Chapter 18
Roman
Baron closes the library door behind us, the sound dull against oak panelled walls and a Persian rug that has soaked up more secrets than I can count. He doesn’t bother with a chair; he plants himself in front of the hearth like a statue carved out of the Cold War.
“You shot your own man,” he says.
“He put his hand on her.” I set my palms on the edge of the desk to stop the urge to pace. “No one touches her.” Not even me.
Baron’s gaze scrutinises my face. “You made a point.”
“I made a law.”
He considers me for a beat too long. Approval ghosts across his mouth and disappears. “Nik has sent the invite. You will go with her.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Mikhail’s word binds us. The vow stands. You present her at his funeral on your arm. The city will read the message.”
“My message,” I say. “Not yours.”
He huffs softly. “Careful with pronouns, synok. Pakhan or not, I am your father, and I remember when you pissed the bed.”
I inhale slowly, counting to three before I shoot him too. “Get to the point.”
“Two points. First: Ymir.” He tips his chin towards the door. “Keep him. He is mean, but not stupid. Pain teaches faster than firing. Make him swear on his mother’s bones that his hands stay off your woman. If you kill every man who looks at her, you will have an empty house by spring.”
“He won’t forget,” I say. “He bleeds once. Next time, he’s soil.”
Baron nods. He can’t argue with discipline. “Second: the funeral. Optics are everything. You will not start a war inside a church.”
“I prefer the car park.”
His mouth quirks. “You prefer spectacle. Don’t. This is theatre. You show her. You show restraint. Nik announces succession. You let him. Then you cut his legs after.”
“I was planning to start earlier.”
“You will not,” he says, flint-hard. “We have three aims. One: keep the girl breathing. Two: make it clear that a Voronov vow is in place. Three: discourage opportunists without giving the Met a reason to put their boots up on our desks for a month. We have an arms shipment coming through the Port of London the day after the funeral. Nothing can mess this up. That is an order not from me but from those above me.”
Those above me. That chills my blood. Moscow. They rarely interfere in diaspora affairs, but apparently, this is bigger than us.
“Understood. We wait. But this is bad timing. Seriously bad timing.”
“I know, but it is what it is. Nik will take control of the Antonov Bratva, and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it except show him the princess, the true heir, belongs to us.”
“For now. As soon as that shipment is through, all bets are off.”
Baron studies me as if he can peel my skin and read the tendons underneath. “Control what simmers underneath.”
“I did,” I say softly. “He still has a hand.”
A flicker of pride. Gone quickly. “Keep it that way until the dirt is on Mikhail. Do not underestimate him. Nik is weak but unpredictable.”
“Nik is greedy; that is the source of his unpredictability.”
“He is vain,” Baron corrects. “And vanity makes men theatrical. You are better when you are quiet.”
I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, bank the instinct to argue. “I’ll present her. I’ll be quiet.”
“For once.” He turns to leave. “Call your mother later. She worries about you.”
“Tell her to worry about Damien. I’m fine.”
“She spends her days worried about Damien. That boy is…” He shakes his head affectionately.
I will never get that, and I have come to terms with it.
Damien is the golden child. The one who gets to do what he wants, spend what he wants, kill who he wants, and there is no blowback.
I am the Voronov heir. Everything is blowback.
It is a price I am willing to accept for the power that will be bestowed on me when the old man goes the same way as Mikhail Antonov.
“That boy needs a smack around the head,” I say, anyway. Sometimes, I just can’t help it.
Baron chuckles. “Perhaps.”
He leaves it at that and slips out of the office, leaving the door open behind him.
With a patience that is learned, not innate, I stride purposefully towards the medical room where Katya is fixing up Ymir.
They both look over when I enter.
“Does anything else need to be said?” I ask Ymir.
“No, sir,” he says.
“Wrong. Listen up and hear me say it once so it rings every time you think with your arse instead of your head. You keep your eyes open, your hands closed. If you even reach, I’ll take the rest of it, and you’ll learn to shoot left-handed.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hold his stare a beat longer, then look to Katya.
She has wrapped him clean and tight, efficient as always.
She meets my gaze and gives a fractional nod.
He’ll live. He’ll remember. I leave them to it.
The house is awake now, guards rotated, routes covered.
I text Yuri a route plan for the funeral—two decoys, one ghost, staggered five minutes apart—and flag the secondary gate as a liability. He replies with a thumbs-up.
I head upstairs, stopping by my room to strip out of the chest rig, wash my hands and change into something more suitable to see the lady of the house.