Chapter 34 Nikolaj
Nikolaj
I don’t say goodbye the next night I spend in his room.
That kind of word tastes too final, too fragile. Like something you’d whisper at the end of a war when both sides are too bloodied to reload. And we’re not done—not even close.
The sheets still smell like sex and the cigarette he smoked leaning half-naked against the balcony. I watched him standing there, deep in thought, like I might never get to again.
He didn’t ask me to stay. I didn’t ask him to stop me. And somehow, that’s worse. That quiet ache in the space between us, the one that says: we both know this won’t last, but god, we want it to.
The hallway outside his suite is silent.
Polished floors, antique wall sconces, cold morning air licking at my spine.
I move slowly; the weight of him still clinging to my skin.
I haven’t slept, but I’m too sated to care.
I’m not hungover, but I feel wrecked, head still swimming with the way he said my name.
My fingers twitch when I reach my door. It’s unlocked—that should be the first warning. The second is the silence.
My room is never quiet, not really. I leave the window cracked, let the wind rattle the frame, keep the music system playing some faint, looping playlist of dark instrumentals to drown out my thoughts. But the second I step inside, it’s like walking into a church before the sermon.
Arseniy doesn’t look up from where he sits in the armchair near my desk. His coat’s off, sleeves are rolled up, and his hair’s pulled back, which means I’m fucked because he never does that unless he’s working. One boot hooked over the opposite knee, and in his lap, he holds a knife.
The first one. The one I used at thirteen, hands shaking, heart pounding, when he told me to make a choice.
He finally looks up. “Took your time,” he says, voice flat.
I lick my lips slowly. “Didn’t know I was expected.”
“No,” he agrees. “You didn’t. That’s the problem.”
He stands, and I feel the shift in air pressure. Arseniy walks like a soldier, slow and certain. He doesn’t raise the knife, and doesn’t threaten me with it, but he doesn’t have to.
“What do you want?” I ask, not flinching when he stops in front of me. “I thought you were back in Moscow.”
He doesn’t answer with words; he just lifts my hand and presses the knife into my palm. It fits too well.
I stare down at it. Still sharp, still polished, still the exact shape of the monster he made me into. My fingers close around it before I can stop them.
“You remember what this is?” he asks quietly as he rolls down his sleeves. “Do you remember what you said when you used it the first time?”
My throat’s dry. “That I wasn’t scared.”
“No.” He shrugs off the black shirt, baring his scarred torso. “You said you wanted to make sure the world never forgot your name.”
My fingers stay curled around the knife. The weight of it isn’t heavy, but it drags anyway—through memory, through marrow, through that part of me I thought I’d buried after the reprogramming. The part Arseniy always knows how to dig up.
“I was thirteen,” I murmur. “You held my hand through it.”
“I did,” he says. “You needed guidance then.”
I raise my eyes to his. “And now?”
“Now you need reminding.”
He steps closer, close enough that I can see the seam of an old wound trailing across his collarbone, one I remember giving him. Back then, he made me cut him to prove I could follow orders. Now, he’s here to remind me what happens when I don’t.
“You were supposed to forget everything south of strategy. Everything that made you hesitate. I didn’t care how they did it, so long as it worked.”
I want to argue. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that I’ve done everything he asked, followed orders, taken the hits, swallowed the silence, played the loyal soldier.
But the moment I open my mouth, the memory floods back—the way Vincenzo’s mouth felt on mine.
The way I let him press me to the wall, let him whisper my name like a prayer, let him leave the kind of mark no blade ever could.
Arseniy sees it. He always sees it. He touches my chest lightly—two fingers above my heart. The same spot that flares when Vincenzo says my name.
“You still feel it, don’t you? Do you know how I know?” His voice drops into something crueler, something intimate. “Because you’re not the only Dragovich to lose his fucking mind over a Vieri.”
My head jerks up. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
His jaw tightens. “History repeats itself, Kolya. Our father had his weakness. Now you’ve got yours. And both of you picked the same goddamn family.”
He grips my jaw, and I let him, even though my hands twitch around the knife like I could gut him if I wanted. But I don’t because part of me still wants his approval. That’s the fucking disease I haven’t managed to carve out yet.
“The reprogramming didn’t work because you were already in love with him,” he says.
His voice is so calm, it makes my stomach twist. “You passed the physical evaluations. You said the right words. You held your tongue. But your body still answers to him. You don’t sleep.
You don’t eat. You don’t kill the way you used to. ”
“I still follow orders.”
“Then prove it,” he says, and his eyes flick to my chest again, then back to the blade in my hand. “Shirt off.”
My pulse stutters. “Why?”
“Because duty is not a fucking choice, Nikolaj,” he grits out, and the sound of him growling our family motto sends a cold shiver down my spine.
I don’t move, so he grabs me by the collar and tears the shirt down the middle.
The cotton rips like paper, and I just stand there, exposing the fresh marks across my collarbone.
His eyes land on them like targets, and I know, even without looking, that Vincenzo left them with his teeth. I didn’t stop him. I wanted them there.
Arseniy’s jaw ticks. “You think this is just about you,” he says, finally releasing me. “You think dragging the Vieri heir into your bed is just another way to win. But you’re not thinking like a Dragovich.”
“Arseniy—”
“You want to be a weapon? Then stop falling in love with your targets.”
His hand grips the back of my neck, and he shoves me down into the chair like I’m fifteen again and training under his eye, back when I still thought the pain was proof I was becoming something worthy.
He doesn’t give a speech. Doesn’t gloat. He just kneels beside me and angles the knife against my chest. “Left or right?” he asks.
I swallow. “Left.”
“Good,” he mutters. “That’s the side closest to your heart.”
I close my eyes, and then he carves.
The first slice sears through the numbness, then the second, then the third. I clench my teeth, not because it hurts—I can handle pain. I always have. It’s because he’s writing the Dragovich legacy into my fucking skin.
“Say it.”
I feel the blood slipping down my chest and grit out, “Duty is not a choice.”
Arseniy nods. “And what does that mean, Nikolaj?”
“It means we don’t belong to ourselves.”
His eyes flash. “And yet you keep giving yourself to him and forgot what it means to serve the family,” he says as he works. “You forgot who your blood belongs to, but I’m going to make sure you remember.”
I hiss through my teeth. “I haven’t betrayed the family.”
He hums. “No. You’ve just chosen to fuck the enemy’s heir and come back marked up like a slut too far gone to lie about it.”
My nostrils flare. The pain is white-hot and brutal, but I refuse to show it.
“I don’t care who he is to you,” he continues. “I don’t care how good he feels, or how soft he makes you. He is a weapon meant to destroy us. And if you’re too fucking stupid to see that—then I’ll carve it into your skin until you do.”
Another stroke. Deeper this time. “You do not belong to him.”
My hands fist in my lap.
“You do not bleed for him.”
He finishes the third letter, and I know what it spells before he speaks it.
“You bleed for us.”
There’s a pause. The air hangs heavy between us.
Then his voice lowers, like a whisper in my ear. “And if you ever make me come back here again for this reason, I’ll finish the sentence.”
He wipes the blade clean on my ruined shirt. I don’t move. I’m breathing hard, blood dripping hot down my chest, and I can feel the word branded into me like it’s being burned from the inside out.
долг – duty.
He stands, and for once, his voice isn’t cruel when he speaks again. “Don’t make me come back to finish it. This is your last warning, Kolya.”
My head lifts slowly. “Or what?”
He pauses, considering. “Then I make the choice for you.”
He doesn’t explain what that means. The Dragovich family doesn’t leave messes to rot—we cut out what we can’t control. I watch him slip his shirt back on and walk to the door. Before he leaves, he looks back at me, gaze sharp but distant.
“You’re my brother,” he says. “But don’t make me treat you like a threat.”
The door clicks shut behind him, and for a long time, I just sit there—knife in my hand, chest bleeding, mind screaming. I press a palm to the wound to feel it. To remind myself that it’s still real, that I’m still real, and that Vincenzo can never be.
The irony is sharp enough to cut me all over again.
I got what I wanted, didn’t I? Arseniy didn’t kill me.
He didn’t drag me back to Moscow. He didn’t strip my title or lock me in a cell.
He just reminded me, in the most permanent way possible, that love isn’t part of my bloodline.
Desire is not my inheritance. Legacy comes first. Legacy always comes first.
I lean forward, shakily bracing my elbows on my knees, and realize I’m not numb anymore; I’m burning.
And I don’t know who the fuck I’ll be once this fire eats me alive.