“Why are you here, Nikolaj?” I say quietly.
His whole body reacts.
Not a flinch—he’s too disciplined for that, too brutal with himself, too well-trained in the art of not giving the world anything it can use. But the name strikes him anyway. I see the impact in the minute stillness that follows, in the way his pupils widen, and how his breath catches behind his teeth.
His knife remains at my throat, and his weight remains over my hips. But for one suspended second, he is not Pakhan, and I am not Capo dei Capi, and this room is not a hotel suite in Bucharest.
It is a memory trying to crawl out of him.
Everyone else shortened him—claimed pieces of him with familiarity they hadn’t earned. Niko, Kolya, and now, Pakhan—spoken with fear, calculation, and obedience.
But for me, it had always been Nikolaj. I liked the weight of it on my tongue because nothing about him deserved to be shortened. He was never easy enough for a nickname, or small enough for one. Even when he was twenty, vicious, and half-feralwith duty eating him from the inside, he was already too much to be softened by other people’s convenience.
The question snaps something back into him. Rage returns, fast and vicious, grateful for the chance to take shape. He leans down until his face is closer to mine, until the blade forces my chin up and his shadow fully covers me.
“That’s your question? I’m in your room with a knife to your throat, and you’re asking why I’m here as if I’ve interrupted your fucking bath.”
“You woke me from a very poor decision involving bourbon,” I say, letting my eyes flick toward the fallen bottle before returning to his face. “The bath would’ve been more dignified.”
His expression darkens. “You’re drunk.”
I shrug. “Less than I was.”
“That explains the stupidity.”
“No,” I say softly. “Unfortunately, where you’re concerned, the stupidity is mine while sober too.”
The dagger presses a little harder, and my heart beats too slowly for the violence of the moment. I look up at him, at the fury he’s wearing because confusion is intolerable and fear is unacceptable, at the man who came to me with a blade because asking plainly would’ve felt too much like kneeling.
He didn’t come here to kill me. If he had, I’d already be dead. He could have put the dagger through my throat while I was sleeping and let the guards find their King’s body cold in five-star sheets.
Instead, he woke me.
“What is it that you want from me exactly, Nikolaj?”
His right eye twitches. “I want answers,” he growls. “I want to know why every time I dream I hear your voice.”
The question guts me, but I hide it well on my face. A part of me knew this was coming. I saw the way my voice struck him, and how he tried to sit there with the whole room watching whilehe pretended nothing was amiss. I knew he’d come hunting for an answer.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, keeping my tone and expression calm, but he’s not having any of it.
“Bullshit,” he snarls.
“Nikolaj, I—”
He flinches again, making me shut up. “Stop saying my fucking name like that,” he bites out. “I asked you a fucking question.”
“And I heard it.”
“Then fucking answer it!”
I almost do. It takes everything in me not to just spill it all out. But then I remember how he looked at me when Arseniy told him he had texted me for help before calling his own blood.
“I’d never trust a Vieri.”
I loved him enough to let him go once. I don’t know if I have the strength to do it twice, but I can’t shove the past down his throat while he’s bleeding inside his skull every time memory stirs.
I won’t do that to him, not even if it destroys whatever remains of me. So, I give him less than he deserves.
