I turn to the window. I have to. If I keep looking at her, I’m going to lose my mind. I stare at the manicured grounds, but all I see is that rainy night in Moscow. The night I sent the guards away. The night I went down to that cell, lifted her trembling body into my arms, and carried her up the stairs to my bed. I thought I was breaking her. I thought I was winning.
Instead, I was creating the very thing that would eventually bring me to my knees.
I have a son.I have a son who is somewhere, right now, with dangerous men. I have a son who is being used as a pawn, and I’ve spent the last ten minutes taunting his mother while his life hangs by a thread.
The guilt is a sharp cold blade, but I shove it down. I don’t have time for guilt. I have time for war.
I pull my phone out. My fingers are steady, though my heart is trying to kick its way out of my chest. I pull up Mike’s contact.FIND THE BOY. NOW.I send it before she can see the screen. I pocket the phone, wipe the shock from my face like it’s dirt, and turn around.
“Here is what happens.” I cross my arms and look at her directly, leaning into the cold, familiar armor of my own authority. “You want the boy back. I’ll get him back. But nothing in my world comes without a price and yours is this.” I let it sit for one cold second. “You’ll marry me.”
The silence is enormous.
“What?” The word punches out of her. “What did you just?—”
“Marriage. You. Me. That’s the price.”
“He’s your son!” Her voice cracks on it. “You know he’s your son and you’re standing there telling me you’ll hold that over my head? You won’t just save him because he’s?—”
“I don’t know anything.” I keep my voice bored, deliberate. “I have the word of a woman who stole from me, ran from my bed in the middle of the night, and kept her mouth shut for five years. Forgive me if my first instinct isn’t to trust her.” I tilt my head, slow and cruel. “And while we’re on it, let’s discuss the sheer audacity of that. Five years. You had my son for five years and said nothing. Raised him alone and not once, not once did you think I had the right to know.”
“You were going to kill me!”
“And yet,” I say, spreading my hands to gesture at the opulence of the room, “here you stand. Breathing. Asking me for favors.”
She stares at me, her face a battlefield of fury and desperation. Her hands are white-knuckled fists at her sides.
“Why marriage?” Her voice drops, turning hard and cold. “You and I both know it’s not for love.”
I laugh. It comes out genuine. “Love.” I say the word like something I’ve found on the bottom of my shoe. “Love has never been in my vocabulary and even if it was, do you honestly think I would waste it on a woman like you?”
I walk toward her, closing the distance until I’m inches from her face. I want her to feel the heat of my anger. “You ran. Five yearsago, you were meant to die in my compound, and you escaped instead. That debt doesn’t evaporate because time passed. So you’ll marry me. You’ll live under my roof. You’ll sleep in my bed for the rest of your life.”
I lean down, looming over her. “Every morning, you’ll wake up next to the man you hate more than anything alive. The man who killed your father. That’s your punishment, Lena. That’s my revenge. I find it poetic.”
Her jaw is shaking. “You realize that gives me even better access to killing you.”
“If you ever actually dare.” I pull back, adjusting my cuff with bored precision. “I’ll respect you for it. Right before you die. And right before your son dies beside you, because nothing in my world ends cleanly.” I hold her gaze, letting the threat settle in her marrow. “So if you’re willing to gamble the boy’s life on your pride, be my guest.”
“You’re a monster,” she whispers.
“Yes,” I agree. It’s the only honest thing I’ve said all night.
My phone vibrates. Mike. One line.Warehouse. Khimki district. Sending coordinates.
There he is.I pocket the phone and look at her.
“Be a good girl and wait here.” I’m already moving toward the door. “I’m going to get our son.”
Mike meets me in the armory with Lyosha already suited up and Dmitri checking ammunition with the focused efficiency he applies to everything that isn’t women. I’m pulling on the tactical vest when Mike steps close and keeps his voice low. “Stay here. Let us bring him in. You don’t need to?—”
“No.”
“Razvan—”
“No.” I check the chamber on my Glock and holster it. “Whoever took my son doesn’t survive this night. I’m going.”
The silence behind me has weight.
