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Instead, I drive the extra twenty minutes to a five-story, red-brick building with narrow windows and an iron fire escape winding up the east side.

All the way here, one question repeated. Would he be here at this hour? Would I have the nerve to stay and wait if he wasn’t? But his dark sedan sits in his parking spot, and I drive through the lot until I find an unnumbered place to park.

I cut the engine and sit with the keys still in the ignition. The street is quiet around me, with only the soft hum of the laundromat’s dryers next door and the occasional car passing on the cross street.

Warning Orien will cost me everything I was raised to be. The family. The structure. My identity.

But Alexei’s plan asks me to use my own hands to destroy people who never wronged us, to harm innocents, and I cannot do it.

I can’t walk both paths anymore. The road forks here, and I have to choose.

My hand finds the door handle, and I push it open to step out into the night air. Snowflakes catch in my lashes and melt down my cheeks as I cross to the entrance, the crunch of my footsteps the only sound on the empty street.

Salt crunches beneath my shoes as I walk up the front steps and stop in front of the buzzer. A soft yellow light glows from within the panel, illuminating each apartment number in the darkness. I find 3C and jab it once.

It connects on the other end, and Orien’s voice crackles through the speaker. “Who is this?”

I lean closer. “It’s Lev— Lee. May I come up?”

A beat of silence follows before the door buzzes.

I slip through the entrance. The stairs are three flights of purgatory, each step a final choice. When I reach his door, my knock echoes on the wood, louder than I intend.

Footsteps approach from inside, unhurried, and my pulse jumps in response. The lock disengages with a soft click, and the door swings open.

Orien leans on the frame with one hand braced high, his body filling the doorway. The scent of soap and steam clings to him, his hair still damp from a shower.

He stands barefoot on the entryway tile in a thin black T-shirt that molds to his chest, and his sweatpants hang loose on his hips, drawing my attention to the hard V of muscle visible above the waistband before I can stop it.

He regards me with the same calm appraisal he’s worn since the night we met, with no flicker of surprise or questions about my sudden appearance.

His stillness is anticipatory rather than startled, as if he’s been waiting for me to arrive.

I take a deep breath. “I need to talk to you.”

Orien opens the door wider.

I meet his stare and step forward without waiting to be invited in. As I do, his pheromones wrap around me, and a knot of tension in my gut loosens.

He takes my jacket before I think to remove it, his movements economical. He hangs it by the door, letting any snow melt drip onto the tiles.

I unlace my shoes, the simple task feeling surreal, and set them aside.

Orien’s hand on my back urges me toward the kitchen, where he pulls two glasses from a cabinet and a bottle of whiskey sour from the fridge. He pours without asking.

I stare at my preferred drink, stunned that he remembered, then at him. “You’re not surprised I’m here.”

“No.” He sets the bottle down.

I follow the line of his jaw, the unhurried way he moves, searching for a clue to what he’s thinking. “Why were you expecting me?”

Orien studies me back, his eyes moving over my features as if committing them to memory. “What do you want, Levon?”

My breath catches. “How long have you known?”

“Long enough.” He places the glass in front of me. “That’s not why you’re here. What do you want, Levon?”

A humorless laugh escapes me. He’s right.