Yes. Eight o’clock?
Perfect. I’ll cook.
I gather my materials and prepare to leave, but pause at the door for one last look at the conference room where I just claimed my inheritance. This morning, I was still figuring out what it meant to be in charge.
Tonight, I’ll start learning what it costs.
Because power isn’t just about making decisions—it’s about living with the consequences of those decisions, even when they reshape you into someone you never thought you’d become.
Even when they make you worthy of the crown you never wanted to wear.
Even when they prove that sometimes the only way to honor the dead is to become everything they were too proud to be.
CHAPTER 41
Rafa
Two weeks.Fourteen days since I put a bullet in Vadim Petrov’s chest. Fourteen days since Kira watched her father die by my hand. Fourteen days of silence that feels like slowly drowning in regret.
The Rosso safehouse in the Hamptons sits like a fortress against the autumn sky, all weathered stone and bulletproof glass overlooking endless stretches of gray ocean. It’s where we brought her after the warehouse, where she’s been “recovering” from the trauma of that night.
Where she’s been avoiding me.
I climb the stairs to the second floor, my footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. Three doors down from the master suite I’ve been occupying alone, I pause outside the room where she’s been hiding from the world.
From me.
I raise my hand to knock, then stop. What am I supposed to say? How do you apologize for saving someone’s life in the only way possible? How do you explain that killing her father was the only choice that kept her breathing?
The door opens before I can make contact, revealing Nicolai’s pale green eyes and carefully neutral expression. He steps into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind him with deliberate finality.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” he says without preamble.
“I need to talk to her.”
“She’s made her wishes clear.”
“Has she? Or are you making decisions for her?” I try to step around him, but he moves to block my path. For someone with a desk job, he’s surprisingly solid.
“Rafael.” His voice carries the kind of authority that comes from years of managing crises. “She’s not ready.”
“Ready for what? To have a conversation with the man she’s supposed to marry?”
“Ready to face the man who killed her father.”
The words hit like a physical blow, even though I knew they were coming. Because that’s what I am now, isn’t it? Not her partner, not her protector, not the man who loves her.
The man who killed her father.
“He was going to murder her,” I say quietly. “You saw the surveillance footage. You know what happened.”
“I know you did what you thought was necessary.” Nicolai’s expression softens fractionally. “I also know that understanding something intellectually and processing it emotionally are very different things.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Just wait until she decides she can stand to look at me again?”
“You’re supposed to give her time to grieve. Time to figure out who she is now that everything she used to be has been stripped away.”
“She’s still Kira.”
