16. Terms and Consequences
Terms and Consequences
Zhenya Romanov
Pavel’s call came in a little after eleven, right as I was reviewing contract drafts in my office.
When his name flashed on the screen, I hesitated. Was he trying to drag Nikolai out somewhere? Had the two of them planned something without bothering to tell me?
I picked up while signing off on the last page. “Yes?”
“Zhenya…”
The tremor in his voice killed the room instantly. The fountain pen slipped from my fingers, leaving an ink blot across the paper.
“…Pavel?”
“They took him.”
I stood up so fast my chair slammed backward into the wall. “…Who?”
“Nikolai.”
Silence stretched across the line—heavy, suffocating. My mind simply refused to process the words.
“What happened?” I barked.
“I was taken this morning,” Pavel stammered, his breathing ragged. “I think… I think they used me to get to him. They tied me up, shot a video, then dumped me on the roadside outside the city—”
My jaw set so tight it hurt. “Where is he, Pavel?”
“I don’t know—”
“Think.”
“I am!” Pavel swallowed hard. “Wait—the location. I saw it.”
I went dead still. “What location?”
My pulse hammered against my ribs. “Pavel. Send it to me now.”
Three seconds later, the phone buzzed against my palm.
A dropped pin. An abandoned glass works facility on the industrial fringe of the city. I knew the site.
I didn’t waste another second on the call. I ended it and keyed directly into my earpiece. “Lev.”
“Sir.”
“Bring every available unit to these coordinates,” I said, forwarding the pin. “Fully armed. No lights, no sirens. I’m going in first.”
“Sir, wait for the secondary team—”
I cut the channel. There wasn’t time to wait for protocol.
I bolted out of the office. The private elevator was stuck on the ground floor, so I shoved open the heavy door to the stairwell and took the steps three at a time, ignoring the echoes of assistants calling after me.
Down in the executive garage, my driver had just stepped out to hold the rear door when I snatched the keys right out of his hand.
“Sir—”
“I’m driving.”
The engine roared to life. Tires shrieked against the polished tracks as I threw the SUV into reverse, backed out, and slammed the accelerator toward the exit ramp.
I tore out onto the street, running the first red light without slowing down, cutting aggressively through oncoming traffic.
Horns blared behind me in a chaotic choir.
I kept one hand locked on the wheel and used the other to redial Lev.
“Where are your teams?” I barked.
“Seven minutes out, sir.”
“They don’t have seven minutes.”
“Zhenya, don’t enter alone—”
“If anyone reaches that compound before me,” I growled, “it had better be because they’re already dead.”
I threw the phone onto the passenger seat and pressed the pedal flat against the floorboards. Just this once… don’t let me be too late.
The abandoned factory materialized through the grime of the windshield. I slammed the brakes, barely waiting for the vehicle to stop skidding before shoving the door open and rushing into the gloom.
“Nikolai!”
My voice bounced off the high, broken rafters.
Then I saw him. Standing near the center of the hall. Alive.
Relief hit me so hard it felt like a physical blow to the sternum. I closed the distance between us in seconds.
“Nikolai.”
I cupped his face with both hands, my fingers trembling as I dragged my eyes over him—his shoulders, his neck, his torso. Checking for blood. Checking for tears in his clothes.
“…Are you hurt?”
He just stared back at me. But something in his eyes was fundamentally off.
“You came,” he said softly.
Before I could process the shift in his voice, a deafening crack shattered the silence.
Gunfire.
The impact threw him forward.
“NIKOLAI!”
I caught him before his head hit the concrete, warm blood instantly gushing over my hands.
“No… no, no, no—”
Pressure. I needed to stop the bleeding. I stripped off my suit jacket in one motion, wad it up, and slammed it down over his lower abdomen. Blood soaked through the dark fabric almost immediately.
A slow applause emerged from the rear shadows. It was a taunt, delivered with absolute nonchalance.
Mikhail stepped into the low light, the smoking barrel of a silenced pistol still gripped in his hand. His phone was raised in the other, camera pointing directly at us.
“Beautiful,” Mikhail murmured. “I knew you’d come running.”
I carefully laid Nikolai down, ensuring my jacket stayed pressed against the wound.
“You got what you wanted,” I said, my voice eerily steady.
Mikhail’s smile broadened. “I got everything.”
I stood up.
For a beat, neither of us moved. But Mikhail caught whatever was written on my face.
“Zhenya…” He shifted his weight. “Listen. This wasn’t personal. It was just business. We can end this little game now.”
A guard lunged out from the dark side corridor toward me. He didn’t even complete his stride before I caught him by the jaw, twisted, and snapped his neck with a sickening crack. As he collapsed, the tactical knife slipped from his belt sheath.
I caught the handle mid-air.
Mikhail’s smirk vanished entirely. “You don’t want to do this—”
I closed the gap before he could raise the gun again.
“You remember what I told you, if you mentioned him again I’ll forget were of the same blood.” I whispered, driving the blade deep into his stomach.
Mikhail let out a choked scream, his eyes bulging.
“For Babushka,” I said, pulling the steel free and plunging it back in. “For what you did at her funeral.”
He dropped to his knees, coughing dark red onto the floor. I grabbed him by the lapels, pulling him up until his face was inches from mine.
“And after all of that…” I drove the blade home one final time. “…you still dared to touch him.”
Mikhail’s eyes rolled back, his body going completely limp. I let go, and he hit the concrete like a sack of lead. Dead.
I didn’t give the corpse a second glance. The bloody knife clattered to the floor as I turned and ran back to Nikolai.
“Niko…”
I dropped to my knees beside him. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, blood still pooling beneath the makeshift bandage.
“No. Look at me.” I patted his cheek gently. “Nikolai. Open your eyes.”
Nothing.
Around us, the heavy doors burst open as Lev and the assault team swept the hall, shouting commands and securing the perimeter. Someone yelled for the paramedics waiting at the gate.
Their voices sounded muffled, like they were underwater.
I gathered Nikolai into my arms, pulling his torso against my chest and supporting his head against my shoulder.
“…Open your eyes,” I whispered into his hair. “Please.”
* * *
I don’t remember the drive to the hospital.
One second Nikolai was bleeding out in my arms on that cold concrete floor; the next, a team of paramedics was trying to drag him off the gurney.
“Sir.”
“We need to take him in.”
“No.”
“Mr. Romanov, you have to let go.”
“No.”
“If you don’t let us take him through those doors right now, he is going to die.”
My fingers loosened before my mind even registered the command. They shoved his gurney through the double doors of the trauma unit, and I reached out, brushing my thumb over his knuckles one last time.
“You don’t get to leave me,” I whispered.
His hand slipped from mine, and the doors slammed shut. Above the frame, the red indicator snapped on: SURGERY IN PROGRESS.
I stared at that light. I couldn’t tell you for how long.
Eventually, a nurse approached me, her eyes dropping to the dark, stiffened stains covering my chest and sleeves.
“Sir… let us help you clean that off.”
I looked down. The blood had dried into the fabric, heavy and flaking. None of it was mine.
“…No.”
“Sir, please—”
“I’m not leaving this hallway.”
She swallowed her next thought and quietly walked away.
The hours bled into each other. Surgeons rushed in; nurses hurried out.
Nobody stopped to talk to me. I didn’t move from my spot against the wall.
Someone set a cup of water on the chair beside me, but I ignored it.
Someone else brought a tray of food that eventually went cold.
Late into the night, a junior nurse draped a blanket over my shoulders.
I hadn’t even noticed how freezing the corridor was—or maybe I had, and just didn’t care.
Then the red light cut out.
My heart hammered against my ribs. The doors swung open, and the lead surgeon stepped out into the hall. I was on my feet before he could take two steps.
“Doctor.”
“Mr. Romanov.” He pulled off his surgical mask, his face lined with exhaustion. “He made it through the operation.”
A violent wave of relief nearly took my legs out from under me.
“However,” the surgeon added, and the word hit like a physical blow, “he lost a massive amount of blood. We’ve stabilized his vitals, but he’s in a medically induced coma. The next twenty-four hours will decide everything.”
“I need to see him.”
He hesitated, then gave a brief nod. “Only for a few minutes.”
The ICU room reeked of harsh disinfectant and ozone—sterile, lifeless, nothing like him.
Nikolai looked fragile under the harsh fluorescent lights, almost swallowed up by the white sheets. All the color had been drained from his skin, and a thick layer of bandages bound his midsection. The only proof he was still here was the dull, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.
I dragged a vinyl chair up to the side of the bed, sat down, and carefully took his hand. His skin was ice-cold.
“I wasn’t fast enough,” I said softly, my voice rasping from disuse. “I should have reached you sooner.”
The monitor kept up its steady, indifferent pulse.
“I promised I’d protect you from them,” I whispered, resting my forehead against the back of his fingers. “I failed.”
I closed my eyes, letting the quiet of the room settle over us.
“I’m not going anywhere, Niko. Take a day, take a month—whenever you decide to wake up, I’ll be sitting right here.”
The first pale light of morning filtered through the blinds.