Chapter 35 Vincenzo
Vincenzo
The training field still pulses with heat—sweat and aggression thick in the air like smoke after a fire.
It reeks of bruised ambition and sharpened legacy.
Bodies have cleared, but the ghosts of violence remain, hovering just beneath the grit of sand and steel.
My shirt clings to my back, soaked through, every muscle strung tight.
I keep my jaw locked to keep from looking at him. And I fail. Over and over.
Nikolaj hasn’t said a word since drills began. That in itself isn’t strange—he stopped being loud—but this silence is hollow in a different way. Not that simmering rage he wears like a second skin. Not that icy calculation he wields like a blade. This is something else entirely.
Absence.
There’s something missing in him, and it’s not just the usual restraint.
He’s on the bench by the lockers, unlacing his boots, his eyes unfocused and his mouth drawn tight, and I know something’s wrong because Nikolaj Dragovich never looks this still. Even his rage has rhythm. But right now, he’s hunched slightly forward, hands slower than usual, as if moving hurts.
I make it two steps toward the exit before I change direction.
He doesn’t look up as I pass the lockers. Doesn’t register that I’ve doubled back until I grip his elbow and pull him up from the bench without warning. He startles, sharp and ready to fight, but his eyes soften when he sees it’s me. That softness should calm me. It doesn’t.
“You look like shit,” I mutter, keeping my voice low as I push open the supply closet near the back of the locker room and drag him inside before anyone can see.
“Fuck off, Vieri,” he snaps, but there’s no heat or bite in it, just weariness. He’s not wearing that shield today, and I hate how wrong it feels.
I shut the door with a soft click, turn, and push him back—not violently, but not gently either. I cage him in with both arms braced on either side of his head, close enough to feel the heat off his skin.
“Talk,” I say.
He exhales hard, gaze tilting to the wall over my shoulder. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re pale.”
“I’m tired.”
“You flinched when you twisted to block Karstov’s strike.”
“That’s called pain, genius,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Happens when you block a fist with your ribs.”
I move in closer, pressing my body lightly to his, my eyes locked on his face, reading every flicker. “You’re lying.”
His jaw flexes, and for a second, I see the mask slipping.
The calculation behind his lashes. He’s weighing whether he can lie again, whether I’ll believe him if he tilts his head just right and gives me that signature smirk.
But he doesn’t try; he doesn’t even reach for the charm. That scares me more than anything.
“You want me to distract you?” I ask, leaning in until my lips brush the corner of his mouth. “Would that help?”
He breathes out hard, jaw tightening again, but he doesn’t move away. If anything, he presses forward a fraction, seeking the warmth I’m offering even as he pretends that he doesn’t need it.
My hand slides to the back of his neck, and I press our mouths together in a kiss that tastes like a warning. He fists my shirt instantly, dragging me harder into him. His kiss is messy, brutal, soaked in everything he’s not saying. But then I press in just a little too hard, and he flinches.
I freeze. Mouth still on his. “What was that?”
“Nothing.” His voice cracks. “Keep going.”
My hand catches his jaw as I pull back. I stare at him, watch his throat bob as he swallows. “You’re hurt.”
“I said it’s fine.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
He tries to step around me, and I stop him with one hand to his chest, causing him to wince out loud, but he doesn’t fight it.
He just lowers his gaze, and something in me coils.
This isn’t him. Not the boy who kissed me like revenge.
Not the one who broke me open with nothing more than my name on his tongue.
“Lift your shirt,” I command, voice tight.
“No.”
“Now, Nikolaj.”
He hesitates too long, so I do it myself. I grab the hem of his shirt and drag it up before he can stop me—and the breath slams out of me the second I see it.
A word carved into his chest, etched like a fucking brand beneath his skin.
долг
“Who did this?” I ask, voice gone cold, but he doesn’t answer.
My hands shake as I let go of his shirt, and he pulls it back down slowly, gaze fixed to the floor like it might offer mercy. My pulse is thudding so loud in my ears I can’t hear the lockers anymore. Can’t hear anything but his breath and my own fury rising like a wave I can’t stop.
“Who?” I repeat, louder now.
He still doesn’t look at me. “Arseniy.”
The name hits me like a crowbar to the ribs. I grab his arm hard enough to make him meet my eyes. “Your brother did this to you?”
“It’s fine.”
“Stop saying that,” I snap. “That word doesn’t belong in your mouth right now.”
“It’s the price,” he spits, louder now, finally flaring. “You think I get to lie in your bed and walk away untouched? You think there isn’t blood in that choice? This is the price I pay for being yours, Vincenzo.”
“You told him?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
“He knew before I could lie.” His smile is sad. “He always does.”
I step back like I’ve been punched. “So, he came to teach you a lesson.”
“Yeah.”
“And you let him.”
“I didn’t let him,” he snaps, anger sparking for real now. “I didn’t ask him to carve me like a fucking message board. But that’s the legacy. That’s what happens when you forget who you serve.”
I slam a hand into the wall beside his head. “He doesn’t own you.”
“No?” Nikolaj’s mouth twists. “Then why does it feel like I’m choking every time I try to want something that isn’t sanctioned by blood?”
My hands clench at my sides. I want to hit something. I want to find Arseniy and bury my fist in his throat for touching him like that, for hurting him, for thinking he had the right to mark what’s mine.
My eyes drag over him—his face, his mouth, the tight way he’s holding himself like he’ll shatter if I touch him again.
“I never asked you to bleed for me,” I say, shaking my head. “I never wanted that.”
“No,” he whispers. “You just made it impossible not to.”
That undoes me. The calm, the anger, the control. It all burns up under that one sentence.
I’m on him before the thought fully forms, my hands cradling his face, our foreheads crushed together. We breathe in the same ragged rhythm.
“I’m going to kill him,” I whisper, pressing my lips to his temple.
“You can’t.”
“Fucking watch me.”
“He’s still my brother.”
“I don’t give a fuck if he’s your shadow,” I grit out. “He touches you again, I end him. That’s not a threat.”
He goes still, and then his hands are on my waist, gripping me. Jaw tight, eyes burning, mouth trembling. “You’ll lose everything if you keep choosing me.”
My hand slides down to the raw edge of where I know the carved word is. I press my palm flat over it, covering it, claiming it. “I already did,” I whisper. “The second I touched you, I stopped belonging to them.”
“You should walk away now,” he says, eyes flashing, not with anger—but fear. “Please, Vincenzo… walk away while you still can.”
I shake my head, jaw clenched so tight it aches.
I grab his hand and press it to my chest. My heartbeat slams into his palm.
“Feel that? That doesn’t belong to your father or your brother or whatever fucking ghost you think you owe your obedience to.
That belongs to you. And if you let me, I’ll make damn sure no one else gets to carve into you again. ”
He stares, wide-eyed, breathing too fast, like I’ve just taken every blade he carries and aimed them back at him. “We’re going to die for this,” he whispers as his hand finds my jaw, and then he’s kissing me—feral, frantic, desperate. He’s saying yes without saying anything at all.
And I kiss him back like it’s the only language I still speak.
The kiss burns until it turns into breathing each other’s air, both of us pressed together, sweat and blood and exhaustion layered over something too raw to name.
The air feels thick and alive around us, the small supply closet holding more ghosts than space.
Nikolaj’s hand stays tangled in the back of my shirt long after his mouth leaves mine, his breath still shaking against my throat.
He doesn’t look at me at first. His gaze fixes somewhere past my shoulder, as if the wall is safer than my face. “He said something else when he—” He stops, breath catching. “When Arseniy carved into me, he said our father had a weakness once. A Vieri.”
The words hit like a gunshot through the stillness. I blink once, because I don’t trust what might come out if I answer too fast. I pull back just enough to search his face, my own pulse a war drum in my ears. “What?”
He nods faintly, a bitter half-smile flickering and dying before it can stay.
“He told me history repeats itself. That our father bled for your bloodline once, same way I’m doing now.
Said that’s why he recognized it. Said it’s in our fucking nature to self-destruct for people like you.
” His hand goes to his chest instinctively, where the wound would still be tender under the fabric.
“He looked at me like I’d repeated history. ”
I lean back a fraction, but still hover close enough to feel his breath ghosting my throat. “You think your father—”
“Was involved with yours.” He finishes it for me, voice quiet. “Yeah.”
The silence stretches. For once, I don’t try to fill it. I just study him. The tension in his jaw. The bruise at his temple. The fear he hides by clenching his fists.
I shouldn’t say it. God knows I should keep my mouth shut, but it slips out anyway. “My father said something too.”
That gets his attention. He looks up fast, eyes dark and sharp. “When?”
“When he came to see me the other day.” I swallow. “After he found out about us.”
Nikolaj tenses. “He knows?”
“Rumors.” I shake my head. “He didn’t say it outright, but he didn’t have to. He said he didn’t care what I let you do to me—so long as I remembered who was in control.”
The muscle in Nikolaj’s cheek twitches. “That sounds like something he’d say.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “He called Dragovich men intoxicating. Said danger wears well on you. That loyalty is a trick of the blade. And then he looked right through me like he was staring down a ghost he’d already buried once.”
Nikolaj frowns. “What do you mean?”
I push a hand through my hair, pacing once because if I stay still I might explode. “He said betrayal feels like seduction right up until it kills you. That was it. Then he told me to remember who I am.”
Nikolaj’s expression shifts—no longer anger, just a quiet, haunted recognition. “That’s not a warning,” he says softly. “That’s a memory.”
“I know.” My voice breaks around the words before I can stop it. “He wasn’t angry, he was tired; like whatever choice he made back then hollowed him out. He didn’t yell, didn’t threaten me, didn’t even call me weak. He just looked at me like he knew exactly what I’d done. ”
Nikolaj studies me for a long time, that unreadable look back in place but thinner now. “Then maybe they did this before us,” he says finally. “Maybe they were us.”
My head snaps up. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” he demands. “Why the fuck not, Vincenzo? You think we’re the first ones to burn for each other across family lines?
You think this curse started with us?” He gestures between us with one shaking hand.
“Maybe this is all it’s ever been—generation after generation of kings pretending not to fall for the same goddamn enemy. We’re what they couldn’t finish.”
His voice catches at the end. I can’t tell if it’s fury or grief.
“Maybe that’s what this is,” Nikolaj says quietly. “Maybe we’re not rewriting anything. Maybe we’re just playing our parts.”
“Then fuck the script.” My voice is sharper than I mean it to be. “I’m done performing for dead men.”
He searches my face, like he’s looking for something solid to hold onto. “You sound like someone who still believes we have a choice.”
I step closer until we’re chest to chest again. “We do. Or we make one.”
He lets out a shaky breath. “And when it kills us?”
I press my forehead to his. “Then we’ll at least know it wasn’t borrowed.”
He laughs softly, almost broken. “You’re a lunatic.”
“So are you,” I whisper.
We stand there until the quiet softens. Until the sound of our breathing fills the room instead of legacy or orders or the ghosts of fathers who can’t stop haunting their sons.
When I finally pull back, he catches my wrist before I can move away. “Vincenzo,” he says, voice hoarse. “If they come for me again—”
“They won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I just did.”
He stares at me like he wants to believe it, like belief is something he hasn’t been allowed to have in years. Then his hand falls away.
I don’t leave the room, and neither does he. We just stand there, shoulder to shoulder, too proud to say what’s written all over both of us—whatever history our fathers buried, it’s still bleeding through our skin.