Chapter 20
Aweek later, the summons with a time and place to meet comes from Mikhail’s assistant rather than from Alexei’s direct line.
That distinction is a clear signal of the temperature waiting for me inside the compound.
I park in my usual spot and sit with my hands on the wheel, staring at the security cameras as they pivot to track my arrival. My thumbnail finds a small crack in the leather of the steering wheel and digs into it as I fight down the urge to vomit.
A physical threat would have been cleaner. A fight with Orien would have an end, win or lose. This is different. This is a judgment I can’t strike back at, only endure.
With a steadying breath, I climb out and stride to the side entrance, my pulse pounding as I hold my palm over the reader, waiting to see if it will accept my print or if the family has already cut me out.
When the heavy door swings open on well-oiled hinges, it doesn’t come as a relief. At least if they had locked me out, I could have avoided facing my brother after betraying him.
The corridor beyond is empty, and my footsteps echo on the marble as I head for the east wing, each step taking me closer to whatever waits in the council chamber.
When I enter, the chamber is a sea of empty chairs. Only the core of the council waits for me. Uncle Mikhail stands rather than sits at his place at the table, two senior council members flanking him with their hands folded and their faces closed.
My uncles, Giorgi and Aram, sit with identical posture, backs straight. Giorgi’s fingers rest flat on the table, still as death. Aram’s thumb worries his cuff, the only movement in the room.
Alexei occupies his usual seat at the head of the table, his fingers steepled before him, unreadable as ever.
The family crest hangs on the far wall, carved from a single piece of oak and polished to a perfect shine. It goes ignored as I take my place at the end of the table, standing rather than sitting.
“Thank you for coming so promptly,” Mikhail says, the formal courtesy an immediate warning. He never thanks me for anything. “We’re reviewing the outcome of the recent pressure campaign.”
I keep my shoulders back and my hands loose at my sides. “I understand.”
“The disruption was anticipated at every point,” Mikhail says, tapping the printed report before him.
“The backup vendors were already positioned when our first pressure wave arrived. The licensing documentation was filed before the review was announced. The held shipment cleared port through a vendor we didn’t know existed until it was already done. ”
As he speaks, silence settles over the room, the air heavy with unspoken accusation. Giorgi and Aram don’t shift in their seats as they dissect me like a line item in a risk assessment.
“The Blue Note moved as if they had been warned,” Mikhail continues, pausing there to let the implication hang there.
I turn to him without flinching. “The disruption failed because they’re better organized than we assumed.”
Mikhail lets a beat pass before he says, “You may have been compromised.” His eyes never leave mine. “Proximity to the target has done what proximity is designed to do.”
The other council members don’t speak.
“You’ve gotten too close to see clearly,” Mikhail adds.
The council has assessed operatives as compromised before, a verdict delivered with cold finality. But the judgment has never been turned on me, and for a moment, the room tilts.
Years of discipline evaporate, leaving my training irrelevant before their judgment.
I cock my head to the side. “At our last meeting, you told me to lie on my back and think of the family. Now you’re upset I followed your directions?”
Giorgi’s chin lifts a fraction, while Aram freezes in the way men do when they’ve decided not to react. Alexei gives me a single, flat stare that says not here, not like this, and not now.
Mikhail’s jaw tightens, and he sets the report down with a care that lands with more violence than if he had thrown it.
“This is the problem.” He turns to Alexei, cutting me from the conversation, as if I’ve ceased to exist. “We put an Omega in the field and act surprised when sentiment clouds the picture.”
Across the room, I read the calculation in Alexei’s stillness, the cost of being wrong measured against the cost of appearing weak. His expression doesn’t change, but I see the subtle shift in his jaw that marks the moment the equation balances.
“We need to be sure,” he says, folding his hands on the table. “The pressure campaign failed, but that doesn’t mean Levon has been compromised. However, the mission parameters need to be reassessed.”
My stomach sinks. To be pulled from the mission would have been a clean failure. But a test, designed to force me to prove my loyalty, cuts so much deeper.
It takes everything in me to stifle my reaction. “Of course.”
Cold settles in my stomach as Alexei reaches into his briefcase and removes a thin folder, sliding it across the table to an empty chair.
“Sit.” He gestures to the seat beside the folder. “Read.”
I cross to the chair and lower myself into it, spine straight. Inside the folder, I find no cover sheet, only photographs, notes, and diagrams arranged in neat rows.
“The Blue Note survives because the neighborhood trusts them more than the police.” Alexei gauges my response as I take in the first page. “Debts, disappearances, rival crews stepping out of line…. People bring them problems because the Blue Note offers solutions. Quiet ones.”
The first photo shows the side entrance of the Blue Note, taken from across the street. I’ve used it a dozen times myself, arriving and leaving with Orien’s hand at my lower back. The next image zooms in, focusing on a locked cabinet built into the wall beside the back corridor.
“Since the pressure plan failed, we have to hit them harder. If we want to destroy them, we can’t simply shut down their business.” Alexei taps the second photo. “We have to poison the trust.”
My throat goes dry. “How?”
“A shipment is arriving three nights from now.” He turns to the third page. “Narcotics that were seized from one of our southern routes after a warehouse raid last month. Cheap product cut with fentanyl. Lethal in microscopic amounts.”
My lungs lock mid-breath, then resume, each inhalation a measured act of control.
“The plan is simple.” He points to the locker cabinet. “You will plant the drugs inside one of the Blue Note’s secured recovery lockers, where they store confiscated contraband taken from neighborhood dealers before disposal.”
Mikhail’s chest puffs up with self-satisfaction. “Succeed, and you prove your loyalty. Fail, and we learn it was a mistake to trust you.”
He turns to Alexei. “Unless the mission parameters need clarification from the head of the family?”
“Enough,” my brother snaps, his knuckles turning white on the table. “Levon understands the importance of his mission. Don’t you, Lev?”
“Yes, sir,” I murmur as I lift the third page to read the specifics.
The document details the exact time the shipment arrives, the location of the recovery lockers, and the rotation of Blue Note security. Despite the acid building in my throat, I keep my reaction buried.
“Once the drugs are in place, anonymous tips will follow. Then overdoses.” Alexei remains outwardly calm, but his thumbnail digs a crescent into the arm of his chair. “Kids first. Young enough to dominate the headlines.”
I keep reading as my ears start to ring, absorbing each detail, committing the timeline to memory while my stomach turns.
The plan continues on the next page. Police raids, grieving parents, and reporters swarming the block. Every protected family in the district will turn on them. Their allies will scatter, their debtors will stop paying, and rival gangs will flood the territory the second the Blue Note appears weak.
“And because the drugs will be found inside Blue Note property, under their control, no one will believe it was an outside operation.” Alexei sits back in his chair. “The neighborhood that currently trusts them will be the weapon that buries them.”
I set the final page down and fold my hands in my lap, keeping every reaction locked down despite the sickness roiling within me. Pressure locks around my ribs as the air in the room thins, leaving nothing left to breathe.
“This was the council’s original plan, but we were hoping to remove the Blue Note without destabilizing the area, too.” Alexei waits to see whether I understand the implication. “Since our softer approach failed, we are left with this angle.”
My attention drifts to the photograph of the recovery lockers again, trying to calculate which of them Orien would check first when things started to go wrong. Which one would he unlock to find the evidence that would damn him, his people, and everything they’ve built?
Alexei’s stare hardens as he continues. “Unless your hesitation with the original plan was strategic. Perhaps you recognized its limitations.”
He lets the offer hang in the air. A path back, paved with a lie we would both have to live with. A way for him to justify his trust in me to the others, and to himself.
My head lifts slowly. “Children?”
“This plan requires precise execution and absolute commitment.” Alexei’s gaze holds mine. “There can be no second thoughts, no wavering. Once the drugs are in place, we move forward regardless of the outcome. Do you understand?”
I nod once, the motion tight.
“Say it,” Alexei says.
“I understand.” My voice remains steady only from years of training. “No second thoughts. No wavering.”
Alexei studies me for a long moment before nodding. “The family is counting on you, Lev.”
The weight of the unspoken settles between us, heavier than any order ever given. This is my chance to prove to the council, and to Alexei, that my loyalties haven’t shifted, and my judgment remains intact despite whatever is happening with Orien.
It’s also my chance to destroy everything the Blue Note has built, everything they’ve protected, everyone who’s trusted them.
All to prove I’m still a Vartanian.
“I believe we have a path forward,” Alexei says, addressing the table rather than any single person. “Levon will execute the approach we’ve outlined.”
The words hang in the air for a long moment before Mikhail says, “Excellent. The resources have been allocated. We proceed in seventy-two hours.”
This isn’t a vote. It’s a confirmation, sealing a decision already made.
The council rises as one, the formal portion of the meeting concluded.
Mikhail steps around the table to clap Alexei on the shoulder. “You handled this well. A difficult decision, made for the good of the family. Your father would have approved of the outcome.”
Alexei accepts the praise. “I’ll keep you informed.”
As the room empties, Alexei remains seated. He doesn’t speak, leaving me to grapple with my place in this plan under his heavy silence.
When I remain silent, he says, “Whether you were right about them is irrelevant now.”
My head snaps up. “Then why…” I gesture to the folder. “Why this?”
“Because they are a threat.” His finger traces the pattern in the wood grain. “The council’s position is firm. The Blue Note has too much potential to challenge us. They have no reason to offer us loyalty, so we cannot allow them to grow.”
“But—”
“This plan,” he interrupts with a hard edge, “serves as a clear point for anyone else who tries to build within our territory.”
I shove to my feet, my chair nearly toppling as I shove it back. “Since when do you go after children to prove a point?”
“Since you fucked with my original plan!” Alexei’s control shatters, revealing the fury beneath. “What were you thinking, Lev?”
The question lands like a slap, and I rear backward.
“You were sent in to gather intelligence. To assess their operation. To determine if they posed a threat.” Alexei rises and paces to the window and back, his movements tight with controlled anger. “Not to get attached to their fixer.”
My throat tightens. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t,” he snaps. “Whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve felt, whatever you’ve told yourself was happening, it ends now.”
I open my mouth to respond, but he holds up a hand.
“This is your chance to prove that whatever personal investment you have developed in the target has not compromised your judgment.”
“I’m not compromised—”
“Mikhail has been building a case,” he snaps. “Do you have any idea what I had to concede to give you this second chance rather than pulling you from the mission and sending you to the northern estate?”
The blood drains from my face. The northern estate is where family members are sent to be forgotten, a quiet execution of a different sort.
My hands curl into fists. “Do you actually believe the anonymous message? Or are you simply unable to ignore it?”
The question hangs between us, a direct challenge to his judgment as head of the family.
For a moment, I think he might answer. But when he turns back, whatever hesitation existed is gone. “I cannot afford to oppose Mikhail right now. Not when he is already positioning to prove I am unfit to lead. Any sign of weakness or divided loyalty will be weaponized.”
The admission hits harder than his anger. This was never about strategy or even survival. It was always about politics.
I flatten my palms on the table. “This is a mistake. The Blue Note operates on a code. This move will unleash chaos we can’t control.”
Alexei cuts me off with a gesture. “The family has no reason to trust them. Nothing short of swearing their loyalty will change their mind.”
For a long moment, he searches for the answer he wants, but I’m not sure I can provide it anymore.
“Get your head straight,” he says, his command absolute. “Remember where your loyalties lie. With the Vartanian family. Always.”
Alexei straightens his jacket with a jerk and walks out without a backward look. And when the door closes with a soft click, the sound is more final than if he had slammed it behind him.