23. Sasha
SASHA
A rriving home, I don’t bother taking Alina to her room.
I don’t even consider it.
Instead, I carry her straight through the halls and into my own.
She’s still curled in my arms, her face tucked into the column of my throat, her breath soft and warm against my skin. Somewhere between the gates opening for us and the long, silent drive back, her body had finally given in.
The adrenaline had burned itself out, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. She fell asleep against me like she’d done it a thousand times before—quietly, instinctively, trusting herself to me without hesitation.
That trust carves something deep in my chest more than anything else has tonight.
The estate is eerily silent as I move through it, my footsteps echoing softly against marble. Guards lower their gazes as I pass. No one speaks, no one asks questions. They don’t need to. Word will be spreading through the walls of this place soon enough.
Viktor Morozov is dead.
Alina pulled the trigger.
Nikolai allowed us to leave unscathed.
I shoulder my bedroom door open carefully, nudging it shut behind me with my foot. The room is dim, lit only by the low glow of one of the lamps near the windows. Shadows stretch across the floor, guiding me toward the bed.
I carry her over to it and sit down slowly, careful not to jostle her. For a moment, I just stay there holding her, feeling the steady rise and fall of her chest against mine, the way her fingers curl loosely into the fabric of my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
Her face is peaceful in sleep, smoothed of the horror and fury from earlier tonight. It feels wrong how soft she looks after what she’s just been forced to do. How small.
I brush my thumb lightly along her temple, pushing a stray lock of hair away from her face. She stirs but doesn’t wake, only presses closer with a quiet, unconscious sigh.
Something inside me fractures.
I ease her down onto the bed, shifting so she’s stretched against that mattress instead of me. I don’t undress her fully, only slipping her shoes off and tugging her coat off her shoulders before pulling the blanket over us. She remains pliant in my arms, trusting me even now.
Especially now.
I lie there with her, replaying the image I’ll never escape—her steady hand around the gun, her voice cold and certain, the way she didn’t look away when she fired. I wanted to take that moment from her. To shoulder it myself. To die in her place if it meant she could stay untouched by this world.
But the truth settles in whether I want it to or not.
She is no longer untouched.
And neither am I.
Her breathing evens out again, deeper now, slipping fully into sleep. I tighten my arm around her just a fraction, grounding myself in the reality of her weight and warmth.
She’s alive.
She’s safe .
For tonight, that is enough.
Eventually, I find myself too restless to sleep.
It isn’t fear that keeps me awake. Fear is familiar, manageable. This is something else, an energy lodged beneath my skin, humming and refusing to let my body settle even as exhaustion weighs heavily in my limbs.
Carefully, I shift away from her. The mattress dips ever so slightly, and Alina makes a small sound in her sleep, a soft, almost questioning noise. My entire body freezes. I wait, breath held, until her brow smooths again and she settles back into stillness.
I pull the blanket higher around her shoulders, tucking it in the way my mother once did for me when I was a boy and nightmares clawed me awake night after night.
I brush my fingers lightly over her face.
Leaving her bedside feels wrong, like abandonment, but I force myself to part from her side, anyway. She needs rest more than she needs me hovering. Tonight, sleep is the only thing that will knit her back together, even imperfectly.
I slip out quietly, closing the door behind me without a sound.
The hallway greets me with cool silence.
Sconces cast low pools of light along the walls, stretching shadows across the floor like watchful sentinels.
The estate feels different now. Quieter, yes, but not peaceful.
There’s an undercurrent moving through the bones of this place, the echo of business that hasn’t quite settled yet.
I move through it like a ghost.
Down the staircase. Across the marble foyer. Past doors that hold meeting rooms and weapons caches, memories better left to dwell on for another time.
I reach the main floor and stop near the tall windows overlooking the grounds.
Outside, the sky is completely dark. Snowmelt glistens faintly on the paths, reflecting the light from the floodlights stationed on every corner of this house.
Somewhere beyond the walls, the city is sleeping, unaware that a powerful man died on a polished floor and that a young woman crossed a line she can never step back from.
I straighten slowly, jaw setting.
Whatever comes next—Nikolai’s expectations, the Pact’s scrutiny, the lies I’ll have to spin to the public to cover all of this up—I’ll handle it. I always do. That’s my burden to carry.
“There you are.”
I barely have time to register my sister’s voice before she’s on me.
She slams into my chest with enough force to nearly knock the breath from my lungs, her arms locking around me like a vise. For a split second, instinct flares as muscle memory from years of violence and being touched only to be hurt flares. But it dies just as quickly.
Her grip is tight, bordering on painful like she’s trying to make sure I’m real.
Like if she lets go, I’ll vanish or collapse or bleed out onto the floor the way so many of our family already have.
I grunt softly at the pressure, my arms hesitating before finally coming up to wrap around her in return.
We stand like that for a moment.
Then she pulls back.
And immediately drives her fist into my stomach.
The impact knocks the air clean out of me. I fold forward with a startled groan, one hand flying instinctively to my abdomen as I suck in a ragged breath.
“ Fuck… Lena.”
“That,” she snaps, eyes blazing, “is for not talking to me before going over to Malyshko’s.”
I cough, trying to straighten, my ribs protesting as I force myself upright. She hasn’t even lost her balance. Of course she hasn’t. Lena learned how to fight before I learned how to walk.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she continues, jabbing a finger into my chest now. “You walk into his house with no leverage, no backup plan, no exit strategy? You’re lucky he didn’t blow your head off just to prove a point!”
I grimace, rubbing at the spot she hit, my stomach still throbbing. “You would’ve stopped me if I told you,” I mutter.
Her jaw tightens. She swings again, more reflex than rage, and I barely manage to shift away enough that her fist glances off my side instead of landing fully.
“Of course I would have, bratik . That’s my job ,” she snarls.
She steps back then, finally giving us both space, but the anger hasn’t left her. It’s layered now. Fear lies beneath it, raw and unfiltered, something she only ever lets herself feel with me.
“You scared the hell out of me. I got the call after you’d already left… Do you have any idea what went through my head?”
I meet her gaze. There’s a faint tremor in her hands she hasn’t noticed yet. Her eyes are slightly glassy, her breathing just slightly off. Lena Sokolov doesn’t panic, not in the traditional sense, but she came damn close to completely losing it. I can tell.
“I’m sorry. At least I came back,” I say simply.
She scoffs, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “Barely.”
“I had to. There wasn’t another way.”
Her eyes search my face, scanning for wounds I can’t see, for cracks she knows all too well. “You could have died, Sashenka.”
“I know.”
“And you went anyway.”
“Yes.”
Her shoulders sag just a fraction, the fight draining out of her all at once. She drags a hand down her face and exhales sharply. “You’re impossible. You are giving me grey hairs.”
“I know,” I mutter.
She snorts despite herself, then steps forward again, this time slower, and presses her forehead briefly to my chest. Not an embrace, exactly, just enough contact to steady herself.
“Don’t ever do that again. You don’t get to make unilateral martyr decisions and leave me to pick up what’s left of you. Do you hear me?”
“I won’t,” I promise.
She pulls back enough to glare up at me. “You swear?”
“I swear.”
She studies me for a long moment, then nods once. “Apology accepted. And how is our firecracker doing?”
Despite everything knotting my chest, my lip quirks faintly. “She is alive. Upstairs sleeping.”
“Good.” She steps closer again, lifting her hand to brush her knuckles along my cheek, the gesture achingly familiar. It’s the same way our mother used to check us for bruises when we were children, before the world took away her softness before finally taking her.
Her touch grounds me more than I want to admit.
“What made Malyshko let her go?” she asks quietly.
I hesitate, not because I don’t want to answer her, but because I don’t know how to articulate the truth without admitting how unsettled it makes me. “I’m not entirely sure.”
Her brow arches slightly.
“He was… hell-bent on forcing me to choose. Testing me. Forcing me to dwell after that phone call when he invited me to dinner. And then once we were there…” I shake my head once. “He changed his mind. Just like that.”
“That’s not like him,” Lena says immediately.
“No,” I agree. “It isn’t.”
Her hand drops from my face, and she folds her arms, pacing a slow half-circle in front of me. “Malyshko doesn’t reverse course unless he gains something more valuable than what he planned to take.”
“That’s exactly what worries me,” I mutter.
She stops, turning back to face me. “Has Alina said anything about what happened while she was there? Anything at all?”
“I haven’t gotten the chance to ask. She passed out almost as soon as we left. Shock, adrenaline, exhaustion. Take your pick,” I admit.
Lena hums under her breath, the sound thoughtful. “That girl has more spine than most men I’ve met. Perhaps he recognized that in her. Then again, Nikolai doesn’t give gifts without strings attached.”
“I know.”
“We’ll have to be cautious going forward. Whatever he’s planning, I don’t want to be blindsided by it.”
“I agree.”
Lena studies me. Then she shakes her head a few times, her tone suddenly growing dry. “It seems you’ve fallen for a woman who would burn her world down to save you. Congratulations. You are both stupid.”
I don’t argue.
After a beat, she softens, stepping closer again. “Just promise me one thing.”
I meet her gaze. “What?”
“Don’t let this lull of peace trick you into thinking there is no other shoe. It will drop eventually. We need to be ready for it when it does.”
I nod. “I know.”
She squeezes my shoulder once, flashing me a smile. “Then get some rest. We all are going to need clear heads.” As she turns to leave, her voice drifts back over her shoulder, quieter now. “And Sasha?”
“Yes?”
Her smile is warm when she turns to look at me over her shoulder. “For what it’s worth… I’m glad she’s okay.”
So am I.
More than anyone will ever know.