CHAPTER ONE
Artyom
The call came just after dawn. Not from him, of course. He never picks up the phone himself. One of his men delivered the message in that clipped, careful tone that means it isn’t optional.
Your father wants to see you.
I almost said no. Although I live on the estate, I try to avoid this house, and every time I step inside it feels like walking backward through time into a version of myself I thought I’d buried. But there are some things even distance can’t protect you from.
The old unease has already settled in my gut.
My father’s house smells like old cigars and power. Rotting, perfumed power. The kind that seeps into the stone until it forgets what clean air feels like. Every sound here carries weight:the echo of shoes against marble, the click of a cane, the soft drag of a dying man pretending he’s still king.
God, how much I hate all of this.
Vladimir Morozov sits behind his desk, the same one I used to stand in front of as a boy. Back then, it felt like a throne, but now it looks smaller.
He glances up when I enter, surprise flickering for only a second before it hardens into the usual assessment. The years haven’t softened him. If anything, they’ve made him sharper. His suit is immaculate, his tie perfect, the old silver ring still glinting on his hand.
“It’s been a while,” he says finally, the words carrying neither warmth nor reproach. Just fact.
“It has.” I stop a few steps from the desk.
A ghost of a smile touches his mouth, but doesn’t reach his eyes. “Still difficult, I see.”
“I learned from the best.”
He exhales through his nose, a quiet huff that might be amusement or irritation. “I expected you to have missed your old man.”
“Let’s not pretend either of us missed the other.”
He studies me for a moment, eyes narrowing faintly, as if trying to decide whether it was worth summoning me at all.
I break the silence first. “Why did you call me here, Father?”
“Can’t a father ask to see his son?”
“You can,” I say evenly. “You just never do unless you want something. So, let’s not pretend and save us both time.”
That earns me a longer look, intended to make men squirm. I don’t.
He steeples his fingers, settling back in his chair. “Straight to the point, then.”
“Always.”
He nods once, as if conceding a minor point in a game he still believes he’s winning. The room feels smaller when he finally speaks again.
“You’ll marry Irina Petrova,” he says, voice low and deliberate. He doesn’t need to shout. He never did. “It’s time.”
I take the chair opposite him, uninvited. “No.”
A flicker of irritation crosses his face. “No?”
“You heard me.” I unbutton my jacket, slow and calm. “I won’t marry her.”
He studies me the way he used to study his enemies before breaking them. “Boris has made it clear that the wedding must take place in one month. Thirty days, Artyom. That’s all he’s given us—thirty days to bring our families together. You’re treating this like a request.” He leans forward, the light catching the silver in his hair. “And what are you, if not my blood? If I tell you this is how the Morozovs survive, you’llobey.”
The word tastes wrong. He still says it like I’m a child, as if I’m not the one who took his place when his health failed him.
