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“Since you fucked with my original plan!” Alexei’s control shatters, revealing the fury beneath. “What were you thinking, Lev?”

The question lands like a slap, and I rear backward.

“You were sent in to gather intelligence. To assess their operation. To determine if they posed a threat.” Alexei rises and paces to the window and back, his movements tight with controlled anger. “Not to get attached to their fixer.”

My throat tightens. “I didn’t⁠—”

“Don’t,” he snaps. “Whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve felt, whatever you’ve told yourself was happening, it ends now.”

I open my mouth to respond, but he holds up a hand.

“This is your chance to prove that whatever personal investment you have developed in the target has not compromised your judgment.”

“I’m not compromised⁠—”

“Mikhail has been building a case,” he snaps. “Do you have any idea what I had to concede to give you this second chance rather than pulling you from the mission and sending you to the northern estate?”

The blood drains from my face. The northern estate is where family members are sent to be forgotten, a quiet execution of a different sort.

My hands curl into fists. “Do you actually believe the anonymous message? Or are you simply unable to ignore it?”

The question hangs between us, a direct challenge to his judgment as head of the family.

For a moment, I think he might answer. But when he turns back, whatever hesitation existed is gone. “I cannot afford to oppose Mikhail right now. Not when he is already positioning to prove I am unfit to lead. Any sign of weakness or divided loyalty will be weaponized.”

The admission hits harder than his anger. This was never about strategy or even survival. It was always about politics.

I flatten my palms on the table. “This is a mistake. The Blue Note operates on a code. This move will unleash chaos we can’t control.”

Alexei cuts me off with a gesture. “The family has no reason to trust them. Nothing short of swearing their loyalty will change their mind.”

For a long moment, he searches for the answer he wants, but I’m not sure I can provide it anymore.

“Get your head straight,” he says, his command absolute. “Remember where your loyalties lie. With the Vartanian family. Always.”

Alexei straightens his jacket with a jerk and walks out without a backward look. And when the door closes with a soft click, the sound is more final than if he had slammed it behind him.

21

Iremain where I stand after Alexei leaves, poring over the prints from the folder.

The ventilation system kicks on with a sigh, circulating the air but doing nothing to ease the tight band of sweat around my ribs. My hands move as if they belong to someone else while I gather the pages, stacking them into a neat pile before closing the folder.

I trace the pattern of the wood grain on the table. This compound is in my bones. Faint gun oil taints the air from the east wing range, the cold marble of the north corridor where I memorized our family history, the significance of this very chamber where I watched Alexei take his seat as head of the family.

My entire life, I’ve measured my worth by these walls, believing their judgment was my own.

But now compliance means destroying people who welcomed me into their midst and treated me with friendship. Compliance means committing myself to harming them through my own hands. Worse than standing by and letting something evil happen, I would be an active participant.

Refusal means confirming every suspicion Mikhail has raised and exposing myself as compromised, inviting an exile designed to ensure that my knowledge of the family remains contained.

The Blue Note and my place in the family cannot coexist. One path requires the other’s destruction.

I tuck the folder into a deep pocket inside my jacket, one designed for this purpose. Protocol says to memorize its contents and leave it here to be burned, but I can’t focus past the hole opening in my chest. The chair cools my palms as I push it back in.

I’ve never had, nor will I ever have, a place at this table. It never mattered before, though, as long as I had Alexei. But now my actions have cost me that as well.

I think of all the Omegas who work for the Blue Note Crew, and how they measure value in more than a body offered up for information.