15. A Very Poor Choice, Mikhail
A Very Poor Choice, Mikhail
Fyodor
Iwoke to the stench of alcohol.
Cheap, Russian and utterly lacking in taste.
Three armed men. One narcissist with an ego complex. One locked door.
The kid had been crying again. He always cried. It made my job infinitely more tedious than it needed to be.
I rolled my shoulders, feeling the tension locked in the spine. The body felt heavier than the last time I had control. Exhausted and emaciated.
I looked at the man smirking a few feet away. So this was the idiot who dragged us here.
Mikhail watched me for a long beat, the corner of his mouth curling upward. “So… there you are.”
I blinked, taking him in. “Mikhail Romanov. We meet again.”
His smirk broadened. “You know who I am?”
“I know enough.”
He reached inside his tailored jacket, pulled out his phone, and aimed the lens straight at my face.
Finally, the picture came together.
“You wanted footage,” I said flatly.
He let out a dry laugh. “I wanted to meet you. You’ve become quite the point of curiosity.”
I tilted my head, matching his gaze. “Curiosity.”
“Imagine my surprise,” he said, beginning a slow, theatrical pace across the concrete. “A second personality. Violent. Unstable.” He chuckled to himself. “The press is going to have a field day with this.”
I stayed still, letting him talk. He mistook the silence for hesitation.
“My brother has spent years sculpting this untouchable reputation,” Mikhail continued, tapping the phone screen. “But no one survives a scandal like this. Tell the camera your name.”
Nothing.
“I said—tell the camera your name.”
My mouth softened.
“No.”
His expression stiffened. “No?”
“You’ve misread the situation entirely.”
“Have I?”
“You think you’re filming a monster.” I glanced past him at his three hires. One was sweating through his collar; another kept fidgeting with the grip of the pistol jammed into his waistband. Amateurs. “I’m not a monster, Mikhail.”
He frowned. “Then what are you?”
I looked straight into the camera lens. “The one who keeps him breathing.”
The space went completely quiet. Even the guards stopped shifting their feet.
Mikhail recovered his composure first, letting out another forced laugh. “Excellent. This is even better. Keep going, please. I want the board to hear every word.”
I exhaled slowly. “You really should have stopped at reading the file.”
His smile vanished. “Meaning?”
“Meaning you made a critical error.”
“And what error would that be?”
“You assumed I was brought here against my will.” I took a single, unhurried step toward him.
Instantly, the three men went taut, hands dropping to their holsters. I took another step. Mikhail held his ground—he wanted the shot, wanted me talking.
A foolish priority.
“I came here because he did,” I said softly. “But unlike him, I don’t negotiate.”
The closest guard lunged forward. He didn’t even make it halfway.
I caught his wrist mid-swing, leveraged his momentum, and snapped the joint back. A sharp, sickening crack echoed through the warehouse as he screamed. Before the gun slipping from his grip hit the concrete, I caught it by the frame.
The second man reached for his holster—far too slow. I drove the heavy steel butt of the pistol into his jaw. He dropped like a dead weight.
Silence slammed back over the room, save for the first guard whimpering on the floor.
Mikhail hadn’t moved an inch. For the first time since I surfaced, the smugness was completely gone from his face.
“You…” His voice cracked, coming out considerably smaller. “What are you?”
I looked at him—really looked at him—and let a slow, patient smile take over.
“The question isn’t what I am,” I said, stepping forward and tossing the pistol onto the floor right between his feet.
“It’s whether you’ll still be breathing when Nikolai comes back.”
“Nikolai!”
The voice cut through the empty warehouse, bouncing off the raw concrete.
I knew that voice before I even turned my head. Zhenya.
He cleared the distance between us at a run, stepping straight past Mikhail and the unconscious body on the floor without giving either of them a second glance.
“Nikolai.”
His hands slammed onto the sides of my face, his breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps. He dragged his eyes over me—checking my arms, my neck, my chest, frantically searching for blood, for wounds, for anything broken. His fingers were trembling against my skin.
“…You’re okay,” he whispered, saying it more to convince himself than me. “You’re okay.”
I watched him quietly. “…You came.”
Zhenya’s brow furrowed. Something about the tone, the cold focus in the eyes—he recognized it instantly.
Before he could say a word, a deafening crack split the quiet.
Gunfire.
Pain exploded straight through my abdomen. For a fraction of a second, I just stood there, watching heat spread beneath my shirt.
I looked down. Blood. Interesting.
My knees gave out.
“NIKOLAI!”
Zhenya caught me before I hit the concrete, dragging me into his lap. His hands slammed down against the wound, pressing with everything he had.
“No. No, no, no…” Panic stripped all the cold authority from his voice. “Stay with me. Look at me, Niko!”
I stared up at him. Poor man. He still thought—
Then the world folded inward. The warehouse dissolved. The pain vanished into the dark.
When I opened my eyes again, I was crying.
Not Fyodor. Me.
“Nikolai,” Zhenya gasped, his voice fracturing.
He was still pressing down on my stomach, but blood was already pooling around his knuckles, soaking through his tailored coat, turning his sleeves dark and wet. I had never seen terror on his face before. Not like this.
I reached up, my hand shaking violently as I grabbed his wrist.
“I saw it…” I choked out.
He leaned down immediately, his ear inches from my mouth. “What? Don’t talk, just stay still—”
“I saw him,” I sobbed, tears cutting through the grime on my face. “My… my father. I saw everything.”
A hard shudder racked my whole body, white-hot pain flaring in my gut, but I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out.
“I remember, Zhenya. I remember killing him.” A broken sob tore out of my throat. “He was going to kill Mama, and I… I killed him.”
Zhenya’s eyes welled up, red and raw. “No.”
“I did! I saw it! I saw my hands—”
“You protected her,” Zhenya cut in, dropping his head until his forehead rested hard against mine, ignoring the blood smeared between us.
“I killed him—”
“You protected her,” he repeated, his voice finally snapping under the weight. “Listen to me! You protected her.”
His tears fell against my cheek, warm and heavy.
“I’m right here,” he choked out, tightening his grip on me. “I’ve got you. I’m not letting you go.”
For a brief moment, his voice drifted out of reach.
Not because he’d moved, but because I couldn’t hold onto the sound anymore. The sharp angles of his face began to blur, and the harsh industrial lights overhead melted into soft, shapeless halos.
It felt peaceful—too peaceful.
My eyelids suddenly felt impossibly heavy. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t trying to sleep, that I was just tired. So impossibly tired.
I tried to squeeze his hand back, but I couldn’t tell if my fingers actually moved.