“Lucas—”
“You have to come with me,” he says, stepping closer. His voice rises, shaky and frantic. “You promised we’d always stick together.”
My stomach twists. “I said I can’t come.”
He rubs both hands hard over his face like he’s trying to wipe the panic off. “Kira, I can’t do this alone. I can’t leave without you. Please just—” He steps forward again, reaching for my arms.
And then everything freezes.
Because the gravel on the path behind us crunches under heavy footsteps and Lucas’s hands drop from my sleeves.
I turn.
Artyom is standing at the edge of the path.
He’s not alone. Vladimir is beside him, hands folded behind his back like he’s admiring the sunrise, and Boris stands a few steps to the side, his expression unreadable. All three men watch us, and the air shifts instantly, sharp and dangerous, like something was waiting under the surface and just broke through.
My brother played me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Artyom
I should have felt it the moment I stepped out of the car, that sharp shift in the air that tells you something is wrong before you even understand why, but I only register it when I see her standing there in the pale morning light with her brother at her side and a bag at their feet that doesn’t belong in this place. For a moment everything inside me pulls tight because it looks like she’s leaving.
She’s leaving me.
Kira freezes the second our eyes meet, her breath catching in a way that would be imperceptible to anyone else, but I know her body too well by now, I know the way her shoulders tense when she’s scared, the way her fingers curl slightly when she’s hiding something, and I know immediately that whatever I walked into is not what it seems, even if every angle of the scene is designed to look like betrayal.
Vladimir stands beside me with his hands clasped behind his back, the picture of calm satisfaction, and Boris lingers a little to the right with that slow, smug breath he takes when he thinks he just won the game. They wanted me to see this, to step into this moment without warning, to feel the hit before I could prepare for it, and the part of me that grew up under Vladimir’s hand knows exactly how calculated this is.
But the rest of me, the part that belongs entirely to her, that only sees Kira’s wide, startled, hurting eyes, knows instantly that something here is off.
I take one step forward, keeping my voice even because explosions can come later. “Kira.”
She swallows, and the sound carries in the quiet morning, too small, too careful. “Artyom, this isn’t?—”
“Is it true?” I ask, because I need to hear her say it, not because I believe what I’m seeing but because the money in her hand and the tension in her spine are forcing me into a place I never wanted to stand with her. “Were you leaving?”
Her head shakes before the words come, her breath uneven. “No. This is—this isn’t what it looks like.”
It hits somewhere low in my chest, because I can tell she means it, but everything around us is built to make me doubt her, and that is exactly why they brought me here this early, exactly why they let me see the bag, the money, the brother, the timing—every detail chosen to cut deep.
Kira shakes her head again, the movement small and rattled, and I watch her hands tighten around the envelope like she doesn’t know where to put it.
I step closer, slow enough that Lucas tenses but not enough to hide how much control it takes, and when I speak my voice comes out calm even though calm is the last thing I feel. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She opens her mouth and nothing comes out the first time. Her throat works once, a small swallow, and then—“It’s not what they think.”
Behind me, Vladimir hums, a small, derisive sound he doesn’t even bother to disguise, and I don’t have to turn to know he’s smiling.
I don’t look away from her. “Are you leaving?”
“No,” she says immediately, and her voice cracks on the word, her entire body leaning into that denial as if she’s holding on to something with her whole weight. “I wasn’t leaving you.”
The bag is still on the ground beside her brother’s foot, the top half unzipped, something dark inside catching the weak dawn light, and for a second the wrong picture forms in my mind, the one my father wants me to see—her packing while I slept, her slipping out before sunrise, her choosing to run rather than speak to me after what we shared last night.
It cuts deeper than any blade I’ve taken.
