Chapter 29 Nikolaj
Nikolaj
The ballroom tastes like decay beneath its sugar.
Every laugh feels a little too forced, every mask a little too smug.
The chandeliers burn too bright overhead, gilding everyone in gold like it can hide what we all really are.
Predators. Liars. Legacies dressed up in civility.
This charity gala is nothing more than a stage, and tonight, I’m wearing the skin of a devil who knows exactly where to slit the curtain.
Matthias is saying something beside me, something soft and charming and probably rehearsed.
I’m not really listening. Haven’t been since I stepped into this glittering tomb and felt it—him.
The shift in the air that tells me he’s already watching.
Already wrapped around my fucking throat without touching me.
I could find Vincenzo in a blackout. I could find him in hell. That’s the kind of curse he’s become. The awareness settles into my spine like a second heartbeat, steady and insistent.
I keep smiling at whatever bullshit Matthias is saying, nodding like I’m listening, like my body isn’t thrumming with the need to see him. Because that’s the game—pretend indifference, pretend I don’t feel his presence clawing under my skin.
But I do. Every inch of me does.
When I finally turn—when I let myself turn—I meet his stare, and everything stops. God, he’s still so fucking exquisite in his restraint.
Vincenzo Vieri stands across the ballroom like the room belongs to him, like it always has.
The black velvet of his suit drinks in the light, his gloved fingers circling a champagne flute like he’s holding a secret he’ll never tell.
He’s too composed, too beautiful, too dangerous for it to be fair.
Elena hovers beside him, poised and silent, but even she fades in his shadow.
Our eyes lock, and for one long, brutal second, I forget how to breathe.
The music keeps playing, but it’s distant—strings drowned under the hammer of my pulse.
The crowd blurs, every voice reduced to a dull hum.
It’s just him; standing there with his chin lifted like he’s daring me to move first, daring me to break first. His jaw tightens.
His gloved fingers curl around the glass stem as if he’s picturing my throat instead.
That’s when I realize—he’s not just watching me.
He’s daring me. Daring me to make a move.
Daring me to remind him how it felt to lose control.
It hurts to look at him.
So I don’t look away, even when I feel the weight of another whisper sliding into my pocket.
It comes from a Bratva runner. He brushes past me like a waiter. The note is folded tight, small enough to fit behind a coin. I open it with one hand, eyes still on Vincenzo.
Something slipped into the Vieri table service. Not traceable.
The moment I read it, the whole night tilts.
It’s not the surprise that hits me, it’s the clarity.
The moment when I realize I could let it happen.
Could stand here, watch it unfold. Watch him lift that crystal flute to his lips and drink it all.
Watch the blood drain from his perfect fucking mouth.
Watch the gasp. The stagger. The ruin. I could end it tonight.
Be the one who stood still while the prince of the East Wing crumpled like a ruined god.
No knives and no bullets. It would be clean—but clean isn’t how I’ll earn my stars.
I cross the room in measured steps, cutting through gowns, masks, and golden heir bullshit. I don’t rush and I don’t panic. I move with purpose—just fast enough. The moment I reach him, he’s lifting the glass, about to drink, and still watching me.
I slap it out of his hand, and the crystal shatters against the floor in a burst of champagne and glass. The whole corner of the ballroom freezes. Conversations die mid-word. Music stutters. Elena’s eyes widen for half a breath before narrowing with cold calculation. But Vincenzo doesn’t flinch.
Not when the drink hits the floor. Not when the silence cracks wide open around us. He doesn’t say a word. Just looks at me with that same wild, thunderous heat I’ve only ever seen when he’s seconds away from kissing or killing me.
I step in closer, voice low, teeth bared. “Don’t drink that.”
His hand snaps forward before I can move again, fingers locking tight around my wrist. “You protect me now?” he asks, voice low.
I lean in until our foreheads almost touch. “No,” I growl. “If anyone gets to kill you, it’ll be me.” Then I walk away like that wasn’t the most dangerous decision I’ve ever made.
Fuck.
The balcony is colder than it should be.
The kind of cold that cuts, that sinks deep into bone.
The wind claws across the courtyard with teeth, carrying the echo of laughter and music from the gala inside.
I’ve discarded the jacket, loosened the tie, undone just enough of the armor to pretend I can breathe again.
The mask’s on the railing beside me. I’ve been out here alone for nearly an hour, staring into the dark, trying to convince myself that I did it for strategy.
That saving him wasn’t instinct. That I didn’t cross the room like gravity was pulling me straight into hell.
The door opens behind me, the faint clink of glass swallowed by the wind. I know it’s him before he speaks—the air changes when he’s near. It always has. It feels heavier, charged with that impossible pull between hate and hunger.
I close my eyes for a second. Stupid. I should’ve stayed inside. I should’ve let the distance hold.
He doesn’t say my name. He just walks until he’s close enough that I can feel the heat of him bleeding through the night air. Close enough that I know he sees the tremor in my hands.
“You should’ve let me die,” he says quietly.
I keep my back to him, pretending to be unaffected, pretending my pulse isn’t betraying me. “Didn’t feel like watching you fall on someone else’s terms.”
He huffs a humorless breath. “You mean someone else’s knife.”
“Glass,” I correct softly. “Laced with something undetectable. You wouldn’t have even felt the first few minutes.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then I turn to face him, noting that he’s furious, but it’s not the sharp, precise fury he shows others. This is messier and stripped bare. The kind of anger that comes from something deeper, something he doesn’t know how to kill without killing himself in the process.
“You made me seem weak in front of everyone tonight,” he says.
I scoff, though my throat feels raw. “I saved your life, Prince.”
“And you did it like it was an afterthought.”
I step forward, but he doesn’t move. “Because it was,” I lie. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it because no one else is allowed to take you from me.”
“You think that makes this better?”
I shrug. “I think it makes it true.”
His jaw tightens, and for a second, I think he’s going to hit me. I want him to. I need something violent to slice through the ache in my chest that won’t go away, regardless of how many heirs I sleep with or how many knives I bury.
Instead, he leans in, close enough that I feel the heat of him through the air.
“You’ve already won,” he says, and I swear I stop breathing. “You asked me to stop haunting you, but you possess me. I see you in my sleep, in the dark, in every mirror. I smell you on my sheets and taste you when I bite my own tongue to forget.”
The words feel like broken glass against the inside of my ribs.
I take a slow breath, grounding myself in the night air that still reeks faintly of roses and champagne.
Somewhere behind us, the gala continues, full of laughter, whispered deals, and the clink of wealth.
But out here—out here it’s just him. Just me. And the ghosts we can’t shake.
For one tense heartbeat, we just look at each other. No posturing, no titles, no crowns or daggers. I want to touch him. God, I want to touch him. To grab his face and make him stop talking, to feel his pulse and remind him what our kisses taste like when he stops fighting it.
Then he does what I can’t. He leans back, pulling away, severing whatever fragile thread was still holding us together.
“I wake up wanting to kill you for what you’ve done to me,” he whispers.
“But I’m not going to be your suicide. So, you’ve won, Nikolaj.
Sei la mia rovina. Now, get out of my head. ”
He turns, starts walking, and this time, I don’t stop him. I don’t chase. I don’t say the thing that’s sitting like poison in the back of my throat.
That I didn’t want to win.