There’s always a catch.
I glance instinctively toward the door when a flicker of movement draws my eye. The woman from earlier is standing there. Her expression is carefully composed, practiced neutrality painted over whatever storm might be simmering underneath. She doesn’t meet my gaze as she steps into the room.
She doesn’t have to. I already know what she’s come back for. I can feel the invisible noose tightening around my throat.
She crosses the room in a few slow steps, her hands open as if she’s done this a hundred times before. It stabs me straight through the chest. Maybe she has. Maybe she’s been playing the comforter, the caretaker, the one who makes my child feel safe while his mother is being kept from him.
She stops just in front of us and extends her hand to Leo.
“No,” I whisper.
Leo looks up at her, blinking. He doesn’t even hesitate when he lifts up his small hand and finds hers automatically, muscle memory kicking in.
“Wait,” I beg, my voice raw.
But she’s already lifting him from my lap, not waiting for me to say my final goodbyes before she turns back to the door to take him from me once again. When I go to stand, Mikhail is already there, stepping to put himself between me and my boy, blocking me from going anywhere near him again.
Behind him, Leo’s head turns over her shoulder, small brows pulling together in confusion as he squints past Mikhail to find me. “Mama?”
She tugs him along. For the first time since meeting her, I hear her voice. It’s soft and melodic, warm in a way that clashes violently with the iciness of this place. Like wind chimes in the turbulent storm—beautiful and out of place. “Come on, sweet boy.”
Leo hesitates for a beat, his eyes still locked on mine. And then he turns back toward her, legs moving, hand clinging to the fabric of her sleeve as he’s led away.
A sob clogs my throat, but I don’t let it out. I refuse to in front of this man who watches every emotion ripple across my face like he’s cataloging it for later use.
I press my lips together until they sting and force my gaze up to meet Mikhail’s. He’s already looking at me, face unreadable except for the faint twitch of amusement in the corner of his mouth.
“Did you really think I’d let him go with you?” he asks casually.
“I thought you were a man of your word.”
He tilts his head. “Oh, I am. What else am I supposed to leverage against you for your cooperation? Come now, Ivy. Surely, you know that.”
I stare at him, my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ache.
For a flicker of a second, I let myself imagine him broken on his knees, humiliated and stripped of the power he’s clung. I picture the slick confidence draining from his face, his voice raw with panic instead of the polished condescension when his own cruelty is turned on him. I see the same guards who once flanked me now holdinghimdown while I drive a knife between his ribs.
But just as quickly as it rises, the fantasy is torn apart by another, far crueler one. Leo alone and scared, curled up in some windowless room with fluorescent lights that never turn off. Whimpering for his mother. Clutching that stupidwooden train in his fist like it’s his only anchor in a world he doesn’t understand.
My throat tightens until it’s nearly impossible to speak, but I force the words out anyway. “If I get Maksim to do what you ask, you’ll give my son back to me. Alive and untouched.”
Mikhail watches me closely, his expression unreadable as a long silence stretches between us. Then, at long last, his smile stretches across his face. He nods. “Alive and untouched. As we agreed.”
I breathe in slowly, my shoulders rolling back as I face him head-on. “Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”
He practically grins. “Excellent.”
5
MAKSIM
As soon as our renewed fervor dies down, I do something I haven’t done in a year—call the two remaining syndicate leaders who refused to pick a side during my war with Anton Sidorov.
Alisa Morozov.
Luka Terenin.
Powerful in their own right, unaligned. At least, that’s how they preferred to describe it when they kept themselves cut off from the rest of us under the guise of neutrality. They watched while our Bratva bled itself dry fighting Anton’s faction. They weighed their options from behind fortified walls and when the smoke finally cleared, they were the only ones left standing still untouched.
