Page 112 of The King's Pawn
I smile at him, lifting one hand to brush my thumb along his cheek. “Yes, Sasha,” I say gently. “I love you too.”
His eyes darken with emotion, his jaw tightening as he swallows hard, and then he leans in and kisses me again. There’s no desperation in it this time. His mouth is warm and slow against mine, moving like he’s committing the moment to memory. Like he’s tasting the words and making sure they’re real.
I melt into him without hesitation, my arms looping around his neck, pulling him closer as if whatever space left between us is suddenly unbearable.
When he finally rests his forehead against mine again, his breathing is steady again. There’s a quiet certainty in the way we lie together. Like this is the inevitable path we were always meant to end up going down.
Whatever comes next, whatever storms still wait beyond these walls, one truth has settled deeply and immovably between us.
We chose each other.
And neither one of us is ever letting go.
25
SASHA
In the weeks following, I find myself falling into an easy routine.
I stop measuring my days in crises and contingencies and start measuring them in smaller, stranger ways. Morning light spilling across the bed to wake us before either of us bothers to move. The way Alina steals my coffee despite insisting she doesn’t like itthatstrong. The sound of her footsteps coming down the hall before I even see her when she comes to collect me for bed.
All of it is a rhythm I’ve learned without realizing it.
I’m no longer worried about where we stand. What we fall into is something that feels almost effortless. My entire life has been built on vigilance, on anticipation and control, every relationship transactional, every alliance conditional. I’ve always prided myself on never needing anyone. Needing is a liability. Wanting is a crack in the armor. Depending on someone else to steady you is how men like me end up dead.
I used to think the idea of a relationship, of domesticity, routine, emotional reliance, was horrifyingly dull.
Except… Alina has dismantled that belief piece by piece.
She doesn’t demand space in my life. She simply occupies it naturally. She doesn’t try to soften me or pretend she doesn’t see the worst parts of me. I think she understands them better than anyone ever has. Somehow, that understanding doesn’t come with fear or judgment, just love.
I still wake some nights expecting the other shoe to drop. Expecting Nikolai to reappear with a changed mind. For the unspoken debt to come due, for a knife I never saw coming to finally press against my throat. Men like him don’t grant mercy without reason. They don’t forget weakness once they’ve identified it simply because of a longstanding pact.
And yet, so far, nothing has happened.
There have been no summons. No quiet tests of loyalty. No veiled threats coming to me at odd hours in the middle of the night. The Iron Pact hums along as if nothing fundamental had been shifted the night Alina pulled the trigger and rewrote the balance of power between all of us with a single shot.
But I don’t question it. Questioning good fortune is how you lose it.
So instead, I focus on what Icancontrol.
Viktor Morozov’s death is already being reshaped into another palatable tragedy for the masses. A story woven about a tragic, senseless assassination tied to the very bombing investigation he had sobravelybeen championing, a man cut down while fighting for the safety of his city. Candlelight vigils bloomovernight. His face is everywhere again, but this time, it is softened, sainted, stripped of the rot beneath the polish.
The masses eat it up.
They always do.
Grief is easier to manage when it’s packaged neatly. When outrage can be redirected. I make sure it flows exactly where I want it—away from the Iron Pact and toward a convenient phantom enemy that will never be caught. A shadow that can shoulder all of the blame until people grow bored and move on to the next tragedy.
By the end of the week, Viktor’s replacement is sworn in without so much as a hiccup.
Vadim Khasanova.
He’s younger than Viktor was. Hungrier. The kind of man who learned early on that survival favors flexibility over pride. His spine bends easily when pressure is applied to it, and he has just enough ambition to keep him obedient. Men like him don’t crave power for its own sake. They crave proximity to it.
Which makes him useful.
Unlike Viktor, Vadim doesn’t pretend to forget who placed him where he is. He answers my calls on the first ring. He asks before making decisions instead of asking for forgiveness afterward. He understands the unspoken rules without needing them spelled out, and most importantly, he doesn’t see Alina as leverage.
