I'm disgusted with myself.
It's not the kind of disgust that comes and goes, not some passing emotion I can bury under work or drown in alcohol. It's heavy, constant. It settles in my stomach and refuses to leave, no matter how hard I try to burn it out with vodka or smother it with plans.
I look in the mirror and I don't like what I see, because the man staring back at me is exactly the kind of man I once swore I would never become. And now not only have I become him, I've done things I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself for.
Gaston is gone.
The words still sound fake, as if they belong to someone else, to another life. But the truth is simple and brutal: he's dead, and I'm still here.
Alla betrayed me.
Or at least that's what I tell myself every hour as I try to piece things together, to make sense of the chaos that's exploded around me. It's easier to turn her into the enemy than to accept that maybe I was wrong somewhere, that maybe I was blinded by desire or by pride.
And yet, in the middle of all that rage, I feel guilty for cheating on her.
Ridiculous.
I hate myself for that almost as much as I hate myself for everything else.
Yelena hunts me through the house—through glances, through touches thrown "by accident," through smiles that know exactly what they're doing. I avoid her as much as I can, because I don't want to give her even a second of the impression that what happened between us was anything more than a moment of weakness.
That's all it was.
One bad moment, on an even worse night, when I let control slip through my fingers. I won't let her believe she means anything to me, because she doesn't.
And yet I know she's the kind who turns any weakness into a weapon.
The black file is still missing.
The documents Alla took—or hid—the documents that incriminate us, that could send me straight to the grave or to prison, are still somewhere beyond my control. And not knowing where they are gnaws at me harder than anything else.
I already have five men dead.
Two shipments lost.
Two more put on hold because I can't afford another hit.
And probably the police on my trail because of her.
Alla.
Every time I say her name in my head I want to punch something, but the truth is I can't say it without feeling something else too—something that makes me even angrier.
How the hell can I still want her after everything she's done to me?
After she destroyed my balance, brought chaos into my house, put my men in danger, overturned my plans?
And yet I see her.
I see her tied to a chair, Gaston's blood on her shirt, her eyes wide and desperate, screaming that it was Ivar.
I see her beneath me, the night I took her virginity, trembling not with fear but with desire.
I see the way she looked at me as if I were the only solid thing in her life.
Everything is so fucked up that I don't even know anymore where the betrayal begins and where my guilt ends.
Maybe she betrayed me.
Maybe I betrayed her first.
Maybe we're all just animals trying to survive in a world where loyalty is worth about as much as a bullet.
I drag a hand through my hair and feel the exhaustion pooled at the nape of my neck, in my shoulders, in my thoughts.
I hated my life before this.
I hated my choices.
But now it's different, because for the first time I'm no longer sure I can control the ending.
And that scares me more than anything.
God, how did I get here?
A sharp knock at the door slices through my dark thoughts midstream, like a well-placed knife, and for a moment I stay frozen, fists clenched on the arms of the chair, before I manage an "come in" that sounds more tired than I would've liked.
Mikhail enters first—straight-backed, calm—as if he's stepping into a boardroom, not into a room where someone is trying to gather the pieces of himself off the floor. Behind him comes Artem, silent as usual. I suddenly realize it's been days since I've been in their company and I still haven't heard his voice. Maybe he's mute, who knows. Or maybe he just speaks when it's absolutely necessary—and so far, it hasn't been.
Mikhail doesn't waste time on pleasantries.
"How much do you trust Ivar?" he asks me directly.
The question catches me off guard and, for the first time in days, I'm genuinely thrown. I thought Ivar was their man—the Volkovs'—that they'd sent him as the link between us, that this whole game had been orchestrated from a single command center.
"I thought he was yours," I say slowly. "That you sent him."
Mikhail tilts his head slightly.
"No. He's not our man. He's someone we've known for years, but someone we've avoided working with as much as possible. We chose to keep him within our range—but at the perimeter. We wanted to do business with you. He approached us on your behalf."
For a moment, I'm left without a response.
I was convinced the Volkovs had contacted me, not the other way around. That they initiated everything. If Ivar brokered it without being sent by them, then who was playing whom, really?
"We caught him in the girl's cell," Mikhail continues calmly. "He was trying to move her."
I feel my stomach drop.
It's a direct hit, no warning. The blood drains from my face and, for a second, I actually have to brace myself against the desk.
"No," I say coldly, even though inside me fury tangles with something far heavier, harder to define. "She's a traitor. And traitors are punished. I just haven't decided how yet."
Mikhail smiles faintly, but there's no mockery in it.
"Don't be so harsh with her. Not yet. We still have things to investigate."
He takes a step closer.
"And don't be so harsh with yourself either. That's our world. You don't let anything get under your skin, because when it leaves—and it always leaves, without exception—it takes a piece of you with it."
His words hit harder than I'd like to admit.
"In the meantime," he goes on, "I suggest we move her out of there. She's no use to us in the degraded state she's in. I want to try the version where we put her in a normal room. Hot water. A bed. Maybe that'll make her sing."
I want that more than I'm willing to show, but I can also feel the test in it, the way every reaction of mine is being measured.
So I let out a short laugh.
"That's how you run interrogations here?"
Artem speaks for the first time, and his voice is surprisingly clear, firm.
"No. Around here we don't really do interrogations. Around here you get a bullet in the forehead, and that's about it."
The silence that follows isn't comfortable.
"Alla isn't a cop," he continues. "We have the best hackers in the world. If there were traces, our people would've found them already. We want to investigate her version—that Ivar killed Gaston. Ivar had more to gain. She had more to lose. And the hotel footage is incomplete. That bothers me."
Mikhail nods.
"Until one version or the other is confirmed, it would be logical to offer them both the same living conditions."
I look at them and try to keep my face unreadable, even though inside me everything is in motion.
If Ivar pulled the trigger.
If Alla told the truth.
If I handed her over to the wrong man.
Everything is so fucked that I don't even know anymore who I should want dead and who I should be trying to save.
I take a slow breath and force my jaw to unclench, because I know any hesitation that lingers too long will be read as weakness.
"Fine," I say at last, in a voice I hope sounds pragmatic, not personal. "Move her."
Mikhail doesn't blink, but I can see him analyzing every shade in my tone.
I nod, and in that moment I understand that, no matter what the others believe, for me this decision isn't just strategic.
It's personal.
And that's exactly what scares me.
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