14. Sasha #2
Alina would have been the perfect offering.
But then there is the other half of the equation.
The part that doesn’t quite fit. Viktor knew she was promised to me.
He knew exactly whose territory she would be under when he set off that first bomb.
To let her die in that blast would not just be a gamble with public sympathy.
It would be a direct provocation against me.
It would be a challenge, an insult , a declaration that he believed himself clever enough to get away with it.
Or worse, that I wouldn’t care enough to look too closely.
My fingers curl against the edge of the desk.
Viktor is many things—cowardly, greedy, self-serving—but he has never been foolish enough to mistake my restraint for weakness. Not until now, which means either desperation has finally rotted his judgment beyond repair…
Or this was never meant to be subtle at all.
Neither option sits well.
Whatever Viktor started, he did not think through the consequences. Or if he did, he decided they were worth angering me. That leaves me standing in the middle of it all with Alina under my roof and a war quietly tightening around us all.
It doesn’t feel good.
The door opens without knocking.
Only one person in this house gets away with that.
My sister steps inside like she owns the place. Which, in a way, she does. Her heels whisper across the floor as she crosses it, the sound cutting through the tense quiet of my study. She doesn’t bother asking permission before dropping a thick file onto my desk.
“So,” she starts.
I don’t look up.
I already know exactly why she’s here. I’ve known since the moment I woke up this morning with guilt still clinging to my skin and the house buzzing with that particular kind of energy that follows a scandal before it’s spoken aloud.
It’s the same reason she showed up weeks ago when Alina first arrived and the same reason she’s back now—to poke at the hairline crack until it either fuses or splits wide open.
“Don’t,” I say flatly.
“Oh, relax,” Lena replies, waving a hand dismissively as she drops into the leather chair angled across from my desk.
She folds her arms over her chest, her posture loose, expression amused in a way that sets my teeth on edge.
“I’m not here to scold you. Well…” she adds after a beat, lips curving, “not entirely.”
I flip open the folder she brought, skimming the front page without actually processing the words. It’s habit more than interest. Nothing here matters more than the problem sitting a few feet away from me wearing heels and a knowing smile.
“Then leave,” I say.
She ignores me completely.
Instead, she rises again and comes around the desk, perching herself on its edge like she used to when we were teenagers and she wanted my attention at all costs. Her hand comes down sharply over the open file, palm flattening against the paper, stopping my movement mid-page and forcing my gaze up.
“You slept with her,” Lena says lightly. “Didn’t you?”
It isn’t phrased like a question. There’s no curiosity in it, no uncertainty. Just certainty delivered with a casual cruelty that only siblings can manage.
My jaw tightens. “No.”
She smirks immediately, slow and satisfied. “Don’t you dare lie to me, malysh . Half the house has been talking about it since sunrise. You’re many things, but subtle has never been one of them.”
“Get out,” I snap.
“No,” she replies simply.
She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t need to. Lena has always understood that power doesn’t come from volume. It comes from pressure. She leans back slightly on her hands, studying me the way she always does when she’s trying to decide how hard to push.
She continues, tone shifting just enough to shed its teasing edge. “You know what this means. You didn’t just cross a line. You erased it.”
I say nothing.
She’s right and she knows it.
Her gaze sharpens. “You brought her here as leverage. To use as collateral. Whatever story you told yourself to justify it. And now? You’ve complicated it beyond repair.”
“I don’t need this from you,” I mutter.
“Yes, you do,” she counters immediately. There’s no room for me to deflect or dismiss it. “Unlike everyone else in this house, I won’t pretend not to see what’s happening. And unlike you, I don’t confuse ignorance and denial.”
She slides off the desk in one smooth motion and begins to circle the room, heels clicking softly against the floor. Each step is measured, pacing out the boundaries of a battlefield. I track her without meaning to, my jaw tightening as she moves.
“You slept with a woman whose mother you killed. Whose father sold her to you like property. A woman the Iron Pact will absolutely destroy the second they suspect she’s anything more than a pawn.”
She stops directly in front of me then, close enough that I can see the faint crease between her brows. Her gaze holds mine, unwavering.
“You just handed Nikolai Malyshko the sharpest knife he could ever want.”
Silence stretches between us.
For a moment, I almost give in to it, almost let the weight of her disappointment force an apology out of me. It tickles the back of my throat, foreign and unwanted. My lips part slightly as I exhale, the sound shallow.
Finally, Lena exhales and straightens, shaking her head slowly as if she’s not surprised by this outcome in the slightest. The sharpness drains from her posture, from her voice, leaving behind something that feels almost weary.
“I’m not here to stop you. I know better than that.
I’m here to make sure you understand what you’re getting yourself into. ”
“I know,” I reply just as quietly.
It is the truth, or at least the version of truth I am willing to admit out loud. I know the risks. I know the cost. I know the way this ends more often than not for men like me. Knowing, however, has never been the same as being prepared.
She studies me for a moment longer, her gaze lingering in a way that feels uncomfortably intimate, as if she’s memorizing me. As if she’s already accounting for the possibility that this might be the last time she sees me breathing and unbroken. Then she turns and heads for the door.
“I mean it, Sasha,” she says without looking back. “Figure this out quickly.”
Her hand pauses on the handle. When she speaks again, her voice carries just as much weight without her even having to face me.
“Don’t make me bury you too.”
The words hit me squarely in the chest, knocking the air from my lungs in a way no threat from Nikolai or the Pact ever has.
Lena deals in truth. She does not bluff.
She never has. She has buried enough of our family to know exactly what a warning like that costs and what it means for both of us when she says it out loud.
She knows how quickly this life turns on its own, how loyalty rots and even love can be the one thing that buries you six feet under.
We were children when the first funerals started stacking up. Too young to understand why our parents stopped smiling, too young to grasp why guards replaced friends and why every goodbye carried the weight of finality.
Hurt became a constant companion long before either of us learned how to articulate it, draping itself over us until apathy felt like armor rather than absence.
We learned early that caring too much was dangerous, that grief was not something you survived once but something you learned to carry quietly so it didn’t give your enemies a place to strike.
Lena and I grew up inside that truth for a long, long time.
We are the only family either of us has left now. Losing her would not be just another wound I could cauterize and move past. It would be catastrophic, the kind of loss that would perhaps kill me.
The echo of her warning isn’t lost on me. I understand that whatever path I’m on now threatens not just my life or my empire but the last person who has ever truly known me and stayed anyway.
She says nothing more before slipping out into the hallway, the door closing softly behind her.