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“Transmit that to Kenji right now,” I order, my voice freezing cold. “You put surveillance on Ilya. You kill whoever looks at him wrong. You keep Vladimir and his bastard brother occupied and away from him. If anyone takes one step into Ilya’s room while I am in this cage, I will slaughter everyone involved in this operation.”

I twist his collar tighter, lifting his boots two inches off the wet floor.

“If there is one new mark on Ilya by the time I get out of here, I will ruin everyone with the last name Kazuma. Do you understand me?”

Hideo stares into my face.

He’s seen me beaten to a pulp. He’s seen me survive four days without water in subzero isolation. I’m aware this is a necessity. Kenji himself went through it before he took over, but the timing is fucking terrible.

He taps the comms unit on his shoulder with one gloved finger.

“Relay to the master,” Hideo says into the mic, his breath coming in tight gasps against my forearm. “Kento’s terms are delivered. Put two shadow units on the Solovyov heir. Secure the perimeter around the boy immediately.”

I let go of his collar.

Hideo hits the floor on one knee, wiping blood from his split lip.

I step back and feel my body go numb.

I wish I could turn into dust and let the wind carry every little piece of me to wherever Ilya is right now. I wouldn’t even care where I ended up, as long as it was somewhere near him.

It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? To miss someone so terribly that even being a speck of dust beside them sounds better than being a whole person without them.

Ilya

He really left.

I should be angry. I am angry. But anger is becoming difficult to distinguish from missing him when both seem to occupy the same diseased little cavity beneath my ribs. I check my phone compulsively, despising myself every time the screen lights and my heart immediately thinks him. It is never him.

A lot has happened in the meantime. Marco nearly died. Anton has been strangely absent. So has my father. Apparently someone is causing serious trouble for the family business, which, again, I am not included in.

I turn the corner near the main hall and spot Rei standing by the lockers, scrolling through his phone with one hand while the other holds a protein bar he’s clearly forgotten about.

I force a smile and walk over, injecting as much cheer into my voice as I can manage.

“Hiii, Rai!”

He looks up, one eyebrow already climbing toward his hairline. “Ilya.”

“What have you been doing lately?” I ask brightly, like I’m not dying inside. “Haven’t seen you around much. You good? You look good. New shirt? It’s nice. Very… blue.”

Rei stares at me, then he sighs. “You want to ask about Kento, don’t you?”

I laugh. “What? No. Why would I—”

“Ilya.”

I stop talking.

Rei pockets his phone and crosses his arms. “I know something is going on between you two,” he says quietly. “I don’t know what, exactly, but you’re not fooling me. So just ask.”

I swallow hard and try to keep my voice steady. “Do you know where he is?”

Rei’s face softens. “He texted me saying he was leaving the city for a while. Didn’t say where.”

The words enter and do their damage somewhere too deep to reach. I wanted this. Didn’t I? I spent months constructing an exit for him. Now he’s walking through the one I kept pointing at, and there is nothing triumphant about it. Congratulations to me, I suppose.

“Right,” I say, my voice coming out a little too flat. “Good. Fantastic, actually. The further away he is, the lower my chances of developing another stress-induced migraine.”