The force of it silences her again.
Roman shakes his head, muttering something sharp under his breath before pinning me with a hard look. “You hand him your crown, you hand him your life. And hers. He won’t keep his word. We all know he won’t. You’ll be doing it for nothing.”
I lean forward, bracing both palms on the table, the wood groaning beneath the pressure. “What else do you suggest?”
“Telling him to kick rocks and wipe our hands clean,” Katya bites back, lips pulling tight around her cigarette.
Lev is shaking his head. His arms are crossed tight over his chest, his entire body practically vibrating with anger. It’ssuch a rare and uncharacteristic display from him that I’m momentarily caught off guard by it.
His voice booms, raw with disbelief. “Katya’s right. You’re talking about laying the entire Bratva at his feet for one woman you barely know. Do you even hear yourself?”
Roman nods along with Lev’s words. “This isn’t you,Pakhan. You don’t bargain with traitors. Nor do you bow in their favor. Youburythem.”
“You step down, you undo everything. Every alliance, every sacrifice, every man who died building what you have. All of it will be wasted. We’ve bled for this Bratva. And now you want to throw it away because Anton was smart enough to grab your—” Lev cuts himself off, dragging a frustrated hand down his jaw.
He doesn’t need to finish. I already know what he wants to say.
Your woman.
“She isn’t Bratva. She isn’t blood. She isn’t worth it,” Katya says.
Slowly, I rise from my chair. The scrape of it against the floor sounds harsh, making the room wince from the sudden, intrusive noise. I step around the table and into Lev’s space, close enough to feel his breath on my cheek.
My second.
My shield. My sword.
The one I’ve leaned on in the dark hours when the whole empire threatened to collapse after my father’s untimely death. The one who has stood beside me through gunfire and betrayal, through nights when loyalty had been the only thing keeping us all alive.
Finding ourselves on the opposite sides of this decision hurts me more than it upsets me. I value him as not just my right hand, not just my second—but as my friend. My brother in all but name.
But none of that matters when the balance of power shifts. None of it matters when I’m left with no other choices.
I’ve been backed into a corner, and Anton knows it.
“It seems we’ve all forgotten,” I say, my voice quiet though the words are punctuated as if I’m shouting them, “that my word is law.”
Lev’s chest heaves.
His fury is still there, sharp and biting, but beneath it I catch something else, something that makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Fear… Not of me, not truly. But fear of what I’m about to do. Fear of losing everything we’ve bled to keep.
His voice is rough when he speaks again. “Maksim, please… she’s not worth your giving this up.”
The words sting, more than I want to admit. For a split second, I see not defiance but desperation in his eyes—the desperation of a man who thinks he’s about to watch his leader walk willingly into a grave.
He presses forward. “Let us fight. Let us take her back by force and kill every last one of Anton’s bastards who gets in the way. Give us the order—we’ll burn the city if we have to.”
“It isn’t a petty squabble, Lev. This is a coup,” I remind him.
“Then treat it like one!” he snarls. “Fight him like it’s a fucking coup. Call in every alliance we’ve ever brokered, pull every favor,stack every contact we have against him. Don’t hand him the crown, Maksim.Crush him with it.”
I sweep my gaze over him.
His words resonate with me, more than I expect.
Perhaps he’s right.
Perhaps turning this coup into a war will silence every whisper, every question about my right to sit in this chair permanently. Perhaps fighting this will cauterize the wound Anton has ripped open, prove that once and for all, Maksim Antonov is not a man to be stolen from, not a man to be tested, not a man who yields.
