11. Nikolai
NIKOLAI
Nikolai carries Theo into the guest bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall. The room is quiet and simply furnished: soft grey walls, a wide bed made up with clean white sheets and a heavy quilt, a single lamp casting warm light from the bedside table.
He has never used this room for anyone before Theo.
Tonight it feels necessary.
The boy is still soft and pliant from the bath, wrapped in the large towel, his skin warm against Nikolai’s chest.
Nikolai sets Theo down carefully on the edge of the mattress and unwraps the towel.
Theo’s body is clean, marked in places only he can see, the residual flush of his earlier orgasm still visible across his cheeks and chest. Nikolai pulls back the covers, guides him under them, and draws the quilt up to the boy’s shoulders.
The platinum bracelet remains absent from Theo’s wrist; they will pick it up sooner rather than later, Nikolai decrees.
Theo looks up at him, grey eyes still slightly unfocused, the Little headspace lingering in the way he waits for what comes next.
Nikolai sits on the side of the bed…
“When I was a boy,” Nikolai begins, voice low, “I used to run the streets at night. Late, after everyone else had gone inside. I pretended I was a dragon. I would race down the alleys and across the empty lots, breathing deadly flames at every man who had ever wronged my family. I burned them all in my head. Every debt collector, every rival, every face that had looked at my father with contempt. The flames were perfect. No one escaped.”
Theo’s mouth curves into a small smile. He listens without interrupting, the quilt tucked under his chin.
Nikolai continues, letting a dry edge of humor color the memory...
“When I finally came home, covered in dirt and pretending my scales were still smoking, my mother would open the door, look at me, and say, ‘The Little Dragon has returned.’ Then he would march me upstairs, tuck me into bed exactly like this, and sing until I fell asleep. He had a terrible voice. Off-key every time. But it worked.”
Theo’s smile deepens. The expression is soft, unguarded. Something in Nikolai’s chest tightens at the sight of it.
Nikolai does not speak again for a moment. Instead he begins to sing… low, rough, the same simple Russian lullaby his mother used all those years ago.
The melody is imperfect. He has never claimed to have a good voice.
But Nikolai keeps the rhythm steady and quiet, one hand resting lightly on the quilt over Theo’s shoulder.
His eyelids grow heavier with each verse.
By the final lines Theo’s breathing has slowed into the even pattern of approaching sleep.
Nikolai leans down and presses a brief kiss to Theo’s forehead.
“Sleep all night,” he tells the boy. “Do not get out of bed. Daddy’s orders.”
Theo makes a small sound of acknowledgment, already half gone. Nikolai waits until Theo’s eyes close fully, then rises, switches off the lamp, and steps out into the hallway. The door shuts with a soft, final click.
Downstairs, the house feels larger and quieter. Nikolai walks through the dimly lit rooms to the kitchen, the same space where he had given the boy hot milk only a short while earlier. He takes his phone from his pocket and types a short message to Xander…
NIKOLAI: Full deep dive on Theo. Everything. No limits. I want it all.
Nikolai sends it, sets the phone on the counter, and pours a generous measure of vodka into a heavy glass. The first swallow burns clean. He carries the glass to the leather couch and sits, the same place where he had begun to open the door to his real life for Theo.
The city outside is dark.
Somewhere across it the Rossini family continues to push product onto streets that belong to him.
Somewhere else Maxim Kovalev is weighing the cost of the alliance Nikolai offered—and the price of refusing it.
Nikolai turns the glass slowly in his hand. He hopes Maxim agrees. The conditions are clear: help erase the Rossinis completely, and the west-side border becomes stable, the northern harbor opens, the constant low-level bleeding of territory stops.
If Maxim declines, the calculation changes.
Nikolai will still move against the Rossinis. He has no choice. But he will also have to treat Maxim as a future enemy rather than a possible ally.
Two fronts. A fight that will not end until one side is gone entirely.
A fight to the death on every street that matters.
The vodka settles warmer in his chest. Upstairs a young man he is already claiming more deeply than he planned sleeps under his roof, under his orders, after hearing a story he has never told anyone else.
Nikolai has just ordered a complete accounting of Theo’s past. The two facts sit side by side without easy reconciliation. He drinks again and stares at the dark windows…
The Little Dragon grew up.
The flames are no longer imaginary.
And the night, as always, still belongs to him…
A flash of instinct courses through his brain and Nikolai wakes in the dark without knowing why…
One moment he is under the heavy covers of his own bed, the next his eyes are open and every muscle is already tight.
The room is silent.
The thick curtains block the streetlights.
No floorboard has creaked. No alarm has sounded.
Yet something in the house has shifted, an almost imperceptible change in the air that his body recognizes before his mind can name it.
He lies still and listens. Nothing.
The townhouse is layered with the best security money and careful planning can buy: reinforced doors, motion sensors that never sleep, cameras that feed to a private network that his security monitors even at this hour.
Still, Nikolai knows better than most that a pakhan has been killed in his sleep before. Locks and cameras only slow the determined.
Instinct has kept Nikolai alive longer than any system. He reaches to the antique mahogany cabinet beside the bed. The pistol is exactly where he left it, heavy and familiar. He checks the chamber by feel alone—locked and loaded—then swings his legs out from under the covers.
Black silk shorts are the only thing Nikolai wears. The night air cools his bare chest and shoulders as he moves.
Gun held low and ready, Nikolai steps into the hallway. The long gallery is empty. Soft runner under his feet, no movement at either end. He pauses outside the guest-room door and studies the thin line of darkness beneath it...
The door is shut. No light spills out.
If Theo had risen and switched on a lamp he would have heard the click, seen the glow. He gambles that he is still asleep and continues past.
The staircase curves downward in a wide, elegant spiral. Nikolai takes each step with deliberate care, weight balanced, the pistol extended ahead of him in a steady two-handed grip.
At the bottom he clears the kitchen first: empty counters, the faint residual scent of coffee and chocolate milk from earlier, nothing out of place. Then he turns toward the living room.
A shadow moves across the far wall.
Nikolai’s finger tightens on the trigger.
He edges forward, ready to fire on sight, ready to kill.
The figure is small, careful, moving with the quiet of someone who does not want to be heard.
What the fuck.
I can’t believe it…
His.
Relief hits only when the shape turns and the familiar outline of Theo’s bare shoulders and dark hair becomes clear in the dim light from the windows. Nikolai lowers the muzzle a fraction.
“Lights,” he says, voice flat and carrying.
The smart system responds at once. Soft overhead lamps bloom across the living room.
Theo spins, eyes wide, hands flying up.
“Please don’t shoot—” The words come out in a tight, frightened rush.
Nikolai immediately drops the pistol to his side, flicks the safety on, and sets it on the nearest side table with deliberate calm.
“It’s all right,” Nikolai says. “You’re safe. For now.”
Theo’s chest rises and falls hard. He is wearing only the soft sleep shirt Nikolai left folded for him earlier. His legs are bare, feet silent on the rug.
The earlier Little softness is gone, replaced by the sharp, assessing alertness he has seen in the boy before.
“What were you doing?” Nikolai asks. The question is even, without accusation.
The boy meets his eyes with a calm, controlled defiance.
“I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided to have a look around. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The candor is clean.
No elaborate excuse, no attempt to hide.
Nikolai studies Theo for another second and finds nothing that sets off further warning. He nods once…
“Come. Glass of milk. One each,” Nikolai says, more than a hint of warmth in his voice.
They walk together into the kitchen. Nikolai pours cold milk into two heavy tumblers and hands one to the boy. They stand at the island, the gun left behind in the living room, the house once again quiet around them.
Theo drinks slowly. Color begins to return to his face.
“I understand if you’re scared,” Nikolai says after a moment. “After what I told you earlier about the kind of life I lead.”
Theo looks down into his glass, then back up.
“It’s a lot to take in. But I’m cool with it. I think,” he says. The words are careful, honest enough as far as Nikolai can tell.
Nikolai reaches across the small distance between them and lets the tips of his fingers brush Theo’s. The contact is light, almost nothing, yet something steady moves through it—an unexpected recognition.
Nikolai has spent years reading people for threat or use. With Theo the reading keeps shifting…
The submissive softness he shows him sits beside a sharper core he has only begun to map. In that moment Nikolai senses they are more alike than he had previously considered: both of them carrying hidden edges, both of them surviving by knowing when to yield and when to hold the line.
Nikolai withdraws his hand only far enough to take another swallow of milk.
“It’s time to go back to bed,” Nikolai says. “Get some sleep before dawn. But this time you sleep with me.”
Theo’s cheeks color. He nods once, the motion small and submissive, eyes lowered for a heartbeat before he looks up again.
Nikolai takes his empty glass, sets both in the sink, and retrieves the pistol on the way past the living room.
Together they climb the wide staircase. The house settles behind them into true silence once more, the earlier tension dissolving into the quieter weight of two people who have chosen—at least for tonight—to share the same dark.