15. Alina
ALINA
The gunshot cracks through the catering hall before my mind can catch up to what my eyes already saw, and the first thing I register is Mikhail standing ten feet away, real and solid and impossibly here.
I don’t think about how or why because my body reacts faster than fear or recognition ever could.
I drop hard, pulling my son down with me, my arm locking around his middle as we hit the floor together.
Plates shatter nearby, and someone screams from the far side of the room while chairs scrape and tip as people scramble away from the sound.
Another shot goes wide and punches through glass, and Oisin cries out once, sharp and frightened, before I pull him tighter and turn my body so I’m between him and everything else.
“Stay down,” I tell him, my mouth close to his ear. “Don’t move. Don’t look.”
He clutches my shirt with both hands and does exactly what I say, his face buried against me, his breathing quick but controlled enough that I know he’s listening.
Men surge in from every direction, and I hear boots pounding against tile and voices overlapping in confusion and command. One voice cuts through the rest, sharp and unmistakable, and even before I process it fully, I know it’s Mikhail. He’s giving orders in a tone stripped of anything unnecessary.
Two shots answer the first gunshot, one after the other, close enough that I feel the vibration through the floor. They’re clean and controlled, and then the noise stops so suddenly that it feels wrong, like the room itself is holding its breath.
I keep my head down even after the shooting ends. Silence doesn’t mean safety here. Oisin shifts against me, and I tighten my hold just enough to keep him still without hurting him. My heart is pounding hard enough that it makes my ears ring.
A firm hand grips my shoulder.
“It’s clear,” a man says, and his voice isn’t Mikhail’s. He sounds professional, steady, like this is exactly what he was trained for.
I don’t move right away. I lift my head slowly and scan the floor around us, checking angles, exits, hands, and weapons, because habit doesn’t shut off just because fear wants it to. I see one body near the door, covered quickly by a jacket, and I look away before Oisin can follow my gaze.
That’s when I feel Mikhail’s presence again, closer now, heavy in a way that has nothing to do with his size. I don’t look at him yet because once I do, this becomes something else entirely.
“Oisin,” I whisper, smoothing a hand over his hair. “You’re okay.”
He nods once against me, still holding on.
I don’t move. I don’t trust clear.
Another man crouches in front of us, weapon still raised. “No secondary,” he says. “One shooter. Down.”
Mikhail’s boots stop inches from my face.
“Alina.”
I flinch at the sound of my name, then hate myself for it. I lift my head slowly. He’s right there. Real. Older. Harder. His eyes are locked on me like I might vanish if he blinks.
Oisin shifts against me and peeks up.
Mikhail sees him.
The change in his face is immediate and brutal. Not soft. Not gentle. Shock, then something darker, then control slamming back into place.
“Get out of the room,” Mikhail says. “Now.”
People move fast. Customers are pushed toward exits. Staff are herded back. Chairs are righted. Someone throws a jacket over the body on the floor near the door. I don’t look at it.
Mikhail crouches in front of me, lowering himself to eye level.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “He isn’t, either.”
I don’t say my son’s name. I don’t offer it.
Mikhail nods once. “Good.”
He reaches out like he’s going to touch Oisin, then stops himself halfway. His hand drops back to his side.
“Stay where you are,” he tells me.
I don’t answer. I’m already standing, pulling Oisin with me. I keep him behind my legs, my hands tight on his shoulders.
“No one touches him,” I say. “No one.”
Mikhail straightens slowly. “No one will.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “I won’t let you—”
“I said no one will,” he cuts in, sharp enough to shut me up. His eyes don’t leave my face. “Not now. Not ever.”
The catering hall smells like smoke and spilled coffee and fear. My ears are ringing. My heart won’t slow.
Mikhail steps closer, lowering his voice. “We need to talk.”
“Not here,” I say. “Not in front of everyone.”
“Agreed.”
“Then don’t corner me,” I snap. “Because I won’t give you anything here.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. He glances once toward the door, where his men are posted, then back to me.
“You ran,” he says. “You disappeared.”
“You hunted me,” I shoot back. “You killed anyone who helped me.”
His eyes flicker. “I killed the people who sold you.”
“That’s not the same thing,” I say.
Oisin presses closer to my legs, confused and frightened. I drop a hand to his hair and steady myself.
Mikhail notices the movement. His voice changes when he speaks again. “What’s his name?”
“No,” I say immediately.
“Alina.”
“No,” I repeat. “You don’t get that. Not here.”
Another sound cracks through the building. A second gunshot. Closer. Outside this time.
Everything tightens.
“Second shooter,” someone shouts.
Mikhail turns his head, listening, calculating. He looks back at me.
“They tracked me,” he says, fast and low. “They tracked you too. The idea was to keep us separate.”
I feel cold settle in my stomach.
“Who?” I ask.
“You already know,” he says.
My grip on Oisin tightens.
“You can keep running,” Mikhail continues, his voice controlled but urgent. “You’re good at it. You proved that. Or you can stay where I can end this.”
“And my son?” I whisper. “What happens to him?”
Mikhail doesn’t hesitate. “If you run, they keep following you until he’s old enough to matter, and then they kill him to hurt me. If you stay, I burn the man who started this. Alina, nothing will change the fact that he’s my son too. He’s a Morin.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I say, but my voice begins shaking.
But even as I move, a part of me has already done the math.
I didn’t disappear for six years by accident, and I didn’t survive on luck.
I stayed alive by staying unfinished, by never letting any place feel permanent enough to settle into, and by leaving the moment something started to feel familiar.
I worked kitchens, laundries, offices, anywhere cash changed hands quietly and no one asked for histories.
I kept my head down, I paid rent in advance, and I never gave my real name twice.
I learned early that running wasn’t enough.
Twice, men found me anyway. The first time was in a market, the second in a boarding house outside a city I didn’t bother learning.
Different faces, same eyes, same careful patience.
Both times, I left before they could act, and both times, I understood that this wasn’t random violence looking for money.
It was someone waiting for the right moment.
That knowledge kept me moving even when my body wanted rest, and it kept my son growing up on buses and in borrowed rooms, learning not to ask why we left places so suddenly.
I taught him how to pack fast, how to stay quiet when I told him to, and how to trust my voice even when everything else felt wrong.
It wore us down.
There were days I woke up exhausted before I even stood up, days when I counted my cash and knew I’d have to move again soon, days when I looked at my son sleeping and wondered how long I could keep asking him to live like this.
I told myself it was temporary, because telling myself anything else would’ve broken me.
And through all of it, I thought about Mikhail more than I wanted to admit.
Not because I wanted his world, or his protection, or the life I ran from, but because he was the one man who understood exactly what kind of danger we were in.
He never softened it for me. He never lied about the cost. Some nights, I caught myself wondering if staying would’ve been safer, if running only taught our enemies patience.
I hated myself for those thoughts, and I pushed them away every time they surfaced.
But seeing him here, in this moment, with a gunshot still ringing in my ears and my son pressed against me, I know something I’ve been avoiding for years.
I didn’t just run from Mikhail. I ran from the part of myself that trusted him to end this. And now, standing this close to him again, I can feel how tired I am of carrying it alone.
Another shot rings out, closer still. A scream follows.
Mikhail steps into my space. “I’m deciding it because I won’t lose him.”
I look up at him. “You don’t get to lose what you never protected.”
He doesn’t argue. “Alina,” he says quietly. “There’s no version of this where you walk out that door alone and live.”
Silence stretches between us. Oisin’s fingers twist in my shirt.
“What if I say no?” I ask.
Mikhail’s mouth tightens. “Then I still move you. Because this isn’t a debate.”
I laugh once, sharp and bitter. “That’s hardly what we’re going for.”
He glances down at Oisin again. “He’s mine.”
“Yes,” I say. “He is. And that’s why you don’t touch him unless I say so.”
Another shot, this one close enough to rattle glass.
Mikhail doesn’t look away from me. “We’re leaving. Now.”
I look at the exits, the men, and the body covered near the door. Then I stare at my son, shaking but silent. There’s no space left to run. “Promise me,” I finally say.
“Name it.”
“No punishment,” I say. “I won’t live like that again.”
Mikhail holds my gaze. “You won’t.”
“And Lira?” I add. “You dealt with her?”
A flicker of something dark passes over his face. “She won’t hurt anyone ever again.”
I swallow.
“Then don’t make this worse,” I say. “Don’t drag us.”
Mikhail steps back half a pace and extends his hand. Not to me. To Oisin.
Oisin looks up at me. “It’s okay,” I tell him quietly. “Stay close.”
Mikhail doesn’t touch him. He just stays there, hand open, waiting.
I take Oisin’s hand myself and step forward.
Mikhail nods once. “Let’s go.”
We move fast as his men form a tight perimeter. We exit through the kitchen and out a back door. The air outside is sharp and loud with engines and radios.
Two vehicles wait, doors open.
Mikhail turns to me. “You’re coming with me now.”
I don’t argue. There isn’t another move left on the board and for the first time since I ran, I know it.