Old batteries. A wad of tangled chargers. A key to something that I no longer own. A rogue tampon.
Receipts from Walmart—because apparently, at some point, I thought tracking my grocery spending would fix my financial situation. That lasted exactly one week before I shoved everything into this drawer and pretended budgeting was a myth.
And—oh, look—an entire bottle of expired ibuprofen from three years ago. Probably a relic from my last migraine-inducing life crisis.
My phone buzzes.
I jump, nearly knocking over the drawer, then lunge for my phone from where I threw it earlier.
A text.
Short. Cold.
Konstantin Belov:Meet me at Belov Global Holdings on Wednesday.
I stare at the screen, my heart hammering.
Two days.
He’s making me wait.
My phone buzzes again.
Elena:So, you’re getting married AND getting rich? Love that for you. Some of us have to actually work.
I groan.
Me:It’s not like that.
Elena:No? He’s paying you? He’s putting a ring on it? Babe, you’re literally the plot of a 90s rom-com, minus the quirky montage.
Me:I hate you.
Elena:I accept that. But more importantly—will you get a driver? Because I refuse to let my best friend show up to brunch in Betsy.
I drop my phone onto the counter.
This is not my life.
Except… apparently, it is.
26
Konstantin
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it.
The room is still. Heavy. The air, thick with the stale scent of antiseptic and something more human beneath it—something slow, wasting, inevitable.
ThePakhanlies in the center of it all, reduced to nothing more than a husk of the man he once was.
Six months in a coma has stripped Anatoly Belov of his power. His once-imposing frame—broad-shouldered, thick with muscle—is now sunken, his skin stretched tight over sharp bones. His cheeks have hollowed, his temples caved inward. His hands, the same hands that built an empire, lie motionless atop the thin hospital sheet, the veins stark against waxy skin.
His beard, once trimmed with precise ruthlessness, has grown in uneven patches, more gray than black now. His lips are slightly parted, the faintest rasp of breath the only sign of life.
I remember a man of iron, a presence that demanded obedience. Now, the only thing keeping him tethered to this world is the slow, rhythmic beep of the monitor beside him.
I stand at the foot of the bed, my hands in my pockets, my jaw locked against the strange weight pressing against my ribs.
