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The warning carries a current of concern that might also be manipulation.

“I understand.”

He turns to go, but pauses at the door. “I’m having dinner with the council tomorrow night. I hope you’ll both join us. We can discuss next steps.”

It’s not a request.

Alexei inclines his head. “We’ll be there.”

After Mikhail leaves, Alexei crosses to the door and closes it with a soft, definitive click. The sound seems to echo in the suddenly quieter room.

“He didn’t knock,” I say, angered on Alexei’s behalf at the disrespect.

“No,” Alexei murmurs. “He did not.”

He strides to the sideboard along the far wall and pours two fingers of whiskey into a crystal tumbler, amber catching in the lamplight. He doesn’t offer me one, which means he expects me to leave soon.

“I don’t trust it,” he says, his back to me as snow swirls beyond the window in the glow of the security lights. “The message, the timing, the delivery… It feels staged.”

“Yes.” I glare at the offensive piece of redacted trash. “Mikhail is using it to try to force your hand.”

Uncle Mikhail hadn’t liked my brother’s decision to investigate the Blue Note crew instead of wiping them out when they came into possession of important financial documentation that our family would rather have stayed hidden.

The leak had come from a third party under one of Mikhail’s money laundering businesses, and he had pushed to clean up the mess completely.

To him, Alexei’s caution is weakness. He never approved when my brother took over the family business after our parents’ untimely demise. But Alexei was next in line, not our uncle, however much he wishes it were different.

“I’m aware of our uncle’s schemes. But I can’t afford to dismiss the information, either.” He turns, glass in hand, his expression grave. “Not with the internal breach from months prior still unresolved. The family is unsettled.”

Mikhail’s appearance served a dual purpose. He delivered the document while also demonstrating that he has information Alexei doesn’t, showing the family council that power exists outside the inherited line.

“I’ll be careful,” I say.

Alexei takes a sip of his whiskey before he sets the glass down on the desk with a soft clink. “You’re the only person I would send into this, Lev. You’re the only one I trust to read the situation right.”

For eight years, since my brother came into power, I’ve used the way the Alphas in the family overlook me, an Omega, to be his eyes and ears. Our loyalty goes beyond blood, forged in the ashes of a funeral pyre.

He has me, and I have him. There is no one else.

I straighten, meeting him with equal directness. “I’ll confirm the threat or the absence of one. I will not take our family to war to cover for our uncle’s mistakes.”

Alexei dismisses me with a flick of his hand, and I head back through the house toward the front door.

Snow swirls through the night when I push outside, cold air stinging my skin after the heavy warmth indoors. My breath fogs white as I walk toward my idling car, heat already spilling through the vents.

The valet inclines his head as I approach, opening the door for me.

I slide behind the wheel, letting my body relax into the soft leather. And as I drive away from the compound, the gates sliding shut behind us, I let Lee settle over me once more.

Tomorrow, I’ll go back to the Blue Note. It won’t be Thursday, but Orien needs to learn he won’t be the one dictating when I come and go from the lounge.

I can talk to other people there to assess if a threat exists, or if the document Mikhail brought is pure manipulation.

And if Orien is there, his attention lingering on me the way it did before… Well. Occupational hazard.

Nothing more complicated than that.

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