Till Death DO Us Part

Nikolai POV By the time Manhattan sank into midnight silence, I had already broken one man’s hand and ordered another into the ground. Neither decision had taken long. Violence was simple when stripped of emotion. A man stole from me, and I took the hand that signed the theft. A man lied to me, and I made sure he never spoke comfortably again. A man betrayed the Sokolov name, and the city buried him before sunrise. Cause and consequence. It was the only system I had ever trusted. The only one that had never disappointed me. My penthouse sat high above the city, all black glass, dark wood, and polished stone, forty-eight floors of expensive silence built to look like luxury and feel like control. The windows stretched from floor to ceiling, giving me a clear view of Manhattan glittering below like a kingdom dipped in gold and blood. Traffic moved in silver ribbons through the streets. The river cut through the darkness like a black blade. Somewhere downtown, people were drinking, f*****g, laughing, pretending they were safe because they could not see the men who decided whether they stayed that way. My office was quiet except for the low hum of the city beyond the glass and the soft click of my tablet screen beneath my hand. Shipments. Territory reports. Names. Numbers. Problems. There was always a problem. Three shipments are moving through the port over the next forty-eight hours. One judge had become too expensive to keep useful. Two men in Queens whose loyalty needed reminding. A warehouse in Brooklyn where inventory had come up short for the second time this month. I read every report twice. My father taught me young that men did not fall because of the threats they saw coming. They fell because of the details they dismissed. A late payment. A missing crate. A careless woman. A lieutenant who stopped making eye contact when he lied. Mikhail Sokolov had taught me many useful things. None of them is kind. I stood at the bar in my office, my jacket off and my black shirt sleeves rolled to my forearms, a glass of whiskey sitting untouched by my hand. I had poured it twenty minutes earlier and forgotten it there. Alcohol was useful for many things. Celebration. Performance. Negotiation. Thinking was not one of them. My phone vibrated once against the marble. I did not look at it immediately. Anyone with permission to contact me at this hour knew better than to waste my time. Anyone without permission had either made a very stupid choice or was already dead and had not yet been informed. I finished the report in front of me, made a note to move two men from Staten Island to Queens, then reached for the phone. Unknown number. No message. Only a video file. I stared at the screen for one beat too long. Something cold shifted under my ribs. Not fear. Fear implied uncertainty, and uncertainty implied weakness. I did not allow myself either one. I opened the file. For a second, the screen stayed black. Then the image sharpened. A hotel room. White sheets. Gold lighting. A bottle of champagne is sweating on the nightstand. A woman’s heel was discarded near the bed like an afterthought. Then the camera angle settled. A man’s bare back. A woman beneath him. Dark hair spread across a pillow. Pale skin against white sheets. Her mouth opened on a soft, breathless laugh I recognized before I wanted to. Lilian. The room around me went very still. I watched her arch beneath him, watched her fingers dig into his shoulders, watched the practiced softness in her face as she looked up at him, as if she had found something worth worshipping. Then the man turned his head. Anton Volkov. Of course. I watched the entire video without blinking. Volkov’s hand around Lilian’s throat. Lilian smiling up at him, mouth parted, eyes heavy-lidded and eager. His body moving over hers with the kind of confidence men wore when they thought they had won something. The clip lasted less than two minutes. It was enough. When it ended, the screen went black, and my own reflection stared back at me. I felt disgust first. Not heartbreak. Not grief. Certainly not jealousy. Disgust. It coated the back of my tongue like something rotten. The video was not about s*x. It was not even really about betrayal. Lilian was not my wife, and I had never been foolish enough to mistake convenience for devotion. If she wanted to spread her legs for another man, that in itself meant very little to me. No, this was about an insult. About possession. About Volkov taking something attached to my name and using it to make a statement. That was what made my jaw tighten. Not Lilian’s betrayal. Volkov’s audacity. He had recorded her. He had sent it to me from an anonymous number. He wanted me to watch. Wanted me to know exactly whose hands were on her, exactly whose mouth she was opening for, exactly how little respect he had for the line between us. He wanted a reaction. I replayed the video. Not because I needed to torture myself with the image. Not because some wounded part of me wanted to linger in the humiliation. I replayed it because every frame was information, and information was worth more than emotion. The angle was too clean for an accident. The camera had likely been mounted high in the corner of the room, close to the vent. Volkov knew it was there. Lilian did not. That much was obvious from the way she moved, careless and unguarded, too busy trying to be wanted to notice she was being used. Interesting. Volkov had planned the recording. Lilian had planned the affair. That made them both useful for different reasons. When it ended the second time, I closed the file and opened the security app linked to my properties. Lilian’s access privileges appeared in a neat list. Tribeca apartment. Private garage. Elevator clearance to the penthouse. Town car account. Weekend house in the Hamptons. A jewelry account I had forgotten existed. Convenience had made me careless. That irritated me more than the video itself. I revoked everything. One by one. Clean. Quiet. Immediate. Then I picked up my second phone and called Roman. He answered on the first ring. “Boss.” “Where is Lilian?” A brief pause. The sound of keys. “Her apartment. She got home twenty-six minutes ago.” “Send two men.” “For removal?” “Yes.” “What do you want done?” I looked out at the city while I answered, at the skyline gleaming under the black weight of night, at the streets below where people moved around consequences they would never see coming. “Take everything connected to me,” I said. “Cards. Keys. Jewelry. Phones. Any clothes I paid for. Anything in that apartment carrying my name, remove it.” “And Lilian?” “Out.” “If she resists?” My mouth curved slightly. “She has always been smarter than that.” Roman understood. “Done.” I ended the call and set the phone down. Only then did I pick up the whiskey and drink. It burned smoothly and burned down my throat, but it did nothing to erase the taste in my mouth. Lilian James had never belonged in my world. That was part of the appeal. She had grown up in the outer orbit of the Sokolov household, the daughter of one of the nannies my father employed when he wanted his sons supervised without the inconvenience of actual parenting. Viktor and I were raised by women whose names I barely remember, under rules so strict they had teeth. We had tutors, bodyguards, routines, punishments, and expectations. What we did not have were mothers. Mine had no face in my memory, no voice, no photograph hidden in a drawer somewhere. She existed only as proof that my father had once wanted something long enough to put a child in it. That child was me. Lilian had been there at the edges of that world. Pretty. Quiet. Hungry. I noticed the hunger first. Not for me. For what stood behind me. Money. Access. Security. Status. The illusion of permanence that came from attaching yourself to a man people feared. She learned early how to look at me without appearing obvious. How to smile without looking desperate. How to keep her ambitions tucked behind softness. When she was old enough, I let her come closer. Not because I trusted her. Because I understood her. Women like Lilian were easy. Their motives had shape. You could trace them. Use them. Predict them. They wanted gifts, power, and a last name heavy enough to open doors for them. There was no mystery in that. No danger I had not already accounted for. I knew exactly what she wanted from me. The Sokolov name. The penthouse. The diamonds. The title of being the woman at my side. I never intended to give her any of it, but she was convenient enough to keep and clever enough to be entertaining in small doses. She knew when to be warm. Knew when to be quiet. Knew how to leave when I was finished with her. And now she had climbed into Volkov’s bed and let him use her body as a message. That was what disgusted me. Not that she wanted more than I offered. I had expected that. Not even that she slept with another man. Bodies were easy. They meant very little. It was the fact that she had made herself useful to my enemy. She had allowed herself to become a tool pointed back at me. Unforgivable. I was still staring at the city when the office door opened without a knock. Only one person besides my father had that particular death wish. Viktor strolled in wearing black jeans, a dark Henley, and the lazy expression of a man who had either just left the gym or just buried someone. With him, the distinction was often irrelevant. His hair was still damp. His knuckles were bruised. He looked annoyingly awake for half past midnight. My younger brother stopped inside the doorway and studied my face. “That expression usually means someone is already dead,” he said. “Should I be concerned that the city still seems intact?” “Give it time.” His mouth twitched. “Now I’m interested.” I held out the phone. Viktor crossed the room, took it, and played the video. For once, he did not interrupt. He watched the entire thing in silence, his expression flattening in a way most people never saw on him. Viktor wore humor the way other men wore armor. It made people underestimate him. It made them forget that beneath the grin was the same blood, the same brutality, the same education our father had carved into both of us. When the video ended, he looked up. “Well,” he said at last, handing the phone back. “Lilian always did have terrible taste.” “That is your takeaway?” “It’s my polite takeaway.” He dropped into the chair across from my desk and stretched out like he owned the room. “My honest one is that Volkov has developed an embarrassing attachment to breathing.” “He wanted a reaction.” “Did he get one?” “No.” Viktor grinned. “That must be devastating for him.” I set the phone down on the desk. Viktor leaned back in the chair, studying me. “You know, I never liked her.” “You like most women.” “I like sleeping with most women. I don’t necessarily like them.” He folded his hands behind his head. “Lilian looked at you like she was trying on your last name in the mirror.” “She was.” “And you kept her anyway.” “She was convenient.” He laughed. “That is one of the coldest things you’ve ever said.” “It is also true.” Viktor’s grin sharpened. “So what are we doing?” “We?” “Yes, we. Shared blood. Shared vengeance. Basic family values.” “Lilian is being removed.” “And Volkov?” “Later.” He groaned dramatically. “You take all the fun out of things.” “I want him alive long enough to understand what he did wrong.” That pleased him. I could tell by the way his smile turned dangerous. “There he is,” Viktor said. “I was worried you might start journaling instead.” I almost smiled. Almost. Viktor noticed, anyway, because, of course, he did. He had always been too good at reading me for his own safety. “You know what the best part is?” he asked. “There is no best part.” “The best part,” he continued, ignoring me, “is that if Lilian thought Volkov would choose her over survival, then she’s even stupider than I gave her credit for.” “Do not waste your sympathy.” “I would never.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Did you ever actually like her?” The question landed in the room like a blade set flat on a table. I looked at him. He lifted both hands. “I’m asking because I’m curious, not because I care.” “That is not reassuring.” “It wasn’t meant to be.” I considered the question anyway. Like was too soft a word for what Lilian had been to me. Useful. Familiar. Predictable. There were moments when I enjoyed her. Moments, I tolerated her. Moments I nearly forgot, she was always reaching for something bigger than herself. But liking implied warmth, and warmth implied a kind of emotional generosity I had never offered her. “She served a purpose,” I said. Viktor made a face. “Christ. Remind me never to ask you anything vulnerable again.” A knock sounded at the door. Viktor’s expression changed first. The amusement did not vanish entirely, but it sharpened around the edges. Only one man in this house knocked like the room already belonged to him. I set my whiskey down. “Come in,” I said.