"Or someone who got very lucky and recognized an opportunity." Cyril's gray eyes meet mine with uncomfortable honesty. "The question is whether they're working alone or if they've already sold copies to interested parties."
The possibility makes my blood run cold. If Matvey already has these images, if he's been sitting on them while planning his next move, then the attack on my organization goes deeper than territory disputes. This becomes personal. A systematic dismantling of everything I am, starting with my reputation and ending with my life.
My phone sits heavily in my pocket, Aria's number just a few taps away. I should call her right now, warn her that our most private moments have been weaponized, that the island we thought was our sanctuary was actually a stage with an audience we never saw. But the words stick in my throat because telling her means admitting I failed to protect her, that my arrogance in keeping us stranded put her at risk in ways I never anticipated.
"Find them," I tell Cyril, my voice cold and absolute. "I don't care what it costs or what you have to do. Find whoever took these photographs and bring them to me."
He nods and turns toward the door but pauses with his hand on the frame. "And when we find them?"
The question hangs in the air between us, weighted with implications we both understand. In my world, threats are eliminated with surgical precision. People who cross the Pakhan don't get second chances. But this isn't just about protecting my reputation or maintaining control. This is about Aria, about my child growing inside her.
"We'll discuss options when we know who we're dealing with." The diplomatic answer satisfies neither of us, but it's all I can offer right now.
Cyril leaves, and I'm alone with the photographs spread across my desk like evidence at a trial. I should destroy them, burnevery image until nothing remains but ash. Instead, I find myself picking up the one showing Aria laughing, her face tilted toward mine, joy radiating from her in a way that makes my chest ache.
This is what I wanted. What I chose when I kept us stranded on that island, when I pressed the beacon and called for rescue only after I'd claimed her completely. I wanted more time in that space where I wasn't the Pakhan, where violence and calculation didn't define every interaction, where someone looked at me and chose to save my life without expecting anything in return.
I got exactly what I wanted. And now it might destroy us both.
The envelope sits empty on my desk, but I notice something I missed in my initial shock. A small piece of paper, folded once and tucked into the corner where it almost disappeared against the manila interior.
My hands are steady as I extract it, unfold it with the careful precision I use for everything. The message is typed on plain paper, the font generic and untraceable.
More where this came from. We should talk about price.
19
ARIA
The television remote slips from my numb fingers, clattering against the hardwood floor with a sound that barely registers over the roaring in my ears. I stand frozen in the middle of my apartment, my eyes locked on the screen where a news anchor describes the body found in the industrial district with the kind of carefully neutral tone that can't quite disguise the horror underneath.
The camera pans across yellow crime scene tape fluttering in the breeze, police officers moving in and out of frame with grim expressions. They don't show the victim. They never do. But the reporter's words paint a picture brutal enough to make my stomach turn.
"The victim, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, was allegedly a former captain in the Alekseev organization who recently aligned himself with rival businessman Matvey Ignatyev. Police are investigating this as a targeted killing, though no suspects have been named at this time."
The subtext screams what the reporter can't say outright. This is a message written in blood. A reminder of what happens when you betray Nikolai Alekseev.
My hand moves unconsciously to my stomach, to the secret growing there that I've told no one about. The nausea that rises in my throat has nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with the realization crashing over me like a wave.
This is Nikolai's work.
Maybe not his hands directly. Maybe he didn't pull the trigger or wield the knife or whatever instrument of death was used. But his orders made this happen. The man who whispered Russian endearments against my skin while we made love under the stars, who quoted Pushkin while weaving palm fronds with surprising gentleness, who twisted his body to shield mine when we hit those rocks, ordered someone's execution with the same casual efficiency he used to catch fish in the shallows.
The disconnect makes my head spin.
I sink onto my couch, my legs suddenly unable to support my weight. The news has moved on to another story, something about traffic delays and construction, but I can't process the words. All I can see is that yellow crime scene tape. All I can hear is the reporter's careful description of "targeted killing," and all I can think about is the man I let inside my body. Inside my heart.
The apartment suddenly feels smaller, the walls pressing in with the weight of everything I've been trying not to think about since we returned. I've told myself that the connection I felt was manufactured by circumstance, that the way my body responded to his was just biology. That the ache in my chest when I thinkabout him is just residual adrenaline working its way out of my system.
But watching that news report, seeing the concrete evidence of the world he inhabits, the violence he commands with a word or a gesture, makes it impossible to maintain those comfortable lies.
I should be horrified. Iamhorrified. The rational part of my brain screams that this is exactly why I deleted his number. Why I decided to raise this baby alone. Nikolai Alekseev is a dangerous man who operates in a world where human life is just another commodity to be traded or eliminated based on strategic value.
A man was killed. Someone's son, maybe someone's father or brother or friend. A person with a life and history and people who will mourn him, reduced to a cautionary tale and a crime scene photograph that will be filed away in some police database. And Nikolai made that happen with the same hands that touched me with such devastating gentleness. The same mind that quoted poetry while we watched the sunset paint the sky in shades of gold and crimson.
The juxtaposition should repulse me. Itdoesrepulse me. Except my treacherous body remembers other things.
The feel of his hands on my skin, callused but gentle, mapping my body like I was something precious. The hunger in his eyes when he looked at me, like I was air and he was drowning. The way his voice dropped to something rough and intimate when he called me his, the possessive certainty in those words that should have terrified me but didn't. The solid warmth of his body pressed against mine in our makeshift shelter, his heartbeat steady beneath my palm, his breathing evening out ashe fell asleep with his arms wrapped around me like I was worth protecting.
