The anger flares again, but now it’s threaded with something else — fear, because I can see how this ends if I make one wrong move.
“Alright,” I say, exhaling slowly. Mason shifts carefully on the bed, his ribs clearly complaining, and I hate it all over again.
I gesture at him with my chin. “If you need me—”
“I know,” he says immediately. “I know you will. That’s why I’m telling you not to. Because I know you’ll do something stupid.”
I don't answer. I just nod, because what else can I do?
FOURTEEN
ARSENY
Niko is already halfway through a report when I step inside his office. “Door,” he says absently, not looking up from his paperwork. I close it behind me and wait for him to look up. He finishes what he’s writing, caps the pen, and sets it down with deliberate care. Then he looks at me properly. “The leave went through,” he says. “Five days. I had to move some things. You’ll need to hand some things off while you’re away. Maybe Petrov can cover.”
“Okay, good.” He waits for me to leave, but I don’t, I've put this conversation off long enough. Now is the time to be honest.
“What?” he asks, his eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion.
I sit, but I don’t relax into the chair. “It’s not just a trip,” I say. He exhales faintly, like he already knew that. “At the cabin,” I continue, choosing each word carefully before it leaves my mouth, “we decided.” That gets his full attention.
“Decided what?”
“That we’re not temporary.”
He studies my expression for a few seconds. “I didn’t think you were.” He leans back in his chair slowly, the wood creaking under his weight. “How far have you thought this through?”
“All the way.”
His jaw tightens slightly at that. “All the way,” he repeats. He’s not angry, he doesn’t even seem surprised. “Then be clear with me. You’re talking about leaving?”
“I won’t stay here forever,” I say evenly. “And when I go, it will be properly.”
He studies me again, his gaze flicking over my face slower this time, as if he’s trying to find the fracture point. “You built your life around this,” he says quietly. I don’t answer, because he isn’t wrong. “Leaving isn’t just paperwork and a handshake. It’s being on the outside. It’s losing the thing that keeps you straight.”
I know what he means. The structure. The clarity. The rules. I’ve lived inside them so long I can feel them even when I’m alone. I realise that this conversation matters more than either of us is willing to admit outright. “He’s not a rebellion,” I say. “This isn’t a reaction.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You’re implying it.”
“I’m trying to understand how you dismantle your entire life without thinking.”
“I am thinking, I've done nothing but think about this since he left the first time,” I say quietly. “I’ve measured it.” I continue, “Every angle. Every risk. It doesn’t work long-term, not here.”
“And you’re willing to walk away from all of it?”
“For him, yes.”
He leans back again slowly. “And if it surfaces before you’re ready?”
“It won’t.”
His jaw tightens. “It doesn’t just effect you if this goes wrong.”
“I know.”
“It’s Cassie, Vladimir, me—”
