LOGINAce's PovShe stood in the doorway. My mind did the thing it had been doing for hours. It pulled toward her against everything I actually wanted. The drug's voice underneath my own thoughts said listen and obey and come forward.I stood in the room. I fought it.Nikolai was bleeding. I could see it from where I stood. Ivan held him up in the corridor. Nikolai's hand pressed against his side. The sight of it cut through the drug's pull with something sharper than clarity.Not clarity. Rage."You stabbed him.""He was in the way. He is not mortally injured. The wound is manageable if treated within the hour.""He was in the way.""Yes." She stepped into the room. "Come with me now. I will ensure he receives treatment immediately. Refuse. The hour starts becoming relevant."I felt the directive surge upward at her words. The pull was stronger now that she was in the same room. I stood in it the way I had stood in everything difficult for the past year. I found the thing underneath the pu
Ivan's PovThe convoy reached the perimeter before we finished moving Ace to the interior room. The first breach happened at the north access point exactly where Rem had predicted it would.Fifteen personnel confirmed. Possibly more behind the lead vehicles. We had Rem, myself, Nikolai, and two senior Syndicate operatives who had stayed loyal through the transfer. The math was not comfortable."Interior positions." Nikolai was already moving. His voice was the flat operational version that meant everything personal had been compressed somewhere deep. Only the problem in front of him existed. "Rem on the east corridor. Milo and Serra on the west. Ivan with me on the main approach.""Ace.""Interior room. Locked. Rem has the override if the directive activates again."I looked at Ace. He sat against the wall in the position we had placed him. His eyes were half-focused. The clarity from before still held but visibly thinned at every edge."Stay in that room. No matter what you hear.""I
Ace's PovThe clarity was already thinning when I spoke. The edges of my own thoughts started to blur the way the walls had blurred hours ago. I knew with absolute certainty that whatever window I had left was closing faster than any of us could fight it."Listen to me. Both of you, right now, while I can still say this clearly.""We are listening." Nikolai knelt in front of me. His throat was still bruised from where my own hands had nearly ended him."I do not know how long I can hold this back. If I lose it again, I might not stop next time. I might actually kill one of you. Both of you. I will not even know I did it until whatever is left of me wakes up inside a body that has already done something unforgivable.""We will restrain you." Ivan's voice was firm. "We will find a way to hold you until this passes.""It is not passing. Rem said it
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 PovThe imposter was handled in four minutes. Rem identified the substitution point from exterior camera footage. We had the person secured in the lower level within the hour. The questioning was efficient. It yielded immediate results.
Nikolai's PovThere was silence for a while. I finally spoke up."A verdict. You are both looking at me like you have already decided something and you are waiting for me to confirm it. Like the pattern of solo meetings has already been judg
Ace's povI was shaking so badly my teeth rattled. In my mad dash to submit my assignment, I had forgotten my phone back at the bar.The assignment…I was still holding it, clutched in my hands so tight my fingers had actually broken through the first page.It didn't matter anymore. Since I was s
Ace’s POVI thought I was just dropping off papers for my professor.One wrong door.One second too long.And suddenly I’m staring at America’s most dangerous Bratva twins — the Volkov brothers — mid-kill.Nikolai, the older one, lets his voice hit my ear like a cold blade:“You’re not going anywher







