Blood on white linoleum glows like scattered rubies under fluorescent lights.
It’s everywhere, smeared by the rushing boots of paramedics, security, doctors. Vince’s fingerprints are all over it—quite literally—as he tried to hold his best friend’s life inside his chest. By the time we reach the hospital, Vince’s clothes look like he’s been butchered, but it’s not his blood.
It should have been.
The bullet was meant for him. I know it as surely as I know my own name. I know who ordered it fired, too. I don’t even have to ask.
The waiting room of the private hospital wing feels like purgatory. Sanitized misery encased in taupe walls and uncomfortable chairs. Vince hasn’t moved from his rigid position at the window for over an hour. Nor have his hands relaxed. Still bloodstained, they’re clenched into fists so tight I can see the tendons straining beneath his skin from where I sit.
If rage had a scent, the room would be suffocating with it.
“You can’t go after your father,” I say, finally breaking the silence. “Not now. We still have the FBI circling.”
Vince doesn’t turn around. “Watch me.”
“That’s exactly what he wants.” I stand and go to him. “He knows you’ll come charging after him. He’s counting on it.”
His laugh is hollow, gutted. “And what would you have me do, Rowan? Send him a fucking fruit basket and a note that says, ‘Let’s take a rain check, please’ as Arkady bleeds out on an operating table?”
My teeth grind together so hard I’m surprised enamel doesn’t dust the floor. “I would have you think like the smart man I know you are instead of the weapon your father forged you to be.”
That gets his attention. He whips around, eyes glittering like broken glass. “You have no idea what I am.”
“I have every idea,” I counter. “I’m the only person who sees all of you, Vince. That’s why I’m still standing here, despite everything.”
We stare at each other across the chasm of our fundamental differences. The air between us vibrates with grief and fury and whatever you call the thing that makes me want to slap him and kiss him in the same breath.
A doctor pushes through the double doors, clipboard in hand. “Mr. Akopov? Your friend is out of surgery.”
Vince’s entire body coils tight. “And?”
“He survived, but it’s…” A weary sigh goes whistling out of the man. “It’s complicated. The bullet damaged his lung and nicked his heart. He’s stable for now, but the next twenty-four hours are critical.”
I watch the information sink in. Each word is another boulder loaded up on shoulders that are already carrying too much.
“Can I see him?” Vince asks.
“Briefly, if you’d like. But I’ll warn you, he’s heavily sedated.”
I follow behind as the doctor leads us to the ICU. My throat constricts when I see Arkady—this mountain of a man, Vince’s shadow and shield for fifteen years—reduced to a pale, fragile figure drowning in tubes and wires.
Vince approaches the bed silently. He doesn’t touch Arkady. Doesn’t speak. Just stands there, absorbing the damage done by a bullet meant for him.
“I need coffee,” I murmur, leaving him to his silent vigil.
In the hallway, I lean against the wall and exhale for what feels like the first time in hours. The linoleum floor beneath my feet wavers as exhaustion hits me in crashing waves. I slide down until I’m sitting, knees pulled to my chest like a pouting child.
Arkady took a bullet for Vince. Without hesitation, without thought—just pure, instinctive loyalty.
Hours earlier, he’d held a gun to Vince’s head.
Now, he might die for him.
The contradiction of the Bratva brotherhood remains a fucking enigma to me. These men—violent, dangerous men—forge bonds in blood that transcend betrayal, that demand sacrifice. For all its brutality, there’s something almost beautiful in their unwavering loyalty.
I’ve spent so long seeing only the darkness, only the cruelty. But there’s this part, too: a brotherhood willing to die for each other.
When Vince emerges from the ICU thirty minutes later, his face is carved from stone. He looks down at me, crumpled against the wall, and silently offers his hand.
I take it and let him pull me to my feet. His touch anchors me even as his eyes remain distant, haunted.
“He shouldn’t have done it,” Vince says. “It should have been me.”
“Then you’d be the one in that bed,” I counter, “and I’d be the one planning a murder.”
His exhale is sharp, almost a laugh but not quite. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “That’s the whole problem.”
We move toward the small alcove with buzzing vending machines providing white noise so no one can overhear us.
“I’m going to kill him, Rowan.” Vince rubs at his temples. “I’m going to put my father in the ground for what he’s done.”
I cup his cheek. “I know. But the question isn’t whether Andrei deserves to die. It’s whether killing him now serves our larger goals or just your need for vengeance.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is between surviving this or not.” I grip his wrist, forcing him to feel my words through skin-to-skin contact. “The FBI ultimatum expires today. If you go after Andrei now, Carver’s lifeline goes up in smoke.”
“What would you have me do?” His teeth gleam sharp and white in the fluorescent lights. “Let him get away with this? I won’t let him think he can put a bullet in my best friend and live to gloat about it.”
“I’d have you be smarter than him.” My nails dig into his flesh. “Andrei knows you, knows exactly how you’ll react. He’s counting on that rage. He’s counting on you charging straight into his trap.”
Vince pulls away. “You don’t understand what this means. If I don’t respond—immediately, violently—I look weak. And weakness gets you killed faster than anything.”
“Then respond,” I agree. “But not in the way he expects. Not in the way he’s prepared for.”
Vince pauses, something flickering in his gaze. Interest. Consideration. “What did you have in mind?”
“Carver first,” I state firmly. “We deal with the FBI threat, secure immunity, then we dismantle your father piece by piece. Not through brute force, but by stripping away everything he values.”
“His money. His power. His respect.” Vince taps his chin as he thinks. “Make him watch as everything he’s built crumbles around him.”
“A slow death,” I agree. “More painful than a bullet could ever be.”
We stand facing each other in the sterile hospital alcove. Quiet. Not quite together but not quite apart, either.
“I still want to kill him,” Vince admits after a while. “I can feel it burning inside me, this need to watch him bleed out slowly while I explain exactly why he’s dying.”
“I know,” I say simply. “And someday, you will. But not today. Not yet.”
He looks back toward the ICU where Arkady fights for his life. “I need to be here when he wakes up.”
“I know.”
His eyes finally meet mine without walls, without pretense. “When this is over… when my father is dealt with, when the FBI is off our backs… what then? For us?”
That’s the million-dollar question. I think of Sofiya, sleeping safely under heavy guard at our compound. I think of the future I once imagined for us, before blood and betrayal tainted everything.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I’m willing to find out if you are.”
“Are you sure?”
I tilt my head and smile sadly at him. “I came back, didn’t I?” I whisper. “Despite knowing exactly what you are. What does that tell you?”
He nods and pulls me close to him by my hips. “Yeah,” he whispers back. “I love you, too.”
