Page 29 of His Contract Queen

That position is reserved for Kuznetsov.

“I’m surprised you’ve had the time to invest in knowing the guests coming and going from my home,” I say after a minute.

His brow twitches.

It’s subtle. So subtle that most men in this room would miss it entirely if they weren’t staring at him the way I am. It follows with a fractional tightening at the edge of his eye and a minute shift in the angle of his head. I’ve spent too many years sitting across tables from him not to notice the hairline fractures cracking through the apathy.

Interesting.

Have I unexpectedly hit a nerve?

It’s always been difficult to read him. Malyshko conducts himself like a man who has already calculated every possible ending before the first word of a conversation has even been spoken. There is no scrambling with him, only carefully measured responses delivered in that low, almost soothing tone that makes most men lean closer without realizing they’re being drawn toward the edge of a blade.

It lulls opponents into believing they’re being granted grace when in reality he’s simply deciding whether the execution will be quick or excruciating.

His father wielded authority in a similar fashion. However, the one stark difference between them is that the old man could never keep the rage contained. It erupted without warning at Pact meetings as shouted accusations and crystal tumblers shattered against marble floors. I still remember the metallic scent of blood after one particularly disastrous vote had quickly shifted into a brawl between us.

Nikolai Malyshko had learned from that spectacle. Instead, his displeasure comes in colder forms. Not once in the three years since he took the throne have I seen him truly angry.

Until that twitch.

It’s gone almost as soon as it appears, smoothed away by the same immaculate composure he wears like tailored armor. His expression resets into an expression that looks almost amused. But I know what I saw. If I’ve unsettled him, then this isn’t simply a passing interest he’s decided to indulge in by scrutinizing what I’m doing outside of these meetings.

If he knows about Katerina before I’ve uttered her name within Pact walls, then eyes have been on my estate far longer than I realized.

“It isn’t so much as me investing interests in your guests. It’s about reminding you all not to indulge in certainattachments,” he says evenly.

Then, deliberately, he shifts his eyes to Sokolov.

Months ago, he crossed a line Malyshko has still not forgotten. He took a woman under his “protection” after an attack at her university nearly killed her. What started as calculated captivity became… something else, apparently. He didn’t keep her at arm’s length like he was supposed to. He didn’t treat her like the pawn she was given to him as by her father. He let her get close and allowed himself to fall for her.

At the next Pact meeting, he was given a choice—kill her to rid himself of the attachment or forfeit his loyalties to us and declare himself our enemy.

There was no third option offered.

The matter should have ended there. Alina showing up on Malyshko’s doorstep days later to forfeit her own life in exchange for Sokolov’s had tipped the balance indefinitely. Whatever happened between the three of them still remains a mystery to me. But one thing had been made abundantly clear after that incident. While she still remains alive to this day with Malyshko’s blessing, that debt is still on his ledger and will most likely never be erased.

That single glance is all it takes to remind every man in this room that mistakes like that will always be remembered regardless of how much time has passed. The implication is unmistakable.Do not follow in his footsteps.

His attention snaps back to me, those ice-gray eyes cutting straight through the dim light of the room. “All that does is compromise stability. As we’ve all come to know.”

For the first time in years, maybe ever, I don’t push back. No easy smile, no dry remark to deflect the pressure or arrogant tiltof the head that portrays that I’m untouchable. I simply incline my head with the smallest gesture of acknowledgment.

“My personal affairs won’t interfere with the Pact. You have my word,” I say evenly.

The promise tastes wrong in my mouth. Not because it’s a lie, though part of it is. It isn’t that I have no intention of keeping my word. It’s because it’s a compromise. I am giving up groundvoluntarilyto a man who has never once given me an inch without exacting something else in return.

He studies me. Whatever he finds in my face, whatever he reads in the careful blankness I’ve forced to settle on my face, it clearly doesn’t satisfy him. But it also doesn’t condemn me, either.

Not yet, at least.

He exhales slowly, a small, controlled sound. “If there is nothing further to discuss, you are all dismissed.”

No one argues against the decision.

I rise with the rest of them, though I can still feel the weight of his earlier words pressing against the back of my neck as we leave. The hallway outside the chamber is vast and echoing, designed to dwarf the men who walk through it. Our footsteps carry in a steady rhythm along the marble, the sound swallowed and returned in soft repetition by the vaulted ceiling above.

Sokolov walks on my left, Kuznetsov on my right.