The thought propels me forward.
I swallow the panic clawing up my throat and take a tentative step toward the next hallway on the left. My ears strain for footsteps, for voices or the sharp crack of a gun being cocked and aimed at my head to take me out.
Thankfully, nothing comes and I end up following the hall down to another one intersecting it. My hand remains on the wall as I use it to guide me. The smooth texture of the wallpaper is comforting in a strange way, giving me something to focus on other than my own terror.
Right as I turn the corner down another hallway, a thin ribbon of light spills from the crack beneath one of the doors, stopping me dead in my tracks. I stand there for a moment, holding my breath as I freeze in place.
Voices drift out into the hallway, too soft for me to hear what’s being said.
Out of instinct, I step closer, leaning forward while tilting my head just enough to press against the door. The voices on theother side are muffled but clear enough that I can make out what they’re saying.
“…risk too much keeping her there,” a voice says, one I don’t recognize. “She’s a liability.”
Another voice answers, calm, unbothered, and unmistakably Sasha’s. “She’s leverage. Leverage is never a liability for the Iron Pact.”
My breath catches.
Iron Pact?
The words slam into me with the cold weight of some ancient instinct buried within me.
Papa had said the name once years ago. He’d been drunk that night from cognac and exhaustion after a late Duma vote. He’d whispered it the way priests whisper their final confessions to their gods on their deathbeds, with reverence… and dread.
Four families, he'd said—Sokolov. Kuznetsov. Volkov. Malyshko. A quadrant of power so absolute that even the FSB didn’t dare breathe too hard in their direction. An alliance stitched together with blood and money and the unspoken promise that anyone who challenged it wouldn’t simply lose, they’d vanish.
I’d laughed at the time, thinking it was hyperbole in the way that politicians like him loved to exaggerate their enemies to justify their paranoia and put more security details on their loved ones.
Papa loved his melodrama, and I’d simply chalked it up to that before quickly forgetting about it altogether.
But had it been real all along?
Suddenly, the voices cut off. My breath stalls as I register the sound of footsteps moving toward the door. Before I can retreat and melt back into the shadows and pretend I was never here, the door swings open.
Light floods the hallway, harsh and blinding after the dim hush I’ve been hiding in. I flinch instinctively, my eyes burning as I lift a hand to shield them.
Sasha fills the doorway.
His shirt is unbuttoned at the throat, dark fabric loosened just enough to suggest this meeting was never meant to be professional. The hallway light catches his eyes and turns them sharp and reflective like a wolf caught mid-hunt beneath moonlight.
For a split second, I can’t see past him. Then my vision adjusts, and the detail that shouldn’t be possible slams into me.
His office is empty.
There are no chairs pushed back, no figures lingering in the corners. No sign of the two men whose voices I heard just moments ago.
It’s as if they never existed at all.
A chill slides down my spine.
Where did they go?
Sasha’s gaze flicks over me, taking in my slippered feet and clenched hands, the way my shoulders are set like I’m bracing for the impact of whatever wrath he’s going to throw my way.
“Eavesdropping,” he finally murmurs.
The word isn’t accusatory. Honestly, it isn’t even angry.
It’s certain.
