Our silence is thick, weighted, stretched too thin over something neither of us wants to name. But then Ada’s gaze shifts, flickering downward, and mine follows instinctively.
Small, just over his knee, nearly swallowed by old scars, but there. A symbol I know. A symbol I’ve seen before marked into skin.
Ink.
Ada sees it too. Her breath hitches, barely audible.
An eight-pointed star.
The ancient Slavic symbol, blackened with age, its lines broken by scar tissue but still whole. A symbol of power. Of war.
Like his.
I meet Ada’s eyes again, and for the first time in a long time, I see something there that mirrors the feeling in my chest.
Not confusion.
Not disbelief.
Something worse.
Recognition.
Chapter 17
Winter’s Shadow
Isabella
The clock on the wall reads midnight, but the house feels colder than it should. I can hear the faint hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen, but it does nothing to ease the chill that’s settled deep in my bones. I sit on the couch, my hands resting on my knees, staring at nothing, feeling like I’m stuck in a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I haven’t bothered to change, I’m still in scrubs.
Ada’s just a few steps away, leaning against the kitchen counter with her back to me, her profile sharp in the dim light from the hallway. She hasn’t said a word since we came in, and I don’t blame her.
I should be resting. I should be getting some sleep before I have to go back for my next shift, but my mind won’t let me. My body is exhausted, every muscle aching, but it’s like my brain is running on overdrive, chasing down a memory I can’t outrun.
I think about the man on the gurney. He looked like he’d been through Hell, like he didn’t have much time left. But the whisper of those words... I can’t ignore them.
The tattoo.
Aslanov had that same symbol. The eight-pointed star. But his was on his shoulder, not his ribs. That symbol meant something. I know it. I can feel it, crawling under my skin.
“Ada…” My voice cracks. I don’t even recognize it as my own.“What does it mean? The phrase... ‘Winter is coming early this year.’ What does it mean?’’
Ada doesn’t answer right away. I watch her from across the room, her back still turned to me. Her shoulders are tense, like she’s trying to hold something inside, something dangerous. When she does speak, her voice is barely audible, like she’s testing the weight of the words before they leave her mouth.
“Winter... it’s a warning,” she says, her eyes never leaving the countertop. “It’s a message, one that’s passed around in the Bratva. When they say ‘winter is coming early,’ it means trouble. Big trouble. They’re gearing up for something.”
I don’t know why the air feels thinner suddenly, but I can’t breathe. I grip the edge of the couch, trying to steady myself.
She continues, her voice cold, distant. “It’s a signal. A shift in power. He carried the symbol, so he must have been a member, and when a member says those words, it means something’s about to break loose. And when it does, it won’t be pretty.”
I can feel the blood drain from my face, the realization settling in like a heavy weight on my chest.
“Ada…” My voice trembles now, barely above a whisper. “The man… he had the tattoo. The same one. The eight-pointed star. It was on his knee, underneath the scars. But Aslanov… he had the same one, just on his shoulder instead of his knee. The higher position, right?”
Ada stiffens. I watch her shoulders tense, her hands gripping the counter so hard her knuckles go white. She doesn’t turn around, but I see the shift in her posture, the way she holds herself as if bracing against something too big to confront.
She knows exactly what’s happening, she studied organized crime for god knows how long.
