17. Sasha #2
Hands clamp down on my shoulders from behind, iron-hard grips that don’t bother pretending to be gentle. Nikolai’s guards, I register distantly as I’m hauled backward, my focus still locked on Volkov even as the distance between us widens.
Roman moves fast to my flank, a familiar presence cutting through the chaos. His hand comes up to steady me, or restrain me, possibly both as I’m pushed toward the opposite side of the room. He doesn’t speak. The tension in his grip says enough.
Across the room, Volkov laughs.
It’s ugly and wet, the sound dragged through blood and his bruised pride. He spits onto the stone floor. His second is already there, crouched beside him, murmuring something under his breath while checking his jaw.
“You’ve lost your damn mind, Sokolov,” Volkov says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Blood smears across his lips, staining his teeth. He grins through it anyway, feral and delighted.
“Enough.” The word lands with finality, cutting through Volkov’s laughter and the guards’ murmurs.
His gaze is dissecting, stripping me down with the same cold precision his father once used. I feel the weight of it settle into my bones. He is not a man surprised by betrayal. He is simply assessing the cost of allowing it.
“So,” he says calmly, “this is how it is, then.”
I don’t look away.
“Yes.”
A line has been drawn across the stone floor between us, one that cannot be erased. Every man in this room knows it, the quiet shift of loyalties realigning.
The Pact has just learned exactly where I stand.
Nikolai does not look pleased. If anything, he looks infuriated. As if some long-suspected flaw has finally risen to the surface where he can point to and name. “Either you handle this weakness and eliminate her, or I will. You will not like how I handle it, Sasha, I can promise you that.”
My throat tightens.
I force my jaw to relax, force my breath to stay steady even though it’s taking everything in me not to push past Roman and grab Nikolai by the throat. This is the moment most men lose themselves, when they react instead of deciding to act rationally. “I see.”
This life—this title, this throne built in shadows—was never supposed to be this fragile.
It was forged by men who believed sacrifice was not only necessary but noble.
My father. His father before him. Generations of death and discipline and unspoken rules passed down like inheritance.
Power earned not by mercy, but by endurance.
By knowing when to cut and never hesitating when the moment came.
To throw all of that away for a woman? My father would be rolling in his grave.
He had taught me that attachment, that love , was a language spoken only by fools and corpses.
He had taught me that if something could be used against you, it eventually would be.
And now here I am, standing at the center of an alliance that has survived coups, wars, betrayals, and the collapse of empires, only for it to be fracturing over a single point of defiance.
The irony is almost laughable.
The Iron Pact has withstood storms that should have torn it apart decades ago.
We have buried rivals, outlasted governments, bent institutions that thought themselves untouchable.
We are not supposed to break like this. Not over one girl.
Not over sentiment . Not over something as human and ungovernable as… love.
However, that is the clarity this moment gives me.
Beneath the strategy, the calculations and the consequences, one truth settles into place with terrifying certainty. If the Pact touches Alina, if any one of them so much as considers her expendable, then the alliance they are so desperate to preserve will not survive the aftermath.
I will burn it down.
I will kill them.
Every one of them.
“I suppose we are at an impasse, then,” I finally say.
His expression hardens. Whatever patience he once had for this situation has thinned to a razor’s edge. “Hopefully, not for long. Go home and think very carefully about today. About what you’re willing to lose. By morning, I expect a phone call with your final answer.”
“And if it’s not something you want to hear?” I ask.
His lips thin, the faintest twitch betraying irritation boiling beneath the surface. He steps closer, just enough to make the threat personal.
“I’m sure you know what my answer will be, Sasha,” he says quietly. “Choose wisely.”
The implication hangs heavily between us.
For a brief moment, I see the future branching in front of me, one path paved with obedience and survival, the other drenched in betrayal. I know which one he expects me to take. I also know which one I’m already walking.
I give him a short nod, more acknowledgment than agreement, and turn away before he can read anything else in my expression. As I leave the war room, the doors closing behind me with a final, echoing thud, one thing is painfully clear. By morning, there will be no neutral ground left.
Only war, or surrender.
And I have never been very good at surrendering.