24. Artem
Artem
Colin Gallagher’s office smells like whiskey and old money.
His men are everywhere, stationed at the door, along the walls, and flanking his desk. A dozen at least, big, watchful, and Irish as fuck, which means they’re holding their tempers behind their teeth and waiting to see which way this goes.
I counted them on the way in and noted the ones closest to the exits. Their hands were already too near their waists, and the two by the window looked like they’d been doing this long enough to be patient and wait for me to make a bad move.
Colin sits behind his desk, silver-haired and sharp-eyed. He looks at me the way powerful men look at each other when they’re deciding how much respect the situation requires.
He agreed to see me.
Curiosity is more dangerous than courage, and Colin Gallagher strikes me as a man who doesn’t leave a question unanswered. Good or bad, he’d rather know what’s coming.
“Makarov, please sit.” He gestures to the chair across from his desk. I sit because it’ll make him more comfortable with what I came to say. “Drink?”
He’s already reaching for the decanter, Irish hospitality running on reflex.
“No.”
He pours one for himself and looks at me with the same blue eyes that all three of his children inherited.
“My brother is gone,” I tell him. “He left this morning. He won’t be coming back.”
Colin sets down his glass, interested. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“The arrangement is broken. The marriage isn’t happening.”
He goes still as he decides whether to play this strategically or let his anger show.
“Do you understand,” he says slowly, “what that arrangement represented? The alliance between our families. The protection it offered. The agreement that Benedikt Volkov sanctioned. Do you have any idea what you’ve walked in here and broken this morning?”
“Yes.”
His eyes narrow. “And you don’t care?”
“I care about what’s relevant. The arrangement stopped being relevant when your future son-in-law put a gun under your daughter’s chin.”
The silence that follows is different.
Something moves behind Colin’s eyes that I catalog carefully, because there are a few things it could be, and the difference between them matters.
It could be fury with Misha, or for me for knowing.
It could be calculation: him deciding how much this information changes the value of every piece on his board.
I watch him work through it, and I think about Cady standing in her bedroom with a black eye and a steady voice, and I feel something in my chest that I keep very carefully off my face.
“And you handled it.”
I nod. “I handled it.”
He picks up his glass again and takes a long sip, and I watch him accept what I’ve done.
That tells me more about Cady’s life than anything she’s said to me.
“Lucas Manifold.” I move forward because sentiment isn’t why I’m here. “Misha had a debt. Three million dollars. Manifold was holding it. But you already knew that.”
This son of a bitch would risk his daughter’s life to save his legacy.
That makes me want to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze.
“With Misha gone,” I continue, “Manifold loses his leverage over my brother, but he still wants what he wants, and your family is still in his crosshairs. The buffer is gone now, and there’s still a possibility he redirects his attention to Cady.”
“And how,” Colin says carefully, “Do you plan to fix that, boy? You’ve already ruined what I’ve fuckin’ planned.”
“I’ll handle Manifold.”
“You’ll handle him.” Skepticism roughens his tone. He’s heard promises before. “And in the meantime, my daughter is exposed, the alliance is broken, and I have nothing to show Benedikt Volkov except a broken engagement and … what?”
“Keep Cady out of Volkov business. That’s the other thing I came to say. Whatever you had planned for her, whatever her next assignment was going to be, it stops. She’s done.”
He glowers at me and, maybe if he were thirty years younger, he could take me. “You don’t give orders in my office, Makarov.”
“I’m not giving an order. I’m telling you how it is and how it’s going to be.”
A few of his men shift, but I keep my eyes on Colin because he’s the only person in this room whose decision matters.
Colin laces his fingers on the desk and looks at me with flat, calculating eyes.
“You came in here, broke my arrangement, and told me to keep my daughter out of the business she was placed in at my direction.” He tilts his head.
“Since you’ve decided to take all of this into your own hands, Makarov, you can marry her.
That solves every problem on the table. Alliance intact.
Benedikt satisfied. Cady protected. Manifold neutralized by association. ” He spreads his hands. “Simple.”
“No.”
“No?” he repeats the word like it’s a novelty. “Boy, you’re on my last fuckin’ nerve right now.”
“She doesn’t want marriage. She made that clear.“
“I don’t give a shit what she wants. I care about what she was made for.”
“You speak about what’s mine like that one more time, Gallagher, and you’ll regret it.” I hold his gaze. “I will not hand her something she’s been trying to get out of and put my name on it instead.”
Colin studies me for a long moment.
He’s not wrong to look. He just won’t find what he’s expecting.
“What are you offering me?” he asks.
“My name. Not on a license. Not at an altar. Just behind hers, where anyone who needs to know can find it. She’s under my protection. That’s the arrangement. Anyone who wants to get to her goes through me first, and nobody who knows anything about what that means would try.”
“You think that’d stick? Your name?”
“You’re more than welcome to try it out, Mr. Gallagher. But, before you do, you might want to recruit a few more men to fill in for the ones I’d kill.”
“Alright.” He picks up his glass, and I know his next question will be about the dowry before the words leave his lips. “Does that come with the same arrangement?”
“No. Keep the money. We’re allies until you break the agreement.”
“I won’t—”
“One more thing,” I say. “If you arrange her with anyone else … if I find out you’ve put her name on another deal, another alliance, or another table she didn’t choose to sit at …
our alliance is over. And I’ll start with your men.
The ones closest to you first. I’ll work my way up until there’s no one left between me and the top.
You’ll live only in books and documentaries, Mr. Gallagher. I won’t repeat myself.”
He doesn’t say anything, which means he believes me.
“I’ll be in touch about Manifold.”
“We weren’t done yet,” he grunts out. “How long is this arrangement?”
I stand. I don’t like timers or deadlines. “Until I set her free. She will be taken care of. She’ll be free to go where she wants except inside the Volkov business. If you try to engage her in anything else, I’ll skip everything else and come right at you.”
“You have a big mouth to go along with that big body of yours, Mr. Makarov. Are there any brains in there?”
His men by the door part without being asked when I turn toward them and begin for the door without a word.
I take the elevator down and step out into the morning air as the city moves around me.
I think about Cady waking up this morning in her penthouse with a black eye.
I think about what her brothers will think when they see her face.
I think about Colin Gallagher sitting behind his enormous desk, receiving the news about his daughter practically and without sentiment. To him, she’s a variable to be managed rather than a person to be concerned about.
She has spent her life in rooms full of men who look at her and see a piece on a board.
I look at her and see everything else.
I start walking.
Manifold is next.
Then, whatever comes after that.