His tone carries no affection when he speaks about him.
“He had a habit of leaving things behind when he moved,” Ivan continues. “Money problems. Enemies. Women.”
“Children,” I add.
“Yes,” he agrees calmly. “Children.”
“My father was killed when I was seventeen,” Ivan goes on. “A disagreement with the wrong man in the wrong city.”
“And that left you alone.”
“For a while,” he confirms, his eyes returning to mine. “Until someone noticed the situation and decided I might be useful.”
Someone.
“You found a mentor,” I note.
Ivan lets out a quiet breath through his nose. “Something like that.”
“Who?”
Ivan studies me for several long seconds. “You’re impatient tonight.”
“Rowan is waiting.”
“Yes,” he agrees quietly. “She is.”
The reminder finds the mark.
“And the child,” he adds.
The words change the air in the room more than anything he has said so far.
“She only learned recently,” he continues, studying me now with open curiosity. “The timing surprised me as well.”
A slow pressure builds behind my ribs that has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the live feed he showed me earlier. I glance once toward the far end of the warehouse, where the shadows between the crate rows deepen.
“What exactly is it going to take for you to get to the point?”
Ivan folds his arms loosely across his chest again. “I want you to understand something,” he replies.
“Which is?”
“That the world you built around the Sovarin name isn’t as stable as you believe.”
I hold his gaze. “You think you can take it?”
“I don’t think I can,” Ivan says quietly. He pauses, then adds, “I know I can.”
The confidence in his voice doesn’t come from arrogance alone. It comes from something else. Something that has been hovering just beyond reach since the conversation began.
“You didn’t build this alone.” I flex my fingers once before letting them fall still again.
Ivan’s smile deepens. “Now you’re paying attention.”
I study him more carefully now, replaying the pieces of his story.
Father was killed when he was seventeen. Someone powerful stepped in afterward and taught him patience. Taught him how to dismantle an enemy slowly enough that the collapse looks like a coincidence.
