He didn’t answer immediately. His gaze fell to the floor, the lines of his face hardening with whatever thoughts were racing through his mind. But then, without looking at me, he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. Still not touching me. Still not looking directly at me.
Just present. His presence was everything. Unmovable.
And I hated it.
But as I sat there, the words seemed to slip away, swallowed by something deeper. Something rawer. Something I couldn’t escape. I could feel the tension in the space between us, thick and heavy like smoke. It suffocated me and drew me in at the same time.
For a moment, I was tempted—, just a stupid second. where I thought about leaning into him. Letting him hold me in that way only he could. Letting him consume the broken pieces of me that I couldn’t keep together anymore. But then the walls slammed back up, cold and unyielding.
I couldn’t. Not with him. Not like this.
So instead, I drank the tea. The warmth of it burned against my throat. But it was nothing compared to the fire building between us.
I set the empty cup down with a soft clink, the sound piercing the silence like an echo.
Misha didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
He only stared at me, stared, with eyes that were both distant and closer than I could stand.
And then, without another word, he got up. He moved to the door, each step a beat I couldn’t ignore.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to call him back, to shatter the silence before it could swallow me whole. But I didn’t. I stayed still.
Misha stopped at the door and glanced back, his eyes hard like stone.
“I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said, as though it was a promise or a threat. I couldn’t tell which.
And then he left, the door clicking shut softly behind him, leaving me with nothing but the echo of his absence and the smell of pine that lingered in the room, like the ghost of something I couldn’t escape.
I cracked the window, just enough to catch the scene unfolding below.
My heart skipped a beat.
Five men. All familiar faces.
The men were already on their knees when Misha arrived.
I hadn’t seen it happen, but I had heard it. The hushed conversations through the vent in the bathroom, the sudden drop of music from the first floor, the ominous silence before the distant sound of boots pounding on the concrete courtyard outside.
One of them, Rurik, barely twenty-two, his eyes wide with terror as he shifted on his knees. His mouth moved like he thought words could somehow save him, but they didn’t. Not anymore. Viktor was among them, too, the same man who had once carefully helped me down icy steps, who had been trusted by Misha. A loyal one. Or so I had thought.
Yet here they were. Lined up in the snow, wrists bound, guns aimed at the backs of their heads by Misha’s men. They were kneeling, their heads lowered, their fates sealed. And Misha? He didn’t speak at first. He just paced, his steps measured, cold, lethal.
His silence was like the calm before the storm, terrifying in its stillness.
And then, finally, his voice cut through the air.
“You thought I wouldn’t find out.”
Viktor, the one who had trusted me once, spoke first. “Please, Misha. We didn’t mean for it to...”
“Don’t lie to me.” Misha’s words were a whip crack. “You betrayed me. You let them in. The Vargas Cartel. You gave them information about my storage facility. About Gabriela.”
Viktor’s voice trembled. “Only because...”
“Only because you thought I wouldn’t notice. You thought you could play both sides. You thought the rules didn’t apply to you.”
Misha stopped pacing, his gaze sharp as a blade.
