Stepan
Icircle the mat inside the gym ring with my feet bouncing while Angus bounces across from me on his toes.
Kazimir stands outside the ring, barking orders at us both.
He's trying to keep us both in shape and on our toes, and this match was supposed to be pretty even, but I'm getting my ass handed to me time and again because my head just isn't in this game right now.
I haven't heard from Marina in a week, and I'm afraid she's decided to pull back.
I give a quick nod and try to lock in, but my focus keeps slipping.
My thoughts keep drifting back to Orlov and the way he’s holding Marina like some kind of trophy.
I've been picturing my hands wrapped around that fucker's neck for days now, and the only thing that does is to make me want to kill him even more.
He doesn't deserve her, and if I have anything to say about it, he won't get to enjoy her at all.
Angus pops in with a quick cross, which I slip, but I’m a half-second slow on the cross that follows it, and it glances off my shoulder.
He follows up fast before I can reset, and a clean left hook catches me square on the jaw.
The impact snaps my head back. The gym lights blur as my legs buckle, and I drop hard onto the canvas.
Everything spins around as black spots crowd the edges of my vision. I’m pretty sure I almost blacked out.
I blink hard a few times, shaking my head to clear the ringing in my ears. The gym slowly comes back into focus. “What?" I blink a few times and suck in a breath, seeing Angus standing behind my cousin. "Yeah… I’m okay.”
Kaz scowls at me and shakes his head. "What’s going on in there?
” He taps the side of my head lightly. We all have our share of distractions and things that get to us.
It wasn't that long ago when it was Kazimir’s turn to be off his game.
But a team is only as strong as its weakest link, and I know I have to snap out of this funk or it's gonna hurt everyone around me somehow.
Right now, however, my mind is miles away, tangled up in thoughts of Marina.
She’s gotten so deep under my skin, I can’t shake her, no matter how hard I try.
It’s only been three weeks since Roman laid out that six-week timeline, and the wait feels unbearable.
Not seeing her is slowly driving me crazy.
Every day Orlov gets to be around her with this wall up between us is a day I'm going mad.
I've almost entirely forgotten about the alliance.
All I can think about is how much I want to kill him because she's choosing him, and it doesn't even matter that she has to choose him. She doesn't get any real choice, anyway.
Kaz waits from his crouching position, but with Angus hovering there's no way we're getting to the bottom of this, and he knows it.
He waves Angus off, and the hulking man climbs out of the ring.
Then Kazimir sits down on the mat next to me and leans against the ropes like he's going nowhere until I open up.
Usually, this would be done while we belt the shit out of each other, but today, I just don't have the energy.
"It's the girl?" he asks, and he's being a lot nicer about this than I was with him when it came to Zora.
"Yeah," I grumble, resting my head back on the rope behind me. "Dammit, Kaz, all I can think about is killing that fucker." I huff and close my eyes, but I see his face all beet red and his eyes bulging as I choke him. "She's only choosing him because of the alliance. I know it in my gut."
Kazimir sighs and rubs the back of his neck. He’s the one who came up with this whole plan in the first place. “You're distracted, Step. It's gonna end badly..."
"I want that fucker, Kaz. I want him so bad, I can taste it.
I dream about it. Every time I close my eyes, I see it....
" This has moved so far away from a job to end some alliance against us that I can't seem to find my way back.
I know I'm obsessed. I've seen the way she looks at me.
I know she wants me as much as I want her.
And being pushed away is an insult. I can't let him have her, even if she still refuses me.
I can let her walk away from me, but not if it's to him.
"You talked to Ro?" he says cautiously. Roman's already given him a piece of his mind over that hare-brained idea. By now he's had his lashes from it, but I can tell he's still dancing around the topic.
"I did... He gave me six weeks, three weeks ago. And I have his permission to make it happen if there’s no other way.
" I draw my knees up and rest my taped wrists on them.
My knuckles are bruised from beating the heavy bags earlier, and my hands are slightly swollen, but I flex them and imagine how good it'll feel to wrap my hands around Orlov's neck.
"And do you think she'll leave him for you?" Kazimir mirrors my pose, but he doesn't look as relaxed. His shoulders are tense like always. He's chomping at the bit, waiting for me to be stupid and give him an order to go off Orlov or something.
"She's not gonna do it. Would you be disloyal to us?" I lift an eyebrow at him and he switches gears.
"So go to Sergei and insist the alliance is bad. Have him look at us..." He's reaching now, probably doing what Roman ordered him to do, coach me into the safest choice. But I've crossed the line into unsafe already and I have no interest in going back.
"It's not happening, Kaz. The only way to stop this alliance now is to end one of them, and Sergei doesn’t make sense. Not only that, but Marina would lose her father... Besides, Orlov is more powerful. It'd take his empire longer to rebuild."
He doesn't miss a beat, leaning on the last pressure spot left. He's good, working me down until I convince myself of what I have to do, which I'm sure isn't what Roman wanted. "Then you discredit her. Make Orlov see she's cheated, and he'll throw her out."
I chuckle and sigh. "Not gonna happen, Cousin." When I look at him I see the half smirk on his lips. There is a silent knowing that passes between us and he nods. "Marina is too special to do that to her. I won't make her look like a common whore. She'd never look at me again..."
"Roman won't like it," he grumbles, but I've already been given the go ahead.
I picture Orlov’s face again with a nasty smirk and feel the confidence to make this call rising. “Call Timur,” I tell him. “I want to know if he can find out when and where that fucker will be meeting for his next shipment. And we need to know how many men there are. I have a job to finish."
Kazimir stretches out his legs and leans forward, looking back at me over his shoulder. "You can't be the one, you know that... If you get tied back to it—"
I shake my head before he finishes, already pushing myself up from the ropes.
The dizziness has mostly faded, but I grab the rope to keep myself steady, anyway.
"I’m doing it myself, Kaz, and you're not changing my mind.
I want to be there when the lights go out and make sure it's done right.
" This is too personal to leave it to a grunt to do the work for me.
I'm too close to it, and I want to know he feels every ounce of the punishment I intend to dish out.
I don't want some quick bullet to the head.
Kaz leaps to his feet with protests on his lips. "Listen, think about it for a second. Emotions are running high on this one. That’s exactly when mistakes get made. We’ve got a good plan going—let’s not blow it because you want to handle the close wet work personally.”
“I know the risks,” I say as I grab the towel off the rope and wipe the sweat from my face. “And I told you I'm doing it myself. Get Tim on the phone and get what I asked, and stop questioning me. You want my head in this game, then let me shake this thing loose my way."
I climb out of the ring and onto the concrete floor below, heading for the locker room to wash up.
Kazimir stands in the ring watching as I walk away.
He doesn't get it because he didn’t have to fight for his woman the way I am.
By the time her mess was made, she was clawing her way out of the hole back toward him.
I just know Marina's never gonna do that for me.
Her mind is made up. She feels trapped into this thing and she'll never walk away from her family. She's already told me this is her sacrifice to make. It's insane, but I actually understand her loyalty. In this world we're both a part of, if we're not loyal to family, we have nothing.
When my plan is walked out and Orlov is dead, we'll have a short window to convince her father that aligning with the Radin-Kuzin operation is the best thing for him, and I have to be at my best for that to happen.
A lot of planets have to align for me to pull this off.
Otherwise, I'm going to ask for a reassignment out of the country permanently. Because a world where Marina is an Orlov is a world I want nothing to do with.