Page 73 of Beautiful Ruin

I explain the budding ambition within Ivan once Sofia was taken from Italy and placed back under his care. That the crux behind his silent anger during their meeting wasn’t because he felt misunderstood and undervalued, and that the truth is much more volatile than that.

I tell him about Ivan’s discussions in private with me. The desire not to bribe those already institutionalized but to build influence from earlier points of access. The belief that politicians are temporary but systems are not. The obsession with moving beyond backroom puppeteering and learning to inhabit the state itself.

Nikolai listens without interruption.

The only sign that the information disturbs him is the slight tightening of his jaw when I tell him about my concerns regarding the Pact’s approval and Ivan’s dismissal, regarding them as irrelevant in the near future once all is said and done.

His fingers remain steepled beneath his chin, both elbows resting on his knees as his posture continues to lean forward with each new unveiling. His gaze never once leaves my face.

When I finally finish speaking, the office falls completely silent.

Nikolai leans back slowly into his chair, exhaling through his nose as he processes everything. It is the first truly human movement he has made since I entered the room. Both hands find the armrests and slowly curl around them, long fingers tightening once as though he is physically bracing himself against what I’ve just laid at his feet.

Firelight moves over his face in slow gold flickers, pronouncing the angles of his face more than usual.

He is silent for a long time.

The longer it goes on, the more it digs at me. More viciously than questions would have. An interrogation, accusations, pointed fingers? All of it I can meet and parse and answer with cold efficiency. Sitting across from the leader of the Iron Pact with every secret I’ve ever kept for my Pakhan laid at his feet nearly unravels me.

My hands rest on my knees as I wait. Inside, every part of me is taut enough to snap. I can feel my own pulse in my teeth as Ivan’s name moves like poison through my bloodstream. I can feel Sofia too, impossibly and irrationally there in the back of my mind as though some part of me is still linked to her physically even from across the city.

“Well,” Nikolai says quietly, “that is certainly not at all what I was expecting when I put a tail on your Pakhan.”

I nod once. The movement feels mechanical.

I want the drink on the table that I refuse to touch out of some polite courtesy. I want a gun in my hand or aimed at my head and Ivan’s voice out of my mind. I want to go back to three months ago and stop myself from ever letting Sofia into the parts of me I never knew were alive, to save us from the pain of what our shared future will bring.

I want impossible things I can never have.

“You realize what will happen now,” he says.

I force myself not to swallow around the lump in my throat.

It is not fear exactly that chokes me. It is grief for a future I dread living in. It isn’t lost on me where this conversation is headed. Nikolai has never been one to make a solution more complicated than it needs to be.

A resigned, “I do,” leaves me.

“And you understand what it means for you.”

“Yes,” I say quietly.

That is the answer to the question he is refusing to ask me outright, and we both know it.

He studies me for a long moment, no doubt weighing whether or not I actually do understand. I am still Ivan’s creation in many ways, after all, a weapon forged by the Kuznetsov Pakhan himself. My instincts are his, my violent tendencies honed under his hand to never once be turned against him.

Until I am now forced to do so for the greater good.

Finally, Nikolai nods once. Whatever he sees on my face satisfies him enough to continue. “Ivan cannot be allowed to enact this plan. The only man who can stop him is the one he trusts enough to let close.” His eyes lock onto me. “You.”

The meaning behind the word is unmistakable now. The simplicity of it makes me hate him for a second before I remember Nikolai’s own origins. Distantly, I wonder if he ever felt this premature mourning like I do now before slaying his own father. And if so, how long before? Days, weeks, months? Years, maybe?

Have the grief and guilt ever eased? Has it faded?

I’m tempted to ask, but something tells me I won’t like the answer.

The boy inside me is wailing now in agony.

If Ivan Kuznetsov is to fall, it will be by his own blade’s hand.