LOGINAce's Pov
“Don't think this will distract us from the fact that you spent two hours and fourteen minutes with a federal agent who is your biological father and who has spent twenty years positioning himself to have access to you," Nikolai said. He put the tablet down. "And you came back with an agreement that requires us to drop our security protocols around federal exposure."
"The agreement requires Calloway to drop the prosecutio
Nikolai's PovI had fought Ivan once, years ago, in a sparring session that had gone too far between two brothers testing exactly how much each could take. I had never imagined I would one day be fighting Ace with the same controlled brutality.His fists drove at me with a precision that had none of his usual instinct in it. Only mechanical execution of something programmed beneath his skin."Ace. Stop."He did not stop. His eyes were flat. Distant. The person I loved was trapped somewhere behind a face that kept moving toward me with lethal intent."Ivan, get back. I have him.""You do not have him." Ivan circled wide. His jaw was already swollen from the first hit. "Nobody has him right now."Ace came at me again, faster than before. I caught his wrist before the strike landed. I twisted hard enough that anyone else
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
Nikolai's PovI brought the file to the kitchen where Ace and Ivan were at the counter.Ace looked at the photo for a long time."He looks like her," he said, quietly. "In the eyes."I said nothing.
Ivan's PovI woke up still sore from the gunshot, but my cock was already hard the moment I saw Ace standing in the bathroom.The morning light made his brown wavy hair look soft and his green eyes bright. He was brushing his teeth, we
Ivan's PovAce was pressed against the far wall breathing fast and his eyes were going between Nikolai and Morozov and then they found mine across the room.And I understood in that second what I had not let myself fully understand before.
Ivan's PovThe trap took four hours to set.Nikolai ran most of it. He was better at the architecture of things like this, the quiet repositioning, the exits covered without anything looking different from the outside. I handled the ground l







