LOGINNikolai's Pov
The evidence package was detailed.
Rem sent it within the hour. The police had video from the secondary building exterior, eyewitness accounts from two Rossi men who had survived the east side breach and identified Ace by description, and a digital trail that connected Ace to the building that had been used as a staging ground.
None of it was fabricated. Most of it was accurate. The interpretation being
Ivan's PovThe screen went dark. Ace's body seemed to lock in place. Caught between whatever instruction had been embedded and the will fighting against it from somewhere underneath."Ace." Nikolai's voice was quiet. "Look at me. Just me."Ace's eyes found Nikolai's face. For a long moment it seemed like the worst of it had passed. His shoulders dropped slightly. His breathing slowed.Then his expression went flat again. All at once. Like a switch had been thrown somewhere deep inside him."Ace."He turned toward me. The punch landed before I had time to brace for it. His fist connected with my jaw hard enough to send me backward into the wall. The impact drove the breath from my lungs, the room tilted. I forced myself back upright."Ace, stop." Nikolai moved to intercept him.Ace turned on
Ace's PovThe walls had started breathing somewhere around the third hour. A slow expansion and contraction. I knew it was not real, i could not stop watching anyway."Nikolai. The walls.""I see them too." His voice came from somewhere close. His hand was steady against my arm. Steady felt like the wrong word for something that kept dissolving at the edges every time I tried to focus on it."You do not see them. You are lying to make me feel less insane.""I am not lying." Ivan spoke from my other side. "I am telling you they are not breathing. Your eyes are telling you something, your brain has decided to believe it."Rem had arrived forty minutes ago. His equipment was spread across the small table in whatever room we had retreated to. His face carried the specific tightness of someone working against a clock he did not fully understand.
Nikolai's PovI crossed the room before the syringe was even fully empty. My hands closed around her wrist. The damage was already done by the time I forced her away from him.Ace stumbled backward. His hand went to his neck. His face shifted into something pale and unfocused that had not been there a second ago."What did you give him." My voice came out as something close to a roar."Something new." She was completely unbothered. She stepped back toward her chair. "Untested on humans, technically. I had it prepared as a contingency. In case the antidote conversation went exactly the way it just went.""You poisoned him again." Ivan had moved to Ace's other side. Both of us held him upright as his legs began to fail."I did not poison him. This is something different. I genuinely do not know what it will do to him. That is precisely what makes
Ace's PovI stayed kneeling because standing too quickly would have broken whatever fragile cover I had managed to build in the six hours since I arrived."Let me explain." I faced Nikolai. "Before either of you reacts to what you are seeing.""Explain it standing up."I stood slowly. Her hand slid off my head as I rose. The room held its breath, all four of us in some configuration of tension that had no easy resolution."I am not betraying you. I needed her to believe I was. Long enough to get the antidote, long enough to learn what she actually wants."She laughed quietly from her chair. "He is good. I will give him that. He has been performing loyalty to me for six hours. His conviction almost fooled me as well.""Almost.""Almost." She nodded. "Which is why we are at this particular moment instead o
Ivan's PovI came back to consciousness in a holding cell. I had no memory of how I had gotten there. My face throbbed where someone had clearly worked it over while I was unconscious. The first coherent thought I had was that I needed to find Nikolai. Whoever had taken me might decide I had outlived my usefulness.The cell door was not as secure as whoever built it had intended. I had it open within twenty minutes. I used nothing but the frame's weak hinge point. The same trick I had used to free Nikolai from a different room months ago.I moved through the building fast. I took down the two guards I encountered. I did not give either of them time to raise an alarm. I made it to the surface before anyone realized I was already gone.Rem answered on the first ring when I called from a stolen phone."Ivan." Rem's voice had gone sharp with relief. "Where are you.""I do not know the exact address. I need extraction. I need it fast.""Nikolai is awake. He has been frantic since he found
Ace's PovI left while both of them were asleep. The first real sleep either of them had gotten in two days. Exhaustion finally won the argument their bodies had been losing against adrenaline.Rem did not stop me. I had told him I would tell them everything afterward. Regardless of how it went. He had looked at me for a long moment before agreeing that the truth after the fact was better than no truth at all.The location she sent was a private residence on the eastern edge of the city. Far enough from anywhere we had ever operated that I understood immediately she had chosen it for exactly that reason. It belonged to no one's history but hers.She was waiting in a sitting room when I arrived, no visible security. The same controlled stillness she had carried since the corridor."You came without them.""You asked for me alone.""I did not actually expect you to honor that. Most people in your position would have brought an army.""I am not most people."She gestured to the chair ac
Ace's PovThe ring was gold and simple and there were marks on the inside that looked like initials, but I could not make them out because my hands were shaking. I was having difficulty focusing on anything except the fact that this was my mother's ring and the Morettis had it and they had sent it
Ivan's PovThe physical therapy was supposed to be light, simple and controlled. I was supposed to do a few basic movements while Ace watched and made notes about what still hurt, what was moving properly and what needed more time.It did not go that way at all."Lift your arm to shoulder height,"
Ace's PovThe arms deal was supposed to be clean.Nikolai had been building the framework for three weeks and Ivan had vetted the broker twice and Rem had cleared the location four times and it was as clean as anything we
Ivan's PovCastro was in the penthouse when we got there.He was sitting in one of the main chairs with his hands visible and the lights on and he looked at us the way men look when they have already decided how something ends.







