20. Sasha
SASHA
N ikolai’s call comes only half an hour after my body finally gives in to exhaustion.
It drags me out of sleep with brutal efficiency, the vibration of my phone rattling against the nightstand echoing through my bedroom loudly. For a fraction of a second, I don’t know where I am. My mind is still tangled in half-formed dreams and the lingering absence of Alina’s body beside me.
I’ve spent hours staring at the ceiling, replaying my conversation with Lena until my thoughts turned circular and useless.
Every word she said, every pause between them, every look she gave me had been horrible.
Her disappointment in me, in my choices, hurt more than any threat Nikolai has ever made could.
Yet still, I didn’t relent.
I can’t.
I’d rather feel the cold kiss of a gun barrel pressed to my forehead and hear the click of the trigger than drag Alina any further into this mess. I’ve already pulled her into the crosshairs of it enough as it is. I won’t let her become the price of my defiance.
If anyone is to die by Nikolai’s hand, it should be Viktor Morozov.
And if a second life is required to balance the scales, it should be mine.
The problem is convincing Nikolai to see it that way.
I sit up slowly, rubbing a hand over my face as the phone continues to vibrate. The room is dark, the estate eerily quiet at this hour. I don’t check the caller ID before answering.
“Yes,” I say, my voice rough and stripped of any pretense.
“Sasha.” Nikolai’s voice comes smoothly down the other line. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Not because it’s funny, but because the audacity is so perfectly him . Not even twenty-four hours since his ultimatum and he’s already calling, circling like a patient animal that knows its prey is limping.
Typical.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice flat, stripped of courtesy.
“I have something of yours.”
I sit up instantly. “Excuse me?”
There’s a soft, brief chuckle on the other end, amused, almost indulgent. “I find it quite concerning that you aren’t aware you’re missing something. Does that mean I get to keep her?”
The world drops out from under me.
Horror detonates in my chest so violently, I nearly double over, breath tearing out of my lungs in a harsh, animalistic sound.
“No,” I rasp, already moving.
I don’t bother ending the call.
I fling the covers off the bed, sheets tangling around my legs as I stumble to my feet. I’m running before my brain fully catches up, bare feet slapping against the cold floor as I tear out of my room and into the hallway.
The distance to her wing feels endless. The estate stretches and warps around me, the corridors narrowing and widening like a nightmare. My pulse roars in my ears. Every step is driven by one singular, screaming thought.
He took her.
I round the corner at full speed, nearly skidding on the marble as I reach her door.
I don’t knock. I throw it open hard enough that it slams against the wall.
“Alina—” The word dies in my throat.
The room is empty.
The bed is untouched. No rumpled sheets, no signs of a hurried departure.
The air itself feels wrong, hollow and stripped of her presence like a lung without breath.
For a split second, my mind refuses to accept it.
I scan the room again desperately, as if she might materialize out of thin air if I look hard enough.
My hand tightens around the phone still in my hand, reminding me of the call. I lift it slowly to my ear, swallowing thickly. “What do you want?”
“You should come see me, Sasha. I think we have quite a bit to discuss,” he says mildly.
My throat feels constricted, like something is wrapped tight around it. “When?”
“Friday evening for dinner,” he replies. Then, after a pause, he says, “Though, I do have one request.”
My jaw tightens. “Name it.”
“Bring Viktor Morozov with you.”
My brows knit together as confusion crashes headlong into the agony already splitting my chest apart.
I turn the idea over and over in my mind, searching for some thread of logic I can pull on, some rationale that explains why Nikolai would demand both Morozovs to be under the same roof. Viktor, I understand. But Alina…
Unless cruelty is the point.
The possibilities spiral quickly, each one darker than the last. An execution staged with theatrical poise.
Perhaps one designed not just to eliminate problems but to send a message so loud, it will echo through the Pact for decades.
A reminder of consequences. Of our hierarchy.
That all that love and attachment will get you is your loved one bleeding out at your feet.
I can already imagine it clearly—Viktor first, dispatched with indifference, his life reduced to a footnote in a larger correction.
Then Alina, placed directly in my line of sight, her fate used as a weapon meant to cut me open and cauterize whatever weakness Nikolai believes I’ve allowed to fester.
Forcing me to remember exactly why men like us are never allowed to want.
Nikolai has always favored lessons that linger. It will be calculated, symbolic, and mercilessly effective. He will want it to hurt. He will want it to reshape me back into someone obedient and sharp-edged and hollowed out like him. Someone who no longer reaches for what he cannot keep.
Whatever awaits us Friday evening will be brutal.
“Okay,” I manage to say.
“Good,” Nikolai says pleasantly. “I’ll see you then.”
Then the line goes dead.
I lower the phone slowly, staring at the black screen like it might offer me something other than my own reflection staring back at me.
The silence that follows is unbearable.
For the first time in years, I feel utterly powerless.