Chapter 14
The deal hung in the air, cold, sharp, and final. It was a choice designed not just to kill Adrian, but to destroy every piece of progress he had made toward finding his own humanity. Mikhail was not just asking for a surrender. He was asking Adrian to prove that he was exactly what their father had raised him to be, a man who calculated the value of lives like lines on a ledger.
“Adrian, don’t,” I whispered from the shadows of the tunnel mouth. My voice was thick with a frantic, blossoming sense of dread. The water was still swirling around my knees, tugging at me, but I felt frozen to the concrete floor.
Adrian did not acknowledge me. He did not turn around. His focus was entirely on his brother, a lifetime of shared childhood history, blood soaked betrayals, and ancient gr
