Chapter 12 – Konstantin
I don’t leave her alone.
Not when the glass is still being swept from the library floor.
Not when the rain finally stops.
Not when the house settles into that deceptive quiet that always follows violence.
She stays in my room.
My decision. No discussion.
I watch Nik reposition guards outside the door on the security feed, doubling the rotation and staggering their routes.
I add cameras—corners, blind spots, places that never needed eyes before today.
I reroute alerts to my phone, my watch, and the tablet on the desk.
If something breathes too close to this wing, I will know.
It still isn’t enough.
I pace.
Bare feet against hardwood. One wall to the other. Back again. My hands curl and uncurl like I’m reaching for a weapon that isn’t there. Every crack in the house sounds like a threat.
Raelyn curls on the bed behind me, knees drawn up, blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She watches me move like she’s tracking a storm.
“Konstantin,” she says softly.
I don’t stop walking.
“I’m okay,” she adds. “I’m safe. I’m right here.”
I glance back before I can stop myself. She hasn’t moved. She isn’t shaking anymore. Her eyes are tired, but steady. Trusting.
That’s the part that tightens something ugly in my chest.
“I know,” I say, even though I don’t believe it. Safety is temporary. Safety is a lie people tell themselves before blood hits the floor.
I turn back to the monitors. Eastern perimeter. Southern fence. Roof cams. Clear. Clear. Clear.
Still, my pulse won’t slow.
She shifts on the bed. “You’re going to wear a path into the floor.”
I huff a breath that might almost be a laugh. “If the floor collapses, I’ll rebuild it stronger.”
“That’s not the point.”
I stop pacing.
She’s sitting up now, blanket slipping, dark hair falling around her shoulders. She looks smaller here—in my room, in my space—and the thought makes something feral snarl inside me.
“You don’t have to guard me every second,” she says gently. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I step closer. Close enough that she has to tilt her head to look up at me.
“That’s exactly the problem,” I say.
Her brows knit. “What is?”
“I don’t trust the seconds I’m not watching you.”
Silence.
Then she reaches out, slow, deliberate, and takes my hand. Her fingers are warm. Steady. Real.
“I’m safe,” she repeats. “With you.”
It should calm me.
It doesn’t.
It makes the fear sharper. More precise. Because now I know exactly what I stand to lose.
I sit beside her at last, tension coiled tight under my skin. She leans into me without asking, her head resting against my shoulder like it belongs there. My arm comes around her automatically, pulling her close, my palm settling at her back like muscle memory.
A sharp knock cuts through the moment.
I look up, already irritated. “What.”
The door opens just enough for Nik’s face to appear. He takes one look at the room—at Raelyn pressed to my side—and recalibrates.
“Your brothers are in the surveillance room,” he says. “Lev, Dimitri, Roman.”
I don’t hesitate. “Set up a video call. I’ll connect from here.”
Nik blinks. “From…here?”
“From here.”
I’m not leaving Raelyn for a nanosecond.
There’s a pause. A flicker of something unreadable crosses Nik’s face—surprise, maybe concern—before he nods. “Understood.”
He leaves and shuts the door again.
Raelyn pushes away from me and stands up. Her arms are crossed. Her face is tense, annoyed in that way that shows she’s scared but refuses to admit it.
“You’re being paranoid,” she says.
I shake my head once. “I’m being careful.”
“You can’t run a war room from your bedroom forever.”
“I can,” I say flatly. “And I will.”
She steps closer. “Konstantin. Go see your brothers.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Her jaw tightens. “I’ll be fine.”
“No,” I say. “You won’t.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I don’t care.”
She exhales sharply, dragging a hand through her hair. “You can’t lock yourself in here because of me.”
I step toward her, stopping just short of touching. “I can. And I am.”
Her eyes flash. “This is exactly what I meant. This—this is control.”
“This is survival.”
“You don’t get to decide that alone.”
“I do,” I snap. Then, lower, more dangerous: “Because if something happens to you while I’m in another room, I won’t survive it.”
Silence stretches between us, tight as a wire.
She looks at me for a long moment. Then her shoulders drop, just a little.
“You’re going to suffocate both of us like this,” she says quietly.
“Maybe,” I answer. “But you’ll be alive.”
She shakes her head, frustrated, conflicted. “You can’t protect me by destroying yourself.”
I step closer now, close enough that she has to look up at me. “That’s not what this is.”
Her lips part, ready to argue again, but a knock slams into the moment.
Sharp. Insistent.
I turn and storm to the door, yanking it open. Nik stands there, stiff-backed, eyes flicking past me into the room.
I squint at him. “What.”
“Your brothers,” he says carefully. “They’d prefer to see you in person.”
Before I can tell him exactly where they can shove that preference, a sudden pressure hits my back. Raelyn.
She plants both hands on my shoulders and shoves.
Hard.
I stumble a step into the hall, just enough for her to slam the door shut between us.
“Raelyn—”
The lock snaps.
Final. Deliberate.
“Go to your brothers, Konstantin,” she calls through the door. “I’ll be fine.”
I stare at the wood like I might burn through it with sheer will.
“Raelyn,” I say again, sharper now. “Open the door.”
Nothing.
I drag a hand down my face, jaw clenched so tight it aches, then turn slowly.
Nik is watching me like a man standing too close to an unexploded bomb.
I glare at him. “Put guards on this door. Armed. No one gets in. No one.”
“Yes,” he says immediately.
“Double the rotation. Eyes on the cameras at all times.”
He nods again. Smarter now not to speak.
I take one last look at the door—at the woman on the other side of it who just outmaneuvered me—then turn on my heel.
I head for the surveillance room.
And every step away from her feels wrong.
I finally reach there, and as the door shuts behind me, the room erupts.
“What the hell was that?” Lev snaps the second I step inside. He’s already on his feet, hands braced on the table, eyes sharp with disbelief. “You lock yourself in a room for hours, refuse to leave her side, and now you won’t see us?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I cross the room and stop in front of the wall of monitors, my eyes scanning instinctively—perimeter feeds, thermal scans, motion sensors. All green. Too green.
Lev exhales through his nose.
Roman’s voice cuts in, calm but edged. “You’re slipping.”
I finally turn my head slightly. “Careful.”
“You think we don’t see it?” Dimitri says, arms crossed, gaze steady. “This level of possessiveness clouds judgment. You’re not thinking like you used to.”
I look at him then. Really look.
“You didn’t see the glass,” I say quietly.
They all still.
“You didn’t hear the sound it made when it cracked,” I continue. “Didn’t see the bullet on the floor. Didn’t feel her shaking when I picked her up.”
Lev’s jaw tightens. “That doesn’t change who you are.”
“It does,” I say flatly.
Silence drops, heavy and tense.
Roman steps closer. “You can’t afford emotion right now. Markov will exploit it.”
I laugh once. There’s no humor in it. “He already tried.”
Lev swears under his breath. Roman’s expression hardens.
Dimitri’s gaze sharpens, calculating. “Yeah, we heard. That’s why we’re here.”
“She was alone,” I say. “For less than five minutes. And that was enough.”
Lev studies my face now, slower, more careful. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“No,” I disagree. “I’m thinking clearly.”
Roman shakes his head. “This is how men die. When they start confusing protection with obsession.”
I step closer to the table, palms flat against it, leaning in. “You want to know what obsession looks like?” I ask quietly. “It looks like imagining her blood on the floor because I chose strategy over instinct.”
No one speaks.
“I have buried men alive without losing sleep,” I continue. “I have ordered deaths over fewer consequences than this. But the thought of her not breathing—” My jaw locks. “That does something to me.”
Dimitri exhales slowly. “That’s exactly the problem.”
“That,” I correct, “is exactly why she’s still alive.”
Lev rubs a hand over his face. “You’re risking everything.”
“Yes,” I say. “I am.”
Roman’s voice lowers. “If Markov realizes she’s your weakness—”
“He already knows,” I cut in. “Which means we stop pretending this is just about leverage.” I straighten. “This is a war now.”
The room goes quiet.
“And I don’t lose wars.”
Silence stretches—tight, electric—then Lev exhales slowly and drags a chair back.
“Alright,” he says, all sharp edges and focus now. “If this is war, then we stop reacting.”
Roman’s fingers move across the console, pulling up satellite feeds and financial dashboards. “Markov never strikes twice from the same angle. The bullet wasn’t the attack; it was the announcement.”
Dimitri nods. “He’s testing response time. Mapping Konstantin’s perimeter. Seeing how fast we flood the house.”
“He wanted to see you,” Lev adds, eyes flicking to me. “How far you’d go.”
I don’t deny it.
Roman zooms in on a financial graph. “Look at this. Three shell accounts lit up within twelve hours of the breach. Baltic routing. Old Markov signature.”
Dimitri leans in. “He’s moving liquidity. That means logistics. Safe houses. Transport.”
Lev snaps his fingers. “Pressure points. We don’t hit him directly; we make him uncomfortable.”
I pace once, then stop. “I want eyes on every port he’s used in the last five years. Every airstrip. Every fixer.”
Roman types rapidly. “Already pulling. There’s a warehouse in Varna he’s kept dormant. It just came back online.”
Dimitri’s mouth curves slightly. “Dormant assets waking up means he’s preparing for loss.”
Lev looks at me. “Good. Then we make him bleed early.”
“How?” Roman asks.