I look away, suddenly exhausted. “I want to lie down.”
I start to pull back, needing distance, space, air—but his hand closes gently around my wrist, not stopping me, just anchoring me for a moment.
“Stay close,” he says softly. Not a command, but a plea born of fear. “I have to work in my office. Come with me. There’s a bed there—you can rest. I’ll be right beside you.”
I study his face. The rigid control. The fracture beneath it.
This is his compromise.
I sigh, the fight draining out of me like water from cracked glass.
“Okay.”
Relief flickers across his expression—brief, unguarded—before the walls snap back into place.
He leads me toward the office, his hand warm at my back, protective and possessive all at once.
And as I follow him, I wonder which promise will break first: his vow to protect me or his promise to let me go.
Chapter 14 – Konstantin
I don’t sleep.
Sleep is a luxury for men who believe the night will pass without blood.
I’ve been in my office for hours, moving through reports, camera feeds, intercepted signals—working, yes, but mostly waiting. Waiting for my brothers to arrive with something concrete. A location. A name. A mistake Markov made that I can carve open and crawl through.
The glass wall to my right keeps me tethered.
Raelyn is there, wrapped in one of my shirts, the fabric swallowing her frame. She’s curled on the bed, her body turned inward like the world is something that bites. I can see her at all times. I made sure of that.
She fought sleep for nearly an hour earlier—silent, restless, twisting the sheets around her fists like anchors. When it became too much, I told Nik to bring her a book. Any book. Something to keep her mind still.
Now she sleeps.
Her cheek is pressed into the pillow, lashes casting faint shadows against her skin. One small hand is clenched near her chest, the other relaxed, fingers barely touching the edge of the page. The book lies abandoned beside her, spine cracked, pages folded where she must have lost consciousness mid-sentence.
Her breathing is soft.
Even.
Alive.
The sight of it tightens something brutal in my chest.
I have seen cities burn. I have ordered deaths without blinking. I have watched men beg and felt nothing but irritation at their voices.
But this—this fragile rise and fall of her breath—has made me acutely aware of how breakable human life truly is.
How easily it shatters.
How close she came to dying today without ever knowing the name of the man who pulled the trigger.
My jaw tightens. My fingers curl against the desk until the wood creaks faintly.
Anyone who reaches for her again won’t be warned.
They won’t be bargained with.