CHAPTER SEVEN
1285 Words
DANA
“You did this.”
His voice was cold. Colder than I've ever heard him speaking. Not loud. Not angry. Worse.
It sliced through the air and landed on me like a verdict.
“Did… did what?” I asked.
My eyes darted from his phone to his face, back to the phone again. Whatever he had heard—whatever was said on the other end of that call—had drained the color from his expression. His eyes were darker now. Sharper. Like something had locked into place inside him.
My blood went cold. Colder than the coldest lake I had ever trained in.
Before I could move, he grabbed me and slammed me back onto the bed. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. His hand plunged into my coat, rough, searching. I reacted on instinct—muscles tightening, body preparing for defense—but he was faster.
He pulled out my gun.
My breath caught.
His expression twisted into something wild. Dangerous. I recoiled, pressing myself backward into the mattress, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
“I—”
“They sent you to kill me, didn’t they?”
“What’s going—”
He was already off the bed, already moving, darting to the window. He looked down, cursed under his breath.
“Fuck.”
His phone rang again. And again.
He answered one call, then another, pacing, listening, swearing softly. I couldn’t hear what was being said. I didn’t know who he was speaking to. I didn’t know what was happening.
I hadn’t even heard from Lucky. Or Andrew.
Nothing made sense.
And yet—
I felt it. The need. The stupid, dangerous urge to explain myself to him.
To Kyle.
I didn’t understand it. But whatever he had heard—it wasn’t good. And he was already convinced it was me.
He moved fast, shoving things aside, heading for the door. Then he stopped.
Turned.
“You haven’t answered my question,” he said. “Who sent you to capture me?”
“I—I already—”
“My father has too many enemies,” he cut in sharply. “If you think this cheap setup will get me caught—”
He tossed my gun onto the floor like it meant nothing.
“Think fast. And think hard.” His eyes locked onto mine. “I’m not killing you for this because I learned something about myself today.”
His mouth curved into something that wasn’t a smile.
“Let’s not meet again after tonight. If we do—”
He paused, voice dropping.
“I’ll kill you.”
Cold shivers raced down my spine.
This wasn’t a threat made in anger.
He meant it.
Every part of him did. The steady voice. The eyes that didn’t blink. The veins standing out on his hands as he grabbed the door handle.
Then he was gone.
The door slammed shut behind him.
I exhaled shakily, my lungs burning like I had been holding my breath for too long.
What… just happened?
MIKHAIL
I should've known. Father is never wrong with his teachings. Never wrong when he said, don't trust anything you see or hear. How could I let myself to be vulnerable to an enemy? s**t! How could I want her so much at the wrong time, wrong moment just like new years eve.
I hate her. I shouldn't have indulged her. I should've known that from that New year eve to now, have been wrong. She was used against me as a spy. But who did use her? Who is she working for? I clenched my fist trying to remember what Anton had said earlier, I should take cover by changing into any clothes at all and making my way out of the hotel, the gay bar.
And then I saw him.
Chairman Hudson.
The sight of him froze me mid-step, like my body remembered before my mind did. My father’s elder brother. My nightmare wrapped in skin and tailored cruelty. The man who had kidn*pped me as a child, once—no, twice—long enough for terror to carve itself into my bones. That kind of fear never leaves. It waits.
I did not merely hate him. My hatred for Hudson was alive. It breathed. It grew teeth.
He had always believed the world was only moved by bloodshed. That violence was language. That mercy was weakness. Exactly why my grandfather had despised him. Exactly why he had been forbidden from using the Petrov name. Hudson believed the birthright had been stolen from him and handed to my father. I believed the opposite—that he would have destroyed everything if he had ever touched the throne.
But what was he doing here?
A gay bar.
The irony almost made me laugh. So the intel was true after all. That he was gay, a man that fancied another man. Still, it didn’t answer the real question—why now, why here, why in front of me?
We stood facing each other.
“Nephew,” he said lightly, lifting a hand in mock greeting. “What are you doing in a gay bar?”
I met his gaze without flinching. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
He smiled thinly. “I live in America. You don’t. So tell me again—what are you doing here?”
I straightened, “As the heir to the Petrov organization, I don’t have the luxury of sitting idle while the empire rots.”
“Heir,” he repeated with a scoff. “And that brings you here? I heard you can’t function down there. Don’t tell me your father plans to pass everything to you—even when you’re not a man.”
Once, those words would have cut me open. Hours ago, they might have destroyed me.
Now?
I smiled.
“I’m very much a man,” I said calmly. “If there’s anyone lacking in that department, it’s you, Uncle Hudson. Grandfather would never have trusted a half-man with his legacy.”
I saw it then—the flicker. The wound reopening. I had struck exactly where it hurt.
My phone vibrated in my hand, relentless. Anton.
Hudson’s eyes dropped to it before lifting back to my face. “Enjoy tonight,” he said softly. “It will be the last time you speak to me like that.”
A threat. Like the ones he’d made years ago. Like five years ago when he leaked my secrets to the press. Empty. Old threats.
“Pray I never succeed my father,” I told him, stepping away. “If I do, you won’t walk again. Start shopping for a wheelchair.”
I turned before he could answer. I refused to let him poison what little control I had left tonight. Someone else had already done enough damage.
Outside, my limousine waited.
“Where are you?” Anton demanded over the phone the second I answered.
“Talk,” I said, leaning against the door.
“Your father—” His voice cracked. That alone was enough to make my chest tighten. Does he know? That I was at a gay bar? I'm dead meat if he knows.
“He’s been shot. In Moscow.”
The world tilted.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hear. Couldn’t feel my hands.
“The organization is in chaos,” Anton continued while I dizzied away. “Where are you?”
I forced air into my lungs. Think. Think.
And then I felt it.
Cold metal. Firm. Familiar.
The muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of my skull.
I stilled.
- Writer
