"I killed for you," I said through clenched teeth. "What more do you want?"
"Commitment." He gestured to someone I hadn't noticed standing in the corner—an older man, sixties, grizzled, covered in faded tattoos from neck to fingertips. Prison tattoos. Bratva symbols I was starting to recognize. He carried a black case. Tattoo kit.
My stomach dropped.
"No," I said immediately, standing. The guards shifted behind me, hands moving toward weapons. I didn't care. "I'm not doing that."
"Sit down," Klaus said calmly.
"No. I did what you asked. I killed him. That was the deal-"
"The deal," Klaus interrupted, voice hardening, "was that you cooperate. Fully. And in our world, cooperation means commitment." He tapped the tablet again, and my resistance crumbled as the camera angle shifted.
Now it showed the outside of Alena's building. A black car parked across the street. A man in the driver's seat, face obscured, but his hand visible on the steering wheel. Waiting. Just waiting. One phone call away from going inside.
"One word from me," Klaus said quietly, "and he goes inside. Thirty seconds to her door. She won't even have time to scream."
My breath caught in my throat. The room tilted. Every instinct I had screamed to run—to London, to her, to get there before that man could move. But I was here. Trapped. Powerless.
"Or," Klaus continued, turning the tablet back to the live feed of Alena crying, curled in my hoodie, "you sit down. You let him mark you. You earn your star like every other vor before you. And she stays exactly where she is—safe, miserable, but breathing."
I stared at the screen. At Alena curled on that couch, unaware that a man was parked outside ready to end her life. At the woman I'd killed to protect. The woman I'd become a monster for.
"Your choice, son," Klaus said. "But choose quickly. My patience has limits."
I sat down.
Slowly. Deliberately. Every movement controlled even though my hands wanted to shake.
Klaus smiled—satisfied, triumphant, already victorious. He gestured to the tattoo artist. "Left collarbone," he said. "Eight-pointed star. Traditional."
The artist nodded. Set up his tools on the side table with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done this a thousand times. Ink bottles. Needles. Antiseptic wipes. A small lamp he angled toward my shoulder.
I unbuttoned my shirt. Pulled it off one shoulder, exposing my collarbone. The artist wiped the area with antiseptic—cold, clinical. Klaus kept the tablet propped up on the tablebetween us, angled so I couldn't look away. Alena's face still visible. Still crying.
"I want you to watch her while he works," Klaus said quietly. "I want you to remember why you're doing this."
The needle touched my skin—sharp, burning, immediate. I didn't flinch. Years in the pit had taught me how to take pain. How to breathe through it, compartmentalize it, turn it into fuel. The trick was to find something to focus on. Something worth the suffering.
I stared at Alena on that screen. At her broken, beautiful face. At the life I was damning myself to save.
The needle drove deeper, outlining the first point of the star. Pain lanced through my collarbone, white-hot and precise. But I didn't look away. Couldn't. The artist worked methodically—drag, wipe, drag, wipe. Blood welled and was wiped away. The outline took shape, point by point.
On the screen, Alena shifted. Pulled my hoodie tighter around herself. Buried her face in the fabric like she was trying to breathe me in. And I felt something crack open in my chest—not guilt, not regret. Rage. Pure, cold, calculating rage.
Klaus was watching me. Enjoying this. The power he held. The son he'd broken and remade in his image.
But he'd made a mistake.
He thought pain would make me loyal. Thought the tattoo would bind me to him, make me Bratva, make me his. But pain was currency I'd traded in long before he found me. And I knew something he didn't—pain could be turned into focus. Into strategy. Into the kind of cold determination that burned everything else away.
I let the needle bite deeper and started planning.
Klaus was dying. Weeks, maybe less. The guards were loyal to the organization, not to him personally—I'd seen it in how they watched him, the way they exchanged glances when he coughed blood. They were waiting for the transition. Waiting to see who'd take over.
I could use that.
The tattoo artist moved to the second point. More blood. More pain. I breathed through it, let it sharpen my thoughts. Klaus wanted me committed? Fine. I'd play committed. I'd do the jobs, earn the trust, learn the structure. Find the weak points. The men who were tired of Klaus's brutality. The ones who'd turn if the right opportunity presented itself.
