I looked at the photograph, and the world tilted.
Ruslan Baranov.
Stepping off a private jet.
Charcoal coat open over a black shirt, expression cold.
Eyes like knives.
Behind him—six men in perfect formation, dark suits, moving as if trained to breathe as one.
Wolves in human skin.
The sight hit harder than I expected.
My lungs constricted.
Memories surged without warning.
Amy—my best friend—her face a mask of blood and broken bone, screaming, every sound a knife in my chest.
Ruslan’s voice reverberating through the shattered room, promising vengeance
Amy’s blood pooling beneath my fist, sticky and hot, a brutal testament to the helplessness to the violence that had taken everything in a heartbeat.
I forced myself to breathe.
Then I nodded, voice tight, the word heavy in the air.
“Yeah.”
Vincenzo folded the photograph with meticulous precision and slid it back into his inner pocket with a calmness that was almost gentle.
“As promised,” he said. His voice was even. “You remain under my protection.”
A beat.
“Ruslan Baranov—or anyone else hunting you—will not, cannot, touch you.”
I swallowed.
The words should have landed like a shield.
Like relief.
Instead, they pressed down somewhere heavier, settling like iron in my chest.
“When you return home this evening,” Vincenzo continued, his tone shifting subtly—“Violet will be at the villa.”
My stomach twisted.
“She’s dining with me tonight.”
Another pause.
His words hit harder than the steel of a blade.
I forced my voice to remain steady.
