The coldness of the Kostkov mansion hit me the moment my heels clicked onto the marble floor.
The familiarity of the silence hits me, and the lingering smell of tobacco invades the whole living room.
I hadn't even reached the staircase when the study door opened abruptly. My father stepped out, his shadow long and jagged.
Behind him, Maxim leaned against the doorframe, his fingers tapping a rhythmic beat against a thick, cream-colored envelope hiding behind him.
My letters.
My chest tightened for a moment before my Father's voice brought my attention back.
"I want to have a word," my father said.
His tone remains firm, like a calm before the storm. I could see the tension on his watchful eyes as I took a step closer to him.
The brave mask firmly in place as I walk towards them, but as I reached the third marble tile, the world tilted.
A stinging heat exploded across my right cheek. My head snapped to the side as my father's palm connected with my skin.
"Dmitry, huh?" he asked, his voice terrifyingly level. "How long have you been entertaining that dog?"
I swallowed as my heart beats faster than earlier. I should have known that Maxim is way faster to deliver news like this.
I forced my head back up. I straightened my spine, filling my eyes with the emptiness he had spent years teaching me. "Just today," I lied, the words tasting like a copper. "I've never spoken to him before. And I won't again."
He stepped closer, gripping my chin until I thought the bone of my jaw might crack.
"You are a Kostkov, Anastasia." He reminded with the same tone he uses when I was a kid.
"The Ivanovs exist because I allow it. I could erase his father from the map tonight, and the world wouldn't blink."
My jaw clenched as my body stiffened from his words. That silent war between our families settled heavily.
He took a step closer, "I am wasting my life convincing the Board to accept your Blood Oath. Just to ensure the Kostkovs will stay."
Then closer, "They already think you're a disgrace. Don't prove them right."
The words lingered in my mind like a ticking time bomb ready to explode.
And that was when something in me snapped.
"Is that what you told them about my mother?" I snapped, the fire in my gut overriding my survival instinct.
"Is that why you told everyone she cheated? How you stained her dignity because you couldn't handle the fact that you were the one who made some whore pregnant and threw my mother out like she meant nothing?!—"
The second slap was harder this time.
I hit the floor with a thud. His nail marked a red line in my cheek as I tasted the blood dripping down to my lips.
The maids turned away. Their eyes were wide with a familiar terror that haunted this house for years.
"You look exactly like her," he spat. "Weak. Useless. You're lucky the Bratva respect the bloodline, or I'd have thrown you out with the rest of your mother's trash years ago."
He turned to the stairs, his voice dropping to a low threat. "If I hear rumors again. With you and that Ivanov. I'll make sure neither of you survives the consequences."
The footsteps slowly faded as he disappeared upstairs. I watched his retreating figure with anger in my eyes. The same eyes who despise him for years.
Slowly, I lifted my gaze to the other side of the room.
Maxim was still there.
Watching.
Smiling.
He went close but didn't offer a hand. Instead, he pulled a single letter from the envelope and fanned himself with it.
"Poetic stuff, Anastasia," he whispered, a predatory glint in his eyes. "Especially the part where you two treated a fucking cat like a daughter, exchanging letters like it's not forbidden."
He leaned down to fan the letters to my face, "I wonder... how many bullets would it take to erase these words if Father knew you'd been a traitor since you were eight?"
I clenched my jaw harder as I look at him in the eye. I stood up to grab the letters but he's too fast.
"Give them back, Maxim," I hissed, reaching out.
He pulled them back with a sharp laugh. "Not a chance. These...are my insurance policy. I want you to be a good, tame sister, or these will find their way onto Father's desk. Think of it as a sibling tax."
He tucked the envelope into his inner pocket and stepped over me, his boots narrowly missing my fingers.
"I'll make sure you'll regret this, Maxim." I said with a threat.
I heard him chuckled dangerously as he took steps upstairs. Like my words were just some kind of jokes on his ears.
"Sleep well, sister."
***
DMITRY'S POV
The barracks were nearly empty at this hour of the night, the kind of silence that didn't feel peaceful so much as abandoned. The air was thick with the lingering scent of gunpowder, clinging to the walls and the floor, mixed with cold metal and sweat that never truly faded no matter how often the place was cleaned.
I told myself I came here to train.
For discipline. For control. To remind myself of who I was supposed to be. To make my Father proud.
But the truth sat heavier than that.
I came here because I couldn't stand the noise in my own head.
Ellie.
Maxim.
And her.
Always her. Silently. For years.
She's threading through every thought I tried to suppress, persistent, and unwelcome in ways I refused to admit.
I moved toward one of the empty lanes, setting my bag down with quiet precision before pulling my pistol free, more out of habit than intention. My fingers moved automatically, checking the weight, the balance—anything to ground myself in something familiar.
Then I heard it.
A sharp, rapid succession of gunfire, echoing through the range in uneven bursts that immediately told me this wasn't training.
It was too fast.
Too careless.
Too emotional.
I stilled where I stood, my grip tightening slightly around the weapon as I listened. There was something almost violent in the rhythm of it—not calculated, not controlled, but desperate in a way that made it hard to ignore.
I took a few steps toward the source, slower this time, more deliberate.
And then I saw her.
Anastasia.
Her hair was pulled back into a tight braid, headphones covering her ears as if she were trying to block out the world entirely. Her stance was strong, her arms steady enough—but the way she fired gave her away.
There was no precision in it. Only force. Only something she couldn't release any other way.
She didn't flinch. Not once.
That should have meant control. But it didn't. I could see from her face that it meant she had gone past it.
I should have turned around.
I knew that.
Every instinct I had told me to leave, to let the distance we had created earlier stretch into something permanent and unbreakable.
But my body didn't listen.
My feet carried me forward anyway, drawn in by something I didn't want to name.
"You're holding it wrong."
My voice cut through the space between us, flat and controlled, betraying nothing of the conflict tightening in my chest.
She didn't react immediately. She fired again—once, twice, three times—before finally lowering the weapon, her shoulders shifting in a way most wouldn't notice.
I did.
"If you keep shooting like that," I continued, stepping closer despite myself, "you'll lose before anything even begins."
I hesitated for the briefest moment before moving behind her, aware—too aware—of how close I was getting. Close enough to feel the faint warmth of her presence, even with the careful distance I tried to maintain.
Touching a Kostkov isn't just dangerous. It is a line you don't want to cross unless you are ready to pay for it.
Still, my hand lifted.
Hovered.
Then settled over hers.
It was too slow and deliberate, as if I could convince myself it meant nothing.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked, her voice quieter now, threaded with something that sounded too close to confusion.
I didn't answer.
Because I couldn't—not without saying something I wasn't ready to admit, even to myself.
Instead, I adjusted her grip, guiding her wrist into place, steadying the angle of the gun.
"You won't survive the Blood Oath like this," I said under my breath, my voice lower now, closer. "They'll have you killed before you even reach the center."
She didn't pull away.
If anything, she leaned back slightly, the smallest shift that brought her just a fraction closer into my space.
It was enough.
Enough to make my chest tighten, my breath slow, my focus fracture for a second longer than it should have.
I ignored it.
Forced myself to.
"You don't believe in me," she said, her tone quieter now, but sharper. "So why help at all?"
I exhaled slowly, adjusting her finger on the trigger, grounding myself in the motion.
"Just shoot, Ana."
And she did.
The bullet struck clean.
Precise.
Exactly where it needed to be.
Silence followed, stretching between us in a way that felt heavier than before. We both looked at it, before I break the silence.
"You've trained for this," I said finally, pulling my voice back into something steadier. "You don't need my opinion. But here I am, still guiding you."
It wasn't reassurance.
It wasn't comfort.
It was distance.
She went quiet for a moment, and I thought—briefly—that she might let it end there.
But she didn't.
"Then why didn't you believe me?"
The question landed harder than I expected.
I knew what she meant.
The letter.
Ellie.
Everything that had gone wrong long before today.
My jaw tightened, my gaze fixed ahead instead of on her.
"I didn't say anything, Ana."
The words came out quieter than intended, measured carefully, stripped of anything that might reveal too much.
Because anything more—
would have been a mistake.
And then I saw it. The faint red mark along her cheek. It was already fading, but it didn't matter.
I still noticed.
My hand tightened instinctively around hers before I could stop myself, something sharp and immediate cutting through the restraint I had been forcing onto myself.
"Did your Father—"
I stopped.
The question didn't need finishing.
She understood anyway.
And just like that, she pulled away fast. The warmth disappeared.
The space between us snapped back into something cold and familiar.
"You don't get to ask that," she said, her voice sharper now, guarded.
There it was.
The wall.
Higher than before and stronger now.
I straightened, withdrawing my hands as if the contact had never happened.
"Fine."
The word came out flat, controlled, as I forced everything else back down.
"You don't get to act like you care," she added, her eyes locking onto mine now, unyielding. "Not after what you said."
Something in me snapped slightly at that.
"You think I don't? I was hurt, Ana. But it doesn't mean I do not care. Because you know I care!" I said before I could stop myself.
The words slipped out—too fast, too honest.
I corrected immediately. Pulling back my words just like what I am feeling now.
"It doesn't matter."
She let out a quiet laugh, one that carried no humor at all.
"No. It doesn't."
Then she looked at me differently. Not the way she had before. Not searching but more of a cold, measured look.
"You're starting to sound like your father. Confusing, two-faced man," she said.
The words settled heavily between us.
I didn't react—not outwardly—but something tightened beneath the surface, something I kept firmly locked down.
"Careful, Ana. Don't let family issues settle in between us." I warned quietly.
She tilted her head slightly, unimpressed.
"Why? Did I hit something true?"
This time, I stepped closer.
Not careful.
Not restrained.
"If you think this is about any fucking family issues or my Father," I said, my voice low, steady, "then you're more unprepared than I thought."
Her expression sharpened instantly.
"And if not then what is it, Dmitry?" She retorted back.
"If you think you get to decide whether I'm prepared or not," she shot back, stepping forward to meet me, "then you've forgotten your place, Ivanov."
There it was.
The distance.
The reminder.
My hands curled into fists at my sides, but I didn't move away.
"Surviving isn't the same as ruling," I said, each word deliberate.
The moment the words left my mouth, I knew they couldn't be taken back.
I saw it—the smallest fracture in her expression before it disappeared entirely.
Replaced with something colder.
Harder.
"Then it's a good thing your opinion doesn't matter just like what you said," she replied evenly.
A pause.
Then—
"Do me a fucking favor."
She stepped back, creating space again, piece by piece.
"Stay away from me."
Her voice dropped slightly, quieter now, but no less sharp.
"You said it yourself earlier. Act like it."
Silence settled once more.
But this time, it wasn't heavy.
It was empty.
Final.
I didn't move. I didn't stop her as she turned and walked away, her footsteps echoing faintly against the concrete.
Because if I did—
if I said her name, if I reached out—
I wouldn't let her go.
And that was a mistake I couldn't afford.
So I stayed where I was.
And let the silence close in again, telling myself it didn't feel like losing something I was never meant to have.