Fine.
I walked towards the office. Each step echoed louder as the walls stretched around me, empty and hollow. Everything felt colder, quieter…fucking wrong. This house had been a home for a short moment. Our home.
But the warmth left with her. And I was a fool to think it could’ve stayed.
The only thing left now was to sign the fucking divorce papers to cut that last string tying us together.
I froze by the office door, seeing the two laptops on the table and the two chairs behind it. Images of the numerous hours we'd spent there together hunting Oskar slammed into me.
Fuck!
I couldn’t breathe in the house anymore.
I grabbed my keys from my desk, stalked to my car, and peeled away.
If she didn’t want a place in my life, then she sure as hell wouldn’t get a place in my head.
I needed something else to fill my mind. I sped towards Drakon.
It was going to be a long fucking night.
As minutes bled into hours and hours into days, I refused to step foot in that fucking house. If I needed anything, I texted Wexler, and he handled it. I wasn’t going back, not even to breathe the same air she used to.
I holed up in one of our hotels, ordering the staff to keep their mouths shut. No records. No one was to know I was there. If I stayed up at Drakon or headquarters the entire night, my brothers would sense something was off. And I wasn’t giving them a damn thing to speculate about.
Not when I couldn’t sleep. Not when I spent the nights staring at an untouched glass and a bottle of vodka, reminding myself that spiraling wasn’t an option. Losing control wasn’t an option. Weakness wasn’t an option.
Not for a Safin.
Not for me.
I’d made that mistake once already. I wasn’t going down that road again.
Wexler notified me when Ms. Romonoff retrieved her father’s body. She held a small memorial, barely anyone showed, then had him cremated. She returned to the dorms with Mandy. Back to the life she wanted. The life she chose over me.
Fine. So be it.
My life was better without her, anyway. I was able to focus on what mattered: Keeping the faction financially stable and powerful.
I shook my head as I walked into headquarters, laptop in hand, and headed straight for the conference room. I was two hours early for the meeting, but I didn’t give a shit.
Work was the only thing that didn’t leave.
The only thing that made sense.
Numbers didn't lie.
And for the past seven days, it was the only thing I drowned myself in.
Exactly two hours later, the conference room door opened, and my brothers entered the room, but they weren't alone. They came with their wives, our sisters, the children, and the Rykov men.
“Where's Sienna?” Mariya asked, arms folded, brow raised.
“Tone, Mariya,” I glared at her.
I fucking took care of my younger siblings after our parents were assassinated. There was no way she was going to barge in here and demand anything from me.
“I'm sorry,” she said as she made her way towards me and sat next to me while the others filled the other seats around the table.
