Chapter Thirteen
Nikolai
I watch her over the rim of my mug.
She’s avoiding me. She’s been doing it all morning—arranging herself on the floor beside Hannah, head bent over a Barbie puzzle with exaggerated focus, as though the placement of each piece requires her complete concentration.
She hasn’t looked up once.
I know this pattern. I knew it four years ago too.
After any moment between us that came too close to the truth, she’d pull back and rebuild her walls with ordinary things.
Routine. Practicality. Hannah, now. It’s not coldness.
It’s self-protection. I understand it better than she probably realizes.
Last night happened, and today, it’s not happening.
Blyad.
I set my mug down.
The kiss was a mistake—not because I didn’t want it, but because it’s made everything harder and solved nothing.
I could feel how much she’s been holding back.
Four years of it, compressed into a few seconds on a balcony above Chicago.
And then she walked away, which was the right call, and I stood there in the wind feeling the cold come back in like a door slamming shut.
I rake my hair back and force my attention where it needs to be.
Popov.
Elias has been right about this, even if I’ve been reluctant to admit it. Sergio Popov is not a man I’d choose to be indebted to under ordinary circumstances—he operates on self-interest alone, and alliances with him have a way of becoming obligations.
But these aren’t ordinary circumstances.
I need leverage against Aslanov, I need men, and I need them fast.
What works in my favor: Aslanov’s men killed Popov’s brother two years ago. That’s not the kind of thing a man like Sergio files away and forgets. He’ll want Aslanov dead as badly as I do, just for different reasons. Shared enemies make temporary allies, and temporary is all I need right now.
I push back from the table quietly, not wanting to disturb what Lauren has constructed—this careful simulation of an ordinary morning for Hannah’s benefit. It’s working. Hannah is chattering happily, completely absorbed. Lauren keeps her voice light and steady.
She’s remarkable at this. Holding it together while everything is falling apart.
I slip upstairs and close the door behind me.
I find Popov’s number and hit dial.
The line connects. Nothing.
Then: "Speak."
I almost grin. Some things don’t change.
“Severnyye vetry usilivayutsya,” I say.
Silence on the other end. Then—
“Rogov?” A long exhale. “Kakogo cherta? When did you crawl out of your grave?"
“Mind your tongue, dolboyob.”
A low chuckle. “So it really is you.” A pause, recalibrating. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Aslanov.”
“Ah.” His tone shifts—not surprise, something more like satisfaction. “Let me guess. He found out you’re alive and now he’s coming for you.”
I don’t confirm it. What Popov doesn’t need to know, he won’t know—and Lauren and Hannah sit firmly in that category. I’ve dealt with enough Bratva leaders to understand how that information could be used. Popov has always been a player, and players look for leverage wherever it exists.
“I need backup,” I say. “Men I can trust. And I need them ready to move.”
“And what’s in it for me?”
“Revenge.”
One word. I let it sit.
I can hear him thinking—not the question of whether he wants it, but the calculation of what it will cost him.
His brother’s death hasn’t been forgotten.
That kind of debt doesn’t expire. But Popov didn’t get where he is by acting on emotion, and he’ll be running the angles before he commits to anything.
Sergio exhales slowly. “What’s your plan?”
“That depends on your answer.”
He mutters something under his breath—a string of curses, I think—and I wait him out. I’ve learned not to rush men like Popov. Pressure makes them contrary. Give them space to arrive at the conclusion themselves, and they feel like it was their idea.
“Fine,” he says at last. “Tell me what you need.”
Good.
I straighten up, one hand braced against the door. “For now, nothing. I’ll call when I’m ready to move. When I do, I need you fully committed—both feet in, no hesitation.”
Another pause.
“I’ll be in touch,” I say, and I end the call before he can negotiate terms.
I exhale and cross to the bed, dropping my phone on the mattress.
Blyad.
Cooperating with a man like Sergio Popov is like shaking hands with a crocodile—the grip is fine until it isn’t.
My father used to talk about Popov’s father when I was still young enough to listen to those stories without understanding what they meant.
The things that man did to people who trusted him.
The elaborate patience of it—giving people exactly what they wanted, letting them believe they were safe, and then taking everything. Methodically. Personally.
The apple, as they say, doesn’t fall far.
What I need to work out is how to use Popov’s appetite without becoming its next meal.
He’ll want something beyond revenge—a piece of what Aslanov has built, access to the networks, a foothold in territory that was once mine.
That’s the negotiation waiting for me down the line, and I’ll need to go into it knowing exactly what I’m willing to offer and where the line is.
Because there will be a line. There has to be.
And if he turns on me—if somewhere in the middle of this he decides I’m more useful as a bargaining chip than an ally—I’ll deal with it. I’ve survived worse betrayals than Sergio Popov.
What I can’t do is nothing.
I think of Lauren downstairs, holding everything together with both hands. Hannah’s laugh drifting up through the floor. Two people who didn’t choose any of this, who are living inside the consequences of decisions I made—and decisions that were made for me.
Timur is in. But Timur has Sophia now, and a child coming, and I won’t be the reason that ends badly.
Popov is a risk I have to take.
I pick up my phone and start making a list of what comes next.
It’s time to stop waiting for Aslanov to move and start putting things in motion myself.