19. Alina #2
“So,” he says at last. His gaze flicks over me, slow and thorough, not missing a single detail. “the infamous politician’s daughter arrives at my door. How convenient.”
I force myself to stand straighter, even though my legs tremble beneath me. My spine feels like it’s made of glass, but I lock my knees anyway, lift my chin, and meet his gaze head-on.
“I came to ask for mercy.”
The word tastes wrong on my tongue—too soft for this room, too fragile to survive here—but I say it anyway.
Nikolai’s eyebrow lifts slowly.
“Mercy,” he repeats. “That is a luxury very few of us can afford, devushka .”
He says it gently. Almost kindly. And that somehow makes it worse.
My fingers curl tightly at my sides, nails biting into my palms hard enough to hurt. I use the pain to steady myself, to force my tongue to work and my lips to move even though I want nothing more than to turn around and run out of this room with my tail tucked between my legs.
“Please…” I say, the word slipping out before I can stop it. I swallow and press on before fear can steal my resolve further. “I’m here to turn myself over to you so you’ll leave the Sokolovs alone.”
Nikolai doesn’t react the way I expect. There is no laughter or immediate dismissal with how ridiculous of a request that is.
Instead, he leans back slightly, studying me with renewed interest, his head tilting just a fraction as though adjusting the angle to see something hidden beneath the surface.
His eyes roam over my face now with intent, cataloging every tremor, every breath, every crack in my composure. I feel flayed open beneath that gaze, stripped down to my very last nerve.
“Is that so,” he murmurs.
“Yes.” The answer comes without hesitation. There’s no bargaining left in me, no clever framing or last-second attempt to soften what I’m asking of someone who owes me absolutely nothing. I know exactly what I’m offering. I know what I’m handing over to him and what I’m asking for in return.
For a moment, Nikolai says nothing. The silence stretches long enough that my heart begins to pound louder in my ears, each beat echoing like a countdown. Then, unexpectedly, something flickers across his face.
Amusement.
It’s brief, gone almost as quickly as it appears.
“How interesting,” he says at last. “Sasha did not mention that you were so self-sacrificing.”
“He wouldn’t. He would have tried to stop me if he knew I was coming here,” I reply quietly.
Nikolai shifts forward, resting his elbows on his knees, fingers lacing together. “Tell me something. Why would someone like you offer herself up like this when you have nothing to gain from it?”
I draw in a slow breath, the raw, honest truth spilling out of me. “Because he won’t choose himself. So, I’m doing it for him.”
Nikolai’s lips curve, not quite into a smile, but it’s a thoughtful expression that has me studying him in return.
He’s… not at all what I expected.
I’d built him into something monstrous long before I ever stepped foot inside this estate. A brute king, sharp-edged and brutal, a man cut from the same cloth as Sasha or my father. Ruthless, cunning, incapable of mercy because mercy is weakness in their world.
I expected someone who would relish this moment. Someone who would see me kneeling metaphorically at his feet and immediately tighten the knife at Sasha’s throat because he could. But… Nikolai Malyshko isn’t leaning forward with bloodlust in his eyes.
It’s the exact opposite, actually.
His attention feels surgical, peeling back layers I didn’t even realize I was presenting to him. He isn’t staring at me like prey. He’s taking me in like I’m a variable he never accounted for, a problem introduced into a system that had been functioning just fine until now.
I hadn’t come here expecting mercy.
Not really.
Begging for Sasha’s life had always felt like a long shot.
A reckless, desperate gamble born from fear and something far more dangerous.
I knew exactly what I was doing when I stepped through those gates.
I knew that once I crossed this threshold, there was no version of this where I walked out untouched.
But I’d come anyway.
If there were even the smallest chance, one sliver of possibility, that I could keep Sasha alive and keep his family intact, keep the Iron Pact from tearing him apart for choosing me, then I would take it.
I would do anything .
“You know,” he finally says, “people often come to me begging for their lives. You are the first to come begging for someone else’s.”
For a moment, I don’t know what to do with that.
What do you say to that?
I suppose it makes sense. In their world, someone like me shouldn’t exist at all. I’m a flaw in the design. A miscalculation. A softness that has no business standing upright in rooms where men gamble lives like poker chips and call it strategy.
I wasn’t raised for this. I wasn’t meant for it. And yet here I am, anyway, offering myself up because I refuse to let someone else pay the price.
Maybe allowing myself to get involved with him doomed me from the beginning. Maybe the moment I stopped seeing him as only a monster and started seeing the man beneath the steel, I sealed my fate.
But would I go back if I could?
No. I wouldn’t.
If that makes me foolish, so be it. I’ve already learned what happens when people live their lives purely by logic and survival. They rot from the inside out. They turn love into leverage and grief into justification.
“I find you to be an interesting kind of problem, Alina,” Nikolai continues, settling deeper into the couch, one ankle crossing over the other with unsettling ease.
The word problem should frighten me more than it does. I hesitate before speaking, weighing every possible consequence of opening my mouth again. “And why is that?”
His gaze sharpens. “Because I am… surprised you care for him in that way.”
Something twists in my chest at the simplicity of the statement. My brows knit together. “Do you think he’s incapable of having someone love him?”
The bemused expression returns, but this time, there’s something layered beneath it. Not mockery or disbelief. Something older, more tired. “We all are.”
I take a small step forward. “I don’t think that’s true. I think everyone is capable of love.”
For the first time since I walked into this room, Nikolai’s lips part slightly but no words come out. Whatever he sees in me, whether it’s naivete or defiance or sincerity, it changes him. The calculation drains away along with the interest.
In its place, something rarer surfaces.
Sorrow.
It settles into the lines of his face like a shadow he’s learned to live with. Like a truth he’s long since accepted but has never forgiven. It’s so unexpected that it nearly steals my breath. For a split second, I almost ask him why .
The question sits right on the tip of my tongue.
It would be so easy to push, to try and dig into him and back the polished surface and find the scars hiding beneath it. To ask who I remind him of. Who once stood where I am now, hopeful or foolish or brave enough to believe love could survive in a world like this, and met their tragic end.
At the last moment, I stop myself.
Testing what little rapport I’ve managed to nurture wouldn’t be wise. At this stage, anyway.
Nikolai exhales slowly, the sound harsh and unyielding as though he’s locking something back inside himself. “I see.”
He rises from the couch with fluid ease and turns away from me, moving toward the dark, unlit fireplace. The stone hearth looms behind him, more ceremonial than comforting. He rests one hand on the mantel, staring at nothing in particular, his back to me.
“Stay here for a while, devushka . Your captor will not be pleased when he realizes you are missing or where you’ve decided to strand yourself. Better to let him cool down before you see him again.”
I blink. My mind scrambles to catch up with the words.
What?
I straighten immediately. “Are… you not taking me up on my offer?”
He glances over his shoulder then, and the faint curve of his lips tilts up in an almost smile. “I will certainly think about it.”
Before I can ask what that means, the doors behind me swing open without warning. I jump and spin around as two guards stride into the room, their presence sudden and overwhelming. Nikolai gestures to one of them without looking away from me.
“Prepare a guest room,” he says smoothly. “She will be joining us temporarily.”
My heart stutters.
Guest room?
Confusion rockets through me, but I clamp my mouth shut. Every instinct tells me not to argue, not to ask questions while I’m still in Nikolai’s good favor. One of the guards steps forward and inclines his head, indicating I should follow.
I do.
I spare Nikolai once last glance over my shoulder, finding he’s already turned away again and crouching down to light the fireplace.
As I’m guided from the study and deeper into the cold, immaculate hallways of the Malyshko estate, I finally release a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
My lungs burn as air rushes back in, my thoughts tumbling over one another in frantic disarray.
What the hell just happened?
As my footsteps echo softly behind the guards, I wonder whether I’ve just made the best decision of my life or the worst.
Perhaps both.
One thing is certain, though, as the doors close behind me and I’m ushered farther from the world I know. I have the terrifying feeling that I’ve just started something I absolutely will not have the power to handle.
My only hope is that I will make it out alive on the other side.