15. Aleksandr
ALEKSANDR
Ifeel a shift in the air before it happens.
The estate is never truly quiet. There is always the low murmur of my men moving through the halls, the distant clink of glassware from the kitchen staff preparing meals throughout the day. Right as the clock over the door in my office chimes for noon, everything around me stills unnaturally.
The murmur in the hallway cuts off mid-sentence, footsteps halt. The sudden absence of sound is louder than any noise, pressing against my eardrums like a held breath.
My pulse kicks instinctively inside my chest when I raise my head up from my desk with the same hard, warning thud it used to make when I was a boy and my father was roaming the halls during one of his drunk rages looking for a punching bag. Back then, the silence was always the prelude.
The moment the shouting stopped, the moment the heavy footsteps paused outside a door, that was when the real danger arrived.
Nikolai Malyshko doesn’t announce himself whenever he arrives at my estate.
He never does.
It’s his way of keeping the three of us on our toes, using the same playbook I do when I want to catch an enemy off guard. His sudden, overwhelming presence does the work of a dozen men standing at the ready with their guns raised in front of them.
By the time I reach the entry hall, he’s already there waiting for me.
He stands in the exact center of the black-and-white marble floor, hands lifted in front of him as he slowly pulls a set of driving gloves off his long fingers.
His ice-gray eyes scan the room with detached interest, mapping the interior of my home the way he does every visit, cataloguing the differences since the last time he was here.
My people are buzzing around him nervously.
Both of my lieutenants stand at awkward attention near the front doors, hovering close by while a set of guards quickly takes the layers Malyshko sheds.
One of the younger ones actually backs up a step when that icy gaze flicks toward him for a brief moment.
None of them were prepared to receive anyone, let alone a guest like him.
I scan his face as I approach.
He doesn’t look angry.
Unfortunate because that would have been easier to manage.
Anger is predictable, something I can counter with deflection the same way I used to with my father.
Malyshko’s expression is colder than anger—measured curiosity tinged with suspicion of a man who already knows the answer to the question he’s about to ask and is only waiting to see if I’ll lie about it.
My mouth opens to greet him with some neutral pleasantry, or attempt to buy a few seconds to gauge his mood further, but the words die on my tongue when movement catches the corner of my eye.
I turn and find Katerina frozen at the top of the grand staircase.
She’s wearing the gala dress that arrived earlier this morning, the dark silk clinging to her like liquid shadow, the skirt flowing behind her in a dramatic sweep that makes her look like she’s descending from some other world entirely.
Her hair is pinned back with the curled ends gently cascading over her shoulders in soft waves.
At her throat sits the diamond dew-drop pendant I purchased for her a few days ago.
Simple, elegant, catching every flicker of light from the sconces beside her and throwing tiny prisms across her pale skin.
She looks absolutely breathtaking.
And completely out of place at a moment like this.
Her eyes dart between us both, first to me then to the head of the Iron Pact, then back again.
Her brow pulls together when she notices how on edge everyone is.
Confusion flickers across her face as she registers the weight of his presence without fully understanding why it’s so oppressive in the first place.
She doesn’t know his arrival is never for drinks or small talk.
It’s for judgment day.
When I slowly turn back to him, his eyes are fixed on Katerina.
They trail down from her hair to the diamond at her throat, over the silk that hugs her curves, down the long sweep of the gown to the heels that make her legs look endless. Suspicion solidifies into confirmation in the span of a single heartbeat. His gaze flicks back to me, cool and unreadable.
“So,” he says mildly, “I see you both have been busy.”
Any other person in this world, I would take the comment as an attempt to break the ice, a roundabout way to inquire why Katerina is dressed for a ball on a Tuesday afternoon.
I would smile, offer a drink while deflecting with charm to throw them off the scent before they dig too deeply and discover the real reason..
With Nikolai Malyshko, that is never the case.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that showing up here was a means to confirm whatever intel had come down his channels.
Whispers from his own network, or surveillance that I have suspected since he first brought her up in our meeting, must have suggested Katerina and I were up to more than just a private affair meant to pass the time.
Unease curls in my gut.
Katerina starts down the stairs, her heels clicking on the marble, the sound echoing over the hushed foyer louder than usual. Nikolai doesn’t even glance over at her. His attention stays on me.
I step forward, putting myself between him and the staircase without making it obvious, and incline my head with the smallest acknowledgment of respect I can manage while my pulse roars in my ears.
“Malyshko… to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
His lips curve into a very subtle frown.
“I think we both know the answer to that,” he replies.
When Katerina reaches the bottom step, I wave a hand in the direction of my office. I don’t give her time to ask questions. I don’t give Malyshko the opportunity to continue whatever reprimand he plans to give me in front of witnesses.
“Office,” I say simply.
Malyshko inclines his head the smallest fraction, an acknowledgment rather than an agreement, and turns without a word, already moving toward the corridor as though this was always the plan.
His steps are unhurried with the same lethal calm he carries into every room he enters.
I gesture once for my men to stay put and fall in line behind him.
The silence between us grows heavier with every step.
Behind us, I know Katerina is watching.
I feel her eyes on my back trying to read the situation from my posture alone, and the way Malyshko’s presence has sucked every ounce of oxygen from the foyer. She doesn’t call out to me as we disappear down the hallway, nor does she follow. She’s too smart for that.
But I hate leaving her like this, standing in the middle of the entry hall as confusion and unease flicker across her face without fully understanding what is happening.
I hate it more than I can afford to admit.
However, this isn’t a conversation she can sit in on.
Not if I want to maintain the illusion that I’m keeping her at arm’s length as a play toy I’ve grown fond of but refuse to fully commit to.
The moment she steps into that room beside me, the illusion will shatter.
She will become a partner, not a possession.
An asset Nikolai will never tolerate my keeping.
The corridor stretches ahead, sconces throwing weak pools of light across the marble. Our footsteps echo in perfect, unsettling sync. I reach the door first and push it open, gesturing him inside first.
He does so without hesitation.
I don’t bother locking the door after sealing us inside. No one in this entire estate would dare open that door while two members of the Iron Pact are inside together.
Malyshko takes his time looking around.
He moves slowly through the space, cataloging the dark wood paneling, the heavy velvet drapes, the fireplace with remnants of the fire from last night.
He passes over the bookshelves lined with volumes I’ve never read but keep for appearances, and over to the desk where the plans for the military gala are collected into envelopes and sealed with wax.
Names and addresses are printed on each of them—back up copies that will be sent to the Russian embassy once Katerina and I leave the gala.
When he finally turns his attention back to me, his expression is hard. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries.
“You are underestimating the military. They bend to us most of the time, yes, but do not mistake that for blind submission.”
My throat tightens.
I don’t interrupt him.
I know better than that.
His knowing about our plan is… unsettling, though not surprising. Deep down, I’m not really shocked. I’ve known Nikolai long enough to understand the reach he has far exceeds what Sokolov, Kuznetsov, and I can match individually.
His network is deeper, his sources unfathomable.
Whatever channel he used to learn about the gala—whether through a planted bug snuck in during his last visit, drone footage, intercepting my encrypted network to access the data stored on my private server—had intrigued him enough to come here to confirm the rumor himself.
However he learned it is irrelevant now, an issue I will need to address later. What he plans to do with that knowledge is what matters.
He continues, stepping closer to the desk, fingers trailing once along the edge of the blotter.
“Our influence over them is extensive, but it is not absolute. Push too hard, expose too much, and they will respond in ways even the Pact cannot fully contain. Men like Ramil Borchin will not accept being humiliated. Not in front of every peer he’s spent forty years impressing.”
My lips thin.
As true as that may be, I don’t care.