Chapter 12 – Konstantin #2
I turn back to the table. “We cut his access. Freeze his accounts through proxies. Leak just enough intel to make his allies nervous.”
“And the men?” Dimitri asks.
“I want his lieutenants paranoid,” I say. “I want them wondering which of them is next.”
Lev’s eyes gleam. “Psychological pressure. Sleepless nights.”
Roman adds, “We can bait him. Feed him false movement near the estate. Let him think she’s being transferred.”
I shake my head. “Not her.”
A beat.
“Anyone else,” I finish. “But Raelyn doesn’t become bait.”
Lev studies me, then nods. “Understood.”
Dimitri straightens. “Then we go hunting.”
Roman glances at the monitors again. “If Markov pushed this far, he’s expecting retaliation.”
“Good,” I say quietly. “I want him expecting it.”
The room hums with intent now—plans forming, strategies locking into place, men moving pieces on a board only we can see.
“This ends one way,” Lev says.
I meet their eyes, one by one.
“With him underground,” I reply. “And her safe.”
Eventually, my brothers leave, and the surveillance room settles into a low, electric quiet. Screens glow. Fans hum. Time stops meaning anything.
I scrub the footage back. Again. Slower.
Frame by frame.
Rain streaks across the lens. Leaves shudder in the wind. Guards move along their routes—predictable, disciplined, exactly where they should be. Nothing out of place. Nothing obvious.
Then I see it.
I freeze the feed.
Magnify.
There—between two trees beyond the eastern fence line. Just a distortion at first. A darker shadow where shadow shouldn’t deepen. I adjust the contrast. Sharpen the image.
The silhouette resolves.
Tall. Still. Weight balanced on the balls of the feet. Rifle braced with patience, not tension. A man who can wait hours without shifting an inch.
My jaw locks.
I know that stance.
I’ve seen it through scopes. In thermal footage. In aftermath reports where the body drops before the sound arrives.
Markov’s sniper.
Not a freelancer. Not a warning man. His executioner.
I scrub back again, my pulse slowing instead of racing. That’s the dangerous part—the calm. The way fury condenses into something razor-thin and usable.
The angle is wrong for intimidation.
The distance is measured for lethality.
Head height. Library window. Clear line of sight.
This was never meant to scare her.
This was meant to end her.
The only thing that stopped it was the glass. The reinforced pane I joked about. The “cheap” window that cracked instead of shattering, that ate the force just enough to flatten the round and drop it harmlessly to the floor.
My hands curl into fists on the edge of the console.
He authorized it.
Markov didn’t test me. He didn’t probe defenses.
He tried to kill my wife.
The thought lands fully now, no abstraction left. Raelyn—pressed against my chest, shaking, breathing me in like I was the only solid thing left in the world—was seconds from dying alone in a library because I underestimated how fast Markov would escalate.
That mistake will not repeat.
I mark the frame. Export the clip. Send it to Lev, Roman, and Dimitri with one line attached.
Confirmed. His sniper.
I lean back slowly, eyes never leaving the frozen image of the man in the trees.
My fury doesn’t burn hot anymore.
It crystallizes.
“This,” I murmur to the empty room, voice steady as ice, “is what you chose.”
Markov wanted war.
Now he gets precision.
I leave the surveillance room and move back toward the bedroom.
The door is unlocked. Raelyn is sitting on the side of the bed, hair damp from a shower, sweater soft against her skin. Despite the smile she gives me, her eyes are wide, still raw from shock. The sight hits me harder than any bullet ever could.
I kneel in front of her—the same man who has knelt before no one—and take her hands gently in mine. My voice comes out rough, foreign even to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I should have anticipated this. I should have protected you better. You shouldn’t have been alone when they came.”
She shakes her head slightly, breath trembling. “I don’t want apologies,” she murmurs. Her voice is fragile, but there’s steel beneath it. “I want the truth. I want you to tell me something that really matters.”
I hold her gaze, feeling the weight of her demand, and for the first time in hours, the calculated edge of the world outside blurs. Maybe she’s right. It’s time I tell her something substantial. She’s already been through a lot.
“Your father wasn’t just investigating Markov,” I say.
My thumbs move over her knuckles, grounding myself as much as her.
“He uncovered a coded list. Intelligence leaks threaded through multiple criminal networks. Names, transfers, moles. The kind of information that doesn’t just ruin empires; it rewrites them. ”
Her fingers tense in mine.
“He believed someone inside Markov’s circle was selling intelligence to other syndicates. Markov believed your father passed the list on before he disappeared.” I hold her eyes. “That’s why they’re circling you. Not because you know something. But because they think you might.”
The silence that follows is brutal.
I watch it hit her—the devastation first, then the fury. Her jaw tightens. Her eyes shine, sharp and wet.
“So that’s it,” she says hoarsely. “You married me to contain the threat.”
I don’t flinch. “Yes.”
The word lands between us like a gunshot.
Her breath stutters. “You used me.”
“I protected you,” I say immediately—and then stop. I shake my head once. “No. I did both. And you deserve to hear that.”
She pulls her hands back, standing abruptly. “You don’t get points for honesty after the fact.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
She turns on me. “So what am I to you, Konstantin? A liability? A lockbox with legs?”
Something in my chest breaks clean open.
“I would have taken you for myself,” I say. The words are out before I can stop them. “Even without the debt. Even without your father.”
She freezes.
I rise slowly, but I don’t touch her.
“I saw you years ago,” I continue, voice low, stripped bare. “At the museum in Prague. You were arguing with a curator about provenance. You were right. You always are.” A humorless breath leaves me. “I didn’t know your name then. Just your face. Your fire.”
Her lips part, but no sound comes out.
“When your father’s investigation crossed my own, I recognized the name.
I watched from a distance. To make sure you weren’t being targeted.
” My jaw tightens. “And I noticed things I had no business noticing. Your obsession with unsolved questions. Your refusal to be managed. The way you push back when the world tells you to sit down.”
I step closer—not invading, just honest.
“I wanted you long before you ever fought me. Long before you stood in front of me and looked like you’d rather claw my eyes out than submit.”
Her breath shakes.
“So don’t misunderstand me,” I finish, voice rough. “Yes, I married you to protect secrets. But I kept you because I wanted you. Because letting another man decide your fate was never an option I could live with.”
The room is painfully quiet.
She stares at me like I’ve just rewritten the ground beneath her feet, like the world has rearranged itself without her consent. Her breath trembles. I see the pulse at her throat fluttering fast, fragile. Shock. Anger. Something dangerously close to want.
I straighten slowly, then step into her space.
Two fingers lift her chin before I can stop myself. Gentle. Possessive. I lean down and press my lips to her forehead. Not a claim. Not quite.
But close.
“I protect what’s mine,” I murmur. The words are steady, even if everything inside me isn’t. “And you’re mine now.”
Her lips part. I see the argument forming. Or the denial. Or the confession that would undo what little control I have left.
I pull away before she can speak.
Because if I stay—if I give her another second, another inch—I won’t stop at a vow.
And I don’t trust myself with that.