18. Alina #2
Why the hell are they talking about war?
There’s a pause. Long enough that my lungs start to burn from holding my breath. Then Sasha answers, but I hear something beneath the steady tone—tension.
“Not if the other two don’t agree with him.”
My pulse spikes. The other two. Volkov and Kuznetsov. The Iron Pact.
I clamp a hand over my mouth, afraid my breathing will give me away.
“You know they will never go against him,” she says. “They never have.”
“Perhaps it’s time we all start pulling away, then.”
My stomach drops.
“There was never supposed to be one family ruling over all of us,” he continues. “Malyshko’s father just so happened to twist my family and Volkov’s so far under his knee that they complied. Fear makes for obedient dogs. Why would I let that tradition continue?”
Lena doesn’t answer immediately. Though when she does, her voice is lower too, weighted with dread. “Because it’s suicide if you don’t, Sasha. We saw what happened when Nikolai decided to stage a coup against his own father. His own family. It will be worse for us once he decides we’re the enemy.”
A heavy silence falls over them. I stay frozen on the floor, my cheek against the carpet, afraid that even the sound of my heartbeat might somehow carry through the wood.
When Sasha finally speaks again, his voice is different. It’s stripped bare. There is no diplomacy left in it, no careful phrasing or measured restraint. Just truth, cold and immovable.
“I will not let him harm her.”
The words hit me so hard, it feels like my ribs crack inward.
Her?
My breath stutters, panic and disbelief tangling in my chest. For a split second, I wonder if I misheard, if this is about someone else, some other woman unfortunate enough to be caught in his world.
Then Lena answers, and the illusion shatters completely. “You are choosing a woman over your own family. You do realize that, right?”
There’s no hesitation this time.
“Yes.”
The certainty in that single word makes my vision blur. I press my forehead harder into the floor, breathing shallowly, terrified that if I inhale too deeply, I’ll make a sound and shatter whatever fragile moment this is.
Lena exhales, slow and controlled, but I can hear what she’s trying to bury beneath it. Fear. Real fear. Not for herself alone, but for everything that stands to burn if this continues. “Alina Morozova is not worth that.”
My eyes widen, my hand flying to my mouth as if I can physically trap the cry that claws its way up my throat. My pulse thunders in my ears, loud enough that I’m certain they must hear it through the door.
They’re talking about me. There’s no mistaking it now. No room left for denial.
Shock collides with disbelief and something else that feels disgustingly like validation that makes my stomach twist with shame.
Why would there be a war because of me? Why would my name be spoken in the same breath as the Iron Pact, as if I’m capable of setting Moscow on fire?
I haven’t done anything. I haven’t planned, plotted, threatened, or maneuvered against the Iron Pact in the slightest. I’ve barely survived the last few weeks without breaking apart completely.
I’m not a weapon.
I’m just… me.
“And that is your opinion,” Sasha replies quietly.
“You are dooming us all,” Lena says. This time, her voice fractures slightly.
Enough that I know she’s afraid. Not just of what the Pact will do but of the choice her brother is making that will inevitably doom them all.
He’s choosing me over the Pact. Over his own sister and against the only family he has left.
The thought lands like ice in my chest. The realization is terrifying in a way I can’t even put into words.
Why?
Why me?
I never asked him to do this, never asked him to protect me at the cost of everything he’s built.
I’m not worth that. I’ve never been. Wars aren’t started over women like me. Empires don’t crumble because of girls who were sold before they even understood the price tag around their necks. I am collateral at best. A complication, a weakness men use to further their own agendas, not die over.
So it has to be something else.
Something uglier.
Maybe this is just another kind of cage.
A more elaborate one. Maybe he’s tightening his grip, ensuring that no one else can have me.
Not my father, nor the Pact or anyone who might try to reclaim ownership over what he believes is his.
Possession disguised as protection. Control dressed up as sacrifice.
That would make sense.
That would fit the man I thought Sasha Sokolov was.
Jealousy. Pride. The refusal to let something he’s claimed be taken from him.
I cling to those explanations because they’re easier. They don’t ask me to believe something far more dangerous that my heart hurts to want. But even as the thoughts circle, trying to anchor themselves in my chest, they unravel under the weight of my own memories.
The last time we were together doesn’t align with any of that.
The way he came undone… the way his voice changed when he said my name. The way he looked at me like I was something that terrified him as much as it drew him in. The way he didn’t just take but fought himself over having. Confessing things no one like him ever should.
“Look at what you do to me.”
That wasn’t casual. That’s what scares me the most.
If this isn’t about control… if it isn’t about pride or jealousy or keeping me locked away where only he can reach me… then it means something else entirely that could get us both killed.
“Do you love her?” Lena asks.
My heart stops.
Relief flares—sharp and desperate and fleeting. Of course he doesn’t. How could he? This isn’t love. This is proximity, trauma and power tangled with desire until neither of us can see straight.
“Do you love her?” Lena snaps, no patience left in her voice.
Silence swells on the other side of the door.
It stretches too long. Long enough that I start counting my breaths and the cracks in the marble beneath my body. Long enough that dread seeps into every hollow place inside me, filling them until I’m nearly choking.
Then Sasha murmurs, “Yes.”
The world tilts violently.
The floor blurs in my vision like wet paint. A metallic taste floods my mouth from my teeth biting down on my tongue. I push myself up from the ground, my legs barely listening to me as I stagger back, my palm slapping against the wall to keep me from collapsing entirely.
I force myself to keep moving, to stumble down the hall and back up the stairs to my bedroom.
This can’t be happening.
I can’t let him do this.
I won’t.
I can’t let him burn his life down for me or let him tear his family apart. I’m not worth it. I’ve never been. Not worth bloodshed, or war, or the collapse that will follow of an entire syndicate that has survived for generations before I was ever born.
My chest tightens painfully, each breath shallow and panicked as my thoughts spiral.
He doesn’t love me.
He can’t.
This isn’t love, it’s confusion. Possession mistaken for devotion.
Guilt twisted into something else that feels more pure.
He’s projecting. He’s drowning and clinging to the one thing that makes him feel human and calling it love because the alternative is admitting he’s unraveling for the first time in his life.
That has to be it.
Because if this is love—real, reckless, world-ending love—then it will destroy him.
I won’t be the reason that happens.
Not even if it breaks me to stop it.