Chapter 4 Nikolaj
Nikolaj
Vincenzo Vieri lowers his blade as if it aches him—like mercy is a wound he’s never learned to bandage. Not a physical thing, but an ache in the marrow of his pride. I see it, of course.
If Kassov hadn’t slammed his cane when he did, one of us would be a puddle on the floor, and the other would be savoring the taste of it like dessert.
I wouldn’t need stitches. I’d let him carve into me just to watch that perfect, clean-cut composure crack.
Just to watch that mask of Vieri control fracture under the weight of consequence.
I’d bleed just to taste the regret that would bloom behind his eyes when he realized that not everything bends for a crown.
Because that’s what he is—everything polished until the shine becomes arrogance.
Vieri perfection: the jaw, the posture, the pedigree so neat it reeks of a dry-cleaner and a history book.
Built for thrones and photo-ops, made for bloodlines and every old-money curse that drips down from a family tree that’s less “lineage” and more “mass grave.”
But underneath it, he’s fragile, and not in a way that breaks clean. No, Vincenzo Vieri is the kind of fragile that shatters—violent and beautiful in the worst way when you push him to it.
Which is why I won’t stop. I’ll press every fucking button every time until he cracks and shows me what he really is.
I return to my seat and sit down as if nothing happened. Chair creaking beneath me, I slip the blade back into my boot. Kai gives me a slow look, not warning, just recognition. Maksim grins like this is his favorite show, and I just gave him a front row seat.
Kassov starts pacing again, muttering something about weak heirs being turned into myths and real kings never needing to raise their voices.
His limp is more pronounced now, like the tension has affected his old bones.
His hands are clasped behind his back, and he walks in slow arcs, eyes flicking between students like he’s deciding who dies first in a hypothetical purge.
“Assassination is not about strength,” he says, cane tapping with every step. “It is about timing. Calculation. Influence. You remove a man from power, not by force, but by removing his purpose. You dismantle his legacy. Strip his name. Kill the idea of him, long before you kill the man.”
His eyes land on me. “Mr. Dragovich. How would you eliminate Mr. Vieri if you were assigned to do so?”
The entire room goes silent, broken only by Maksim’s low whistle. Vincenzo turns his head toward me; his eyes are darker than usual. I’ve noticed that it’s his tell—most people clench fists or grit teeth. He darkens as if something in him burns lower, hotter, and quieter.
I lean back in my chair, stretch my arms out behind my head, and pretend to think about it like I haven’t already mapped it out in detail three hundred times since I got the folder.
“Well,” I start, my voice casual. “First, I’d isolate him.”
Kassov nods once. “Elaborate.”
“He’s surrounded by loyalists. Friends with family names, professors paid to look the other way.
You don’t kill a man like Vieri by rushing through the front door.
You go after the hinges. One by one. Cut the supports out from under him.
Leak whispers. Forge betrayals. Break the chain of loyalty until he’s alone on his throne, and even the crown feels like a weight. ”
“And then?”
I look at him. Still watching me. Still frozen in that immaculate fury, he thinks no one can see.
“Then I’d use someone he trusts,” I say, staring straight into his eyes. “Someone close enough to whisper doubt. Make him question his blood, his name, and his grip. I’d make him look over his shoulder every time he took a step toward his father’s throne.”
“And the final move?” Kassov asks, tone clinical.
I smile slowly, sweet and cold. “I’d make him beg.”
A ripple goes through the room, but Vincenzo doesn’t flinch; he only blinks once, and his hand tightens around the edge of the table. A twitch. A fracture.
Kassov turns. “Mr. Vieri. Response?”
Vincenzo’s voice is made of ice. “I’d see him coming.”
“You didn’t today,” I murmur.
His eyes snap back to mine, and this time the heat there could burn. I can almost taste the restraint in him, and it makes something hungry in me curl tighter.
“You think too highly of your own legend,” he says, tone low but cutting. “You believe chaos is clever. That unpredictability is strategy, but it isn’t. It’s desperation, and the move of a man with no actual plan—just teeth and noise.”
“That why you flinched when I said I’d make you beg?”
“I didn’t flinch.”
“You twitched, Vincenzo.”
He doesn’t respond, but his jaw locks tight enough that I hear it from across the table. He hates that I use his name like it’s mine to throw around. Good. I’ll say it again and again until it becomes a weapon.
Kassov clears his throat, his expression amused rather than annoyed.
“The rest of you should take notes. This—” he gestures between us, “—this is what legacy warfare looks like. Dissection. Personal. Surgical. This isn’t about bullets in a hallway.
This is about obliterating who someone is before you put them in the ground. ”
He moves on, launching into a lecture on the Romanovs and the methodical psychological dismantling of Nicholas II’s court before the execution. But I barely hear it. My focus is still across the table, on the heir with his hands clenched like they’re tied to a trigger.
He’s sitting still, but every inch of him is taut with fury, controlled cell by cell, almost as if he’s rebuilding himself on the spot just to keep from snapping.
It’s beautiful. I want it to build, and to feel it when it finally breaks.
At the end of the lesson, Kassov dismisses us with a casual threat about next week’s simulation. Something about political blackmail, seduction, and corpse disposal. Most of the class files out without a word, but I take my time standing.
So does he.
We’re the last ones to move. Like we’re waiting for an excuse to finish what we started.
“You think it’s funny?” he asks, voice quieter now, more dangerous. “Mocking dynasties you’ll never belong to. Picking fights with men whose bloodlines built the ground you walk on?”
I step closer, close enough that we’re almost shoulder to shoulder. I tilt my head toward him and smile like I’m about to kiss him, but my voice is laced with poison.
“I don’t need to understand your bloodline to know what you really are, Vincenzo. You’re not power, you’re performance. You wear your last name like armor, but underneath it, you’re scared. Because you know if someone stripped it away, you’d be no one. Just a man with a silver spoon and no teeth.”
He exhales slowly, almost like a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “And you’re just a mutt gnawing at the gates, desperate to matter. A knife with no hand to wield it. A shadow cast by better men.”
“Funny,” I say, smirking. “Because lately, all your shadows look a lot like me.”
He says nothing as he walks out, but I know the war didn’t start at that table. It started when he looked at me like he recognized the danger before it even spoke.
And it won’t end until one of us is wearing the other’s blood like a crown.