The guards move immediately, dragging the consequences of this room out with them. The door opens, thenshuts again, and for a moment, the silence that follows feels heavier than anything that came before it.
I turn away as they clean up what’s left of the space. I don’t watch. I don’t need to.
The weight of the war hangs in the room like something physical now—pressing, unavoidable, absolute. There’s no pretending this is contained anymore. No illusion of control that still holds.
I turn slightly toward my brothers. My voice drops lower.
“This isn’t isolated anymore,” I say quietly.
Lukyan meets my gaze. He understands immediately what I mean. No questions needed.
Mike exhales slowly, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “No,” he agrees. “It’s not.”
I look at both of them for a moment.
The room feels different now. Not just because of what just happened—but because of what it confirms. Everything we’ve been tracking, every move Anton has made, every infiltration, every warning…it wasn’t noise. It was preparation.
I speak again, quieter this time.
“Anton Petrov has declared war on the Rusnaks. This isn’t the first time, but let’s tell the others and make it the last. This time, let’s end this before he takes away the most important thing in my life.”
Chapter 21 – Valeria
Elena’s involvement in my poisoning hardened something inside me, and since her death a few days ago, I’ve stopped allowing myself to look at things the same way.
I don’t know what else Anton has sent after me.
And I’m not going to wait around to find out.
The Rusnak estate changes after that. Not visibly at first, but I’m the silence. In the constant movement of people who are no longer pretending that this is just a security protocol.
It becomes a war room.
No softness left in the corridors. No casual pacing. No idle conversations that don’t mean something. Every step has purpose now. Every door that opens feels like it leads to information.
And I’m always there.
Beside Timofey.
In his office most of the time.
Surrounded by maps spread across tables, surveillance feeds paused on multiple screens, intelligence reports stacked in uneven piles that no longer feel overwhelming—just necessary.
At first, I don’t understand most of it. The routes. The names. The coded references to networks I’ve only heard fragments of in passing. But I learn quickly because I have to. Because I refuse to be the person sitting on the sidelines while my life is being moved like a piece on a board.
Timofey doesn’t stop me from being here. He doesn’t send me away. He doesn’t soften anything either. He just lets me sit beside him while he works, occasionally sliding a document toward me or pointing something out without breaking his focus.
We’re no longer reacting to attacks.
We’re planning how to end them.
Right now, I’m sitting across from him at his desk, relaxed in a way I wouldn’t have been weeks ago, studying several maps of the city spread between us. Marked routes. Highlighted zones. Red lines cutting through familiar streets like warnings.
He’s across from me, eyes fixed on his screen, one hand tapping lightly against his chin as he thinks. The other hovers near the keyboard but doesn’t move. Not yet. Like he’s waiting for something to click into place before he acts on it.
Despite everything—despite Anton, despite Elena, despite the war tightening around us—the atmosphere between us isn’t tense. It’s calm. Relaxing. Almost playful.
I notice it when he leans slightly closer to see a detail on one of the maps and doesn’t immediately pull away.
