in Russian. "For the good of the Bratva! The woman makes him weak! She must be removed!"
The man's fingers are inches from Alena's arm when I pull my gun and fire. The shot echoes like thunder. His head snaps back—wet crack of bone breaking—and the back of his skull explodes in a spray of red mist and brain matter thatsplatters across the white tablecloth. Blood drops fly forward, painting Alena's throat in crimson dots, and his body drops dead, twitching once before going still.
Alena's eyes shoot wide open, her breath frozen, staring at the corpse at her feet and the blood—his blood, my mark—splattered across her skin. I see it all in her face: shock, terror, relief, and something else. Something that looks almost like pride. She is shaking but she does not scream. She meets my eyes across the chaos, and in that moment, I see my queen recognizing what I just did for her.
The lights go out. Complete darkness for two full heartbeats. The room gasps—a collective intake of breath from eighty men who suddenly feel something unnatural in the air. When the lights snap back on, the temperature has dropped twenty degrees and Klaus is already bleeding on the floor where he was not before.
The ghosts. They are helping. I hear it—a whisper so faint only I catch it, riding on freezing wind: "End him."
The room explodes into motion. Men jump to their feet, hands reaching for weapons, chairs scraping, shouts in Russian and English overlapping into chaos. But I do not care about any of them. I walk straight to Alena, grab her, and pull her behind me, positioning my body between her and every threat in this room.
"You threatened my woman?" My voice comes out feral, barely human. "At her own engagement celebration?"
Guns are drawn now—at least twenty, maybe more. Some pointed at me. Some pointed at Klaus. Everyone waiting to see which way this breaks.
"You had a man feel he could touch what is mine?" I am losing it now, even more. "In front of everyone?"
Klaus steps forward, smiling that same cold smile. "It is for the good of—"
I shoot him in the knee. The bullet punches through his kneecap with a sickening crunch of shattering bone. Blood sprays hot across my shoe—dark and sticky—pooling on the marble floor. He screams once—high, animal, broken—clutching the ruined joint as bone grinds against bone. Then silence. No one moves to help him.
