Without another word, he opened the door and slipped into the corridor, closing it behind him with a soft click.
His footsteps faded slowly, carrying fury and sorrow in equal measure.
I stood there long after he was gone, heart pounding, palms damp.
He was going all in on the Albanians. Nothing I said now would stop him.
But if he succeeded—if he tore the Kompania brothers out by the roots and burned their empire to the ground—it would heal something inside me that had been bleeding for over a year.
I crossed to the window and pushed the heavy cotton curtains aside. Dawn was just breaking, pale and tentative.
The lake shifted from black to molten silver, light spilling across its surface like a promise whispered rather than proclaimed.
A new day.
I stood there for a long time, arms wrapped tightly around myself, watching the sun climb inch by inch above the mountains.
The glass was cool against my skin, grounding me in the present, but my thoughts refused to stay still. They churned, restless and sharp, circling the same fears again and again.
I had no illusions.
Dmitri’s plan was reckless. Elegant in its design, terrifying in its execution.
Brilliant men still died from brilliant plans all the time.
One wrong move and the Orlovs would smell blood. They would close ranks, crush him before his outside army ever fully took shape.
Seraphina would tighten her grip on Vanya under the guise of protection. The Albanians—if they sensed even a whisper of retaliation—might strike first, fast and brutal, just to prove they still owned the ground beneath their boots.
And yet... hope crept in anyway.
Unwanted. Dangerous. Impossible to stop.
If Dmitri succeeded—if he dismantled the Albanians piece by piece, stripped them of power, of reach, of the certainty that they could do whatever they wanted to whomever they wanted—then something inside me might finally loosen.
If the men who had pinned me to cold stone floors, who had laughed while I screamed, who had turned my body into currency and sport... if those men were erased from the board entirely—then maybe the darkness lodged deep in my chest would lift just enough for me to breathe again.
Maybe I wouldn’t flinch every time a door slammed.
Maybe sleep wouldn’t feel like a battleground.
My thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the others.
Ana, with her quiet strength and steady eyes—always watching, always calculating, even when fear threatened to break her.
Sofia, her scarred eye a constant reminder of survival, her will forged sharp and unyielding.
Christina and Simona, who hadn’t hesitated for a second when the chance came—who ran like freedom itself was chasing them.
Carina, breathless but stubborn, refusing to be left behind even when her legs trembled.
And Bianca.
Still trapped.
Still waiting.
Still believing—because what else did she have?—that someone would come.