Chapter 24 Konstantin
KONSTANTIN
She stirs against me, her body warm and soft where it’s draped half over my chest, her thigh tangled with mine under the sheet.
The light outside is the faintest gray—dawn not yet here, but close enough to make the silence feel full.
Her skin shifts under my arm as she lifts her head slightly, hair mussed, lips parted in that hazy, half-asleep way.
I turn my face toward her, brushing a hand along the bare curve of her hip.
“You’re still here,” I murmur.
She doesn’t lift her head right away. Her fingers flex gently against my ribs.
“This reminds me of Barcelona,” she says quietly.
My heart slows, then picks up again. I can still smell her skin. Can still feel her heartbeat against mine.
“Yeah?” I say, voice low. “What can you tell me about it?”
She shifts slightly, her thigh sliding along mine, bare skin on bare skin. “You were drunk. Not messy. Not loud. Just…broken in a way I recognized.” She hesitates. “You held me like you couldn’t believe I was real.”
I stare up at the ceiling, her words crawling under my skin.
“I remember the room,” she continues. “The curtain didn’t close properly. You pulled it shut with one hand and kissed me with the other. All things aside, you were the best sex I ever had. The only, actually.”
My breath hitches. “Nadya—”
“Yeah, I was supposed to save my virginity for my husband,” she says drily. “But I didn’t really care. The irony isn’t lost on me.”
I lean on my elbow. “You’re not just using me for sex, are you?”
She lets out the faintest laugh, one without humor. “What makes you think that?”
I raise a brow.
Not at her. At myself.
At the part of me that can fuck her all night but still doesn’t know where we stand when the light starts to rise.
“You’re my husband,” she says softly.
The words hit me harder than they should.
That’s the first time she’s said it. Out loud. Without irony. Without distance. Just…fact.
My chest tightens. “I wasn’t sure if you still believed that,” I say.
“I don’t know what I believe half the time,” she admits, her voice breaking around the edges. “But when I’m here, like this, I want to believe it.”
I nod once. That’s enough for now.
She rests her head against me again, cheek to my chest, listening to the way my heart refuses to settle.
“Did you sleep at all?” she asks after a long beat of quiet.
“No,” I admit.
“Why?”
“Can’t sleep.”
She doesn’t respond.
She just holds me tighter.
And that, somehow, makes it worse.
We lie there for a long time. She’s curled against my side, her thigh warm over mine, breath slowing, body finally softening after hours of need and fire. But I’m still awake. Still thinking.
Always thinking.
My mind doesn’t shut off. Hasn’t in years. Not since I first understood what silence can cost a man in this world.
She shifts beside me, her fingers lightly trailing across my chest, slow and rhythmic, like she’s feeling the shape of something she’s not sure is real.
“What’s wrong?” she murmurs.
I nearly lie.
I nearly say nothing’s wrong, just tired, just thinking.
But she’s here. Still here. Still mine in ways I don’t know how to explain. And for some reason, that soft question cracks something open in me I’ve kept shut for too long.
I’ve lived a lifetime burying things I couldn’t afford to speak. Weakness, vulnerability, doubt—they don’t survive long in my world.
But this isn’t a soldier beside me.
It’s Nadya.
And for some reason I can’t name, that matters more than I expected it to.
I exhale, long and slow, letting the quiet stretch.
“There was a hit,” I say quietly. “On one of our deals. Staten Island.”
I feel her body still slightly, but she doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t push.
“Two men are dead. One barely made it out.”
The warehouse flashes in my mind—blood on concrete, crates ripped open like afterthoughts. Sergei’s name burning behind my ribs.
“It wasn’t random,” I go on, the words heavier now. “Someone gave them intel. There was a mole amongst my men, but that’s not the worst part. The hit was by my half brother Roman.”
Nadya hisses.
“I mean, I’m not surprised,” I say. “My father has been trying to remove me for a long time. He’s now using his heir to do the dirty job.”
The rational part of my mind is still screaming. Telling me, Don’t say this, don’t drag her into this.
But I can’t stop now.
It feels too good to let it out. To hand this truth to someone who won’t look away.
“I’m going after him,” I say quietly. “Roman. My father. The entire goddamn machine they’ve built. I’m not letting them touch what’s mine. Not again.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long time. Just breathes with me.
Then, finally, her hand moves again—this time over my heart.
“I can hardly imagine what you’re feeling,” she says, voice soft but clear. “But don’t do anything reckless.”
I don’t say anything. Because I know she’s right. Because I am angry. And because I do have a plan—one that doesn’t involve patience or consultation. One that’s already in motion.
She shakes her head. “We’ll come up with a plan. Something smart. Their deaths will be avenged. But we have to be careful, Kon.”
I nod once, just enough to make her think I heard her. Just enough to let her breathe.
But inside, I’ve already decided.
This war won’t be fought with caution.
I wait until her breathing evens out again beside me. Until she relaxes into sleep, trusting me with this fragile quiet.
And then I rise, dress in silence, and leave the bedroom before dawn cracks the horizon.
The office at the back of the house is dim and quiet, but it wakes up the second I step in, screens flickering to life. My ledgers. My shell companies. My offshore accounts. The cargo manifests. The nightlife fronts. The distribution arms that move everything from vodka to information.
I’ve built an empire under the nose of every enemy who ever underestimated me.
Now I need to know which part they’ve touched.
Which part they think they’ve infected.
And which part I’ll have to cut off to keep the rest alive.
I make a list.
Every business. Every manager. Every second-tier lieutenant I haven’t spoken to in the last three weeks.
If there’s rot, I’ll find it.
The bouncer recognizes me the moment I step out of the car—eyes widen, spine straightens—and he waves us inside without a word.
Red 27 isn’t the sort of club that advertises; you find it only if someone wants you to.
Ivana was seen here three weekends ago, cameras confirm it, and Sergei left with her an hour later. But I want to see it myself.
I head for the service corridor behind the bar. Staff glance up, clock the situation, and pivot out of the way. There’s comfort in quiet competence.
Arturo, the night tech, straightens when we enter the surveillance booth.
He doesn’t ask questions; he just cues the feeds of the past few weeks.
While the footage loads, a bartender ghosts in, sets a tumbler of Lagavulin at my elbow, and leaves without comment.
Good staff anticipate need; better staff know when to disappear.
A screen flares: Ivana in silk, Sergei beside her, nerves twitching in his fingers. They talk. She laughs—too easy, too practiced—and he slides a note across the lacquered counter. She palms it, finishes her drink, and walks out. Routine, almost forgettable, if you aren’t looking for it.
Arturo’s scrolling through the last few weeks of footage, cross-checking faces and time stamps, when he suddenly leans back in his chair and taps the screen.
“That girl?” He points to Ivana. “She’s been here before. Not just once. I’ve seen her around.”
I stop cold. “What?”
He nods, slow. “Twice in the last two months. Never stayed long. Met different people. Always looked like she had somewhere else to be.”
I stare at him. “And you didn’t think to mention this sooner?”
He looks uncomfortable. “I didn’t know she mattered until tonight.”
I don’t respond. Just turn and walk out. Lev follows.
I take the long way to the bar, slide onto a barstool, nod at the bartender—one I don’t recognize—and ask for a rye.
Glass hits wood. I drink.
The music’s low here—different energy from the rest of the floor. Dim. Watchful.
The alcohol’s warm going down, but it doesn’t touch the cold inside me.
Sergei’s face flashes behind my eyes. The blood. The way his body was twisted on the warehouse floor like they didn’t even bother to stage it with respect. I thought he was one of mine—loyal, solid. Now he’s gone.
My grip tightens on the glass.
And then there’s Nikolai. My son. My blood. Every call from the hospital lately sounds more like a countdown. No match yet, still checking the international database, his heart is strong for now—but. Always a fucking but.
He’s five. He sleeps with a stuffed tiger. He hums in his sleep. He doesn’t deserve this, any of this, and yet I can’t help but think that he has inherited my sins.
I sip the drink and try to quiet the thrum of tension crawling under my skin.
That’s when I see him.
Alexei.
Standing near the lounge entrance, trying—and failing—to look inconspicuous. He spots me the same moment I spot him.
He walks over, sheepish. “Hey.”
I lift a brow. “What are you doing here?”
He offers a small, apologetic smile. “Well…”
Before he can say more, I feel a hand land on my shoulder.
Familiar.
Unwelcome.
“Konstaaaantiiiin,” Roman slurs behind me, dragging out the name like a fucking joke. I smell whiskey and expensive cologne and pure arrogance.
I don’t turn. “Let go of me.”
But he doesn’t. His fingers tighten, casual in that annoying way that’s meant to provoke.
Alexei steps in immediately. “Roman—come on, maybe not tonight.”
Roman scoffs, ignoring him. “What’s gotten your panties in a bunch, little brother?” he says, leaning in, breath hot and foul. You look like someone pissed in your whiskey. Or did one of your little pets die?”
That’s it.
That’s it.
I grab him by the collar and slam his head into the edge of the bar with one hard, brutal crack. His body jolts, drink spilling from someone nearby, voices gasping. The music stumbles, just slightly, as heads turn.
Blood spills down his temple in a slow, dark line.
“I’m going to kill you,” I tell him, voice low and lethal, pinning him there, one hand twisted in his shirt.
He blinks up at me, stunned and smiling like a drunk child who doesn’t understand why the stove burned him.
Alexei tries to step in again. “Konstantin—please.”
Lev’s at my side now. He doesn’t need to ask.
He just pries my hand off Roman’s collar and pulls me back, walking me toward the exit like a bomb ticking seconds before detonation.
I let him.
Because if I don’t, I’ll finish Roman right here.