7. Aleksandr #3
Months ago, he crossed a line Malyshko has still not forgotten.
He took a woman under his “protection” after an attack at her university nearly killed her.
What started as calculated captivity became…
something else, apparently. He didn’t keep her at arm’s length like he was supposed to.
He didn’t treat her like the pawn she was given to him as by her father.
He let her get close and allowed himself to fall for her.
At the next Pact meeting, he was given a choice—kill her to rid himself of the attachment or forfeit his loyalties to us and declare himself our enemy.
There was no third option offered.
The matter should have ended there. Alina showing up on Malyshko’s doorstep days later to forfeit her own life in exchange for Sokolov’s had tipped the balance indefinitely.
Whatever happened between the three of them still remains a mystery to me.
But one thing had been made abundantly clear after that incident.
While she still remains alive to this day with Malyshko’s blessing, that debt is still on his ledger and will most likely never be erased.
That single glance is all it takes to remind every man in this room that mistakes like that will always be remembered regardless of how much time has passed. The implication is unmistakable. Do not follow in his footsteps.
His attention snaps back to me, those ice-gray eyes cutting straight through the dim light of the room. “All that does is compromise stability. As we’ve all come to know.”
For the first time in years, maybe ever, I don’t push back. No easy smile, no dry remark to deflect the pressure or arrogant tilt of the head that portrays that I’m untouchable. I simply incline my head with the smallest gesture of acknowledgment.
“My personal affairs won’t interfere with the Pact. You have my word,” I say evenly.
The promise tastes wrong in my mouth. Not because it’s a lie, though part of it is. It isn’t that I have no intention of keeping my word. It’s because it’s a compromise. I am giving up ground voluntarily to a man who has never once given me an inch without exacting something else in return.
He studies me. Whatever he finds in my face, whatever he reads in the careful blankness I’ve forced to settle on my face, it clearly doesn’t satisfy him. But it also doesn’t condemn me, either.
Not yet, at least.
He exhales slowly, a small, controlled sound. “If there is nothing further to discuss, you are all dismissed.”
No one argues against the decision.
I rise with the rest of them, though I can still feel the weight of his earlier words pressing against the back of my neck as we leave.
The hallway outside the chamber is vast and echoing, designed to dwarf the men who walk through it.
Our footsteps carry in a steady rhythm along the marble, the sound swallowed and returned in soft repetition by the vaulted ceiling above.
Sokolov walks on my left, Kuznetsov on my right.
Neither of them speaks.
At the main entryway, we separate without ceremony.
The cold air bites my lungs as I breathe it in deeply.
The sting should be clarifying, burning away the lingering tension knotted between my shoulder blades, and carve through the static still humming beneath my skin. Instead, it only sharpens my thoughts.
Malyshko knows more than he’s saying. He always does. Mentioning Katerina so blatantly in the middle of our meeting was not an offhand observation. Instead of dismissing the others and keeping me behind to address it privately, he chose to call me out in front of them.
Why?
To try to humiliate me?
To remind me of my place?
My mind drifts back to the way his gaze shifted to Sokolov with that quiet reminder of what happens when attachment begins to outweigh our own discipline. Is this his attempt to teach the lesson he never quite managed to finish with Sokolov?
To me, all of this seems like a precursor to prevent me from following in Sokolov’s footsteps. The way he allowed the implication to hang in the room without blatantly addressing the issue like he’s done so many times with other topics is what unsettles me most.
He wanted me to understand that regardless of whatever little game I’m playing with Katerina and Ramil, it needs to be kept contained. If he decides that my attachment toward Katerina compromises the Pact in any way, he will not hesitate in forcing my hand the same way he tried to with Sokolov.
But unlike Sokolov, I doubt I will be granted some miracle the same way he had. There will be no unexpected sacrifice to tilt the scales in my favor, no emotional concession that will get Malyshko to change his mind about killing the woman living under my roof.
My ending would not be as fortunate.
So, it leaves me with only one decision—to concede and give him what he wants, perhaps even returning her to the same man who put her in this position to begin with, or risk defying an explicit order and keep Katerina, no matter the consequences?