“Pakhan,” he greets me, stepping aside.
Inside, Katya sits at the kitchen table, papers spread around her. Maps, printouts, photographs, all intel pulled from sources I know better than to ask her to name. She glances up, her dark hair tied back, her gaze as sharp and assessing as Roman’s.
Katya is already waiting for me when I arrive, arms crossed and eyebrows drawn tight. Roman stands in the background, pacing with a half-finished cigarette clinging to his fingers.
“You saw her,” she says. Not a question.
My jaw tightens. “I did.”
“And?”
“She said no.”
Katya leans back slowly, her chair creaking under the shift of weight. Her lips curve in that quiet, knowing way of hers. Not quite a smile, but not quite a frown. More like she’d written the outcome in her mind long before I ever walked into this room.
Roman exhales through his nose, shaking his head. “Stubborn woman.”
I don’t bother to correct him. Stubborn isn’t an insult when it comes to Ivy. It’s survival. It’s strength. It’s another one of the things I’ve always admired in her, even when it drives me out of my mind. “Where are we at with the Mikhail situation?”
I pace once around the table, eyes dragging over the papers Katya has laid out. Photographs of Mikhail, grainy captures outside underground strongholds, his expression cold, his features a mirror of his father’s.
Reports flank the images. Lists of men, brigadiers crawling back into the light now that Mikhail has whispered promisesin their ears that sound like the ones his father made. Some are nothing but rats scrambling for crumbs, others I recognize are dangerous. Men with experience, men who once were too cowardly to swear loyalty to Anton but would gladly bleed for his son if it meant a return to power.
Katya’s voice cuts through my thoughts, crisp and steady. “He’s consolidating faster than we expected, working further west. Those who never truly bent the knee when you took power are now pledging themselves to him.”
Roman leans forward, planting his fists on the table as he peers down at the documents. “Like father, like son. If we let this keep expanding, he’ll be building the next war machine.”
I rise from how I’m positioned over the table. My palms press hard into the edge of the wood for one more steadying second before I drag a hand through my hair. The gesture does nothing to bleed off the restless energy crawling under my skin.
“We’ll need to put eyes on Ivy and Leo until this gets taken care of. I don’t want any surprises like him suddenly showing up on American soil without us knowing about it. If he breathes in their direction, I want to know before he exhales,” I say.
Roman straightens, broad shoulders rolling back. “Matvey and Andrey are due to land in an hour. Once they’re here, we can set up a surveillance hub. Full coverage of the areas they frequent.”
Katya’s pen is already moving again, her mind three steps ahead, but I catch the faint arch of her brow at my choice of words. She knows I’m not speaking strictly as aPakhangiving orders. She knows this is personal.
They both do.
“Good. I want a live feed of everything. The outside of her house, the inside. The diner, outside Leo’s school. I don’t care what you have to do, seduce a secretary, threaten a co-worker, wire the damn streetlamps if you have to. Nothing slips past us.Nothing.”
Roman’s lips twitch into the faintest ghost of a smirk. “And you will have it.”
“Let me know the second Matvey and Andrey get here,” I say, already crossing the room. Urgency crawls up my spine. “Until then, I’ll be out tailing Ivy myself.”
“Yes,Pakhan.”
32
IVY
The moment I shut the door after dropping Leo off at school, I let out a shaky breath and lean against the frame.
What a mess.
Another day pretending everything’s fine. Another day trying not to let the ghosts of my past kill me—not just with threats of violence, but from my own damn heart pleading with me to give in and surrender to the only thing it desires more than breathing. Maksim.
I push myself away from the door and head into the kitchen, every step dragging behind me.
My hands are still trembling, the aftershocks of that alleyway confrontation yesterday still vibrating through my bones. The way his body caged mine against brick, the way his voice demanded and commanded me. Being that close to him after so long has left a nagging I can’t shake, a fever I can’t burn off.
