My phone has been in my hand for so long that the edges have pressed marks into my palm. I have checked the screen so often that if Vincenzo doesn’t call soon, the fucking thing may light itself on fire out of pity.
“He said two hours,” I mutter, shoving the phone into my pocket.
Kai looks up at last. “He said it might take two hours.”
“He said two.”
“He said might.”
“I heard what I heard.”
Maksim makes the mistake of saying, “You heard what your panic decided was more convenient.”
I turn my head slowly, and he lifts both hands, knife still pinched between two fingers. “Withdrawn.”
“Good choice,” Kai says.
I stop near the window and stare out at the street below. Everything looks too normal from up here.
The last message from Vincenzo was still short and irritatingly composed.
My King: Going in. Stay put. I mean it, Nikolaj.
I hated that message when it came in. I hate it more now.Stay put.Like I’m a dog. Like I’m not the man who would put a bullet through the sun if it looked at him wrong. Like I haven’t spent months learning how not to grip so tightly that I crush what I love.
He knows what those two words do to me. He wrote them anyway because he also knows I’ll obey him if the ask is tied to strategy and survival.
The phone rings, and the room cuts silent so fast it feels like someone put a blade through the air.
I pull it out before the first ring finishes.
Vincenzo’s name glows on the screen, and my hand closes around the phone hard enough that the case creaks.
I answer and press it to my ear, already walking away from the others because my body has decided privacy exists even whenthe room is full of people who would die before using what they hear.
“Tell me you’re alive,” I say.
There’s half a second of breath on the other end. Then Vincenzo’s voice comes through, low and tired and so beautifully steady that something in my chest loosens for the first time in two hours.
“I’m alive,” Vincenzo says.
I shut my eyes for one second. “Good. I was five minutes from becoming a diplomatic incident.”
Vincenzo exhales something that might almost be a laugh. “You are always five minutes from becoming a diplomatic incident.”
“Don’t flirt with me when I’m pissed off.”
“I would never.”
“Liar,” I say.
There’s a pause. A shift. Papers maybe. Footsteps. His voice returns sharper, business sliding back over whatever small softness he allowed himself for that first breath.
“Byrne and Reyes are finished,” Vincenzo says.
Every muscle in me stills. “Define finished.”
“Exiled,” Vincenzo says. “Marked by me. Their assets inside my jurisdictions are frozen pending seizure. Byrne argued until she realized King was not taking her side. Reyes tried to be clever, which was unfortunate for him.”
