Page 53 of The King's Pawn
Too much of it, in my opinion.
We’ve clashed since the beginning. Since we both stepped into power within months of each other nearly twenty years ago—two men rising through different bloodlines and different philosophies, forced to coexist under the same umbrella. Where I am blunt and brutal when necessary, Volkov prefers finesse. Where I consolidate, he manipulates. Where I build loyalty through fear and respect, he buys it with indulgence and poisons it with debt.
Oil and water. That is how I’ve always seen us.
The only reason we haven’t tried to kill each other outright is because the Pact made it inconvenient.
I meet his gaze now, finally, and let nothing show on my face.
“If I were lost, you wouldn’t be sitting so comfortably,” I say evenly.
The smirk sharpens.
Across the table, Ivan Kuznetsov shifts.
It’s subtle, the way his shoulders tense and then settle again, but I know him well enough to recognize the tell. Kuznetsov hates confrontation. Not because he’s weak, but because he prefers wars that are waged quietly through numbers and pressure points rather than open hostility. He’s a banker by nature,even in a room full of killers. Conflict like this makes markets unstable. It makes alliances unpredictable.
And unpredictability makes men like Kuznetsov nervous.
He doesn’t intervene. He never does unless it benefits him.
Nikolai watches us both with open interest, chin resting lightly against his knuckles, eyes bright with the anticipation of conflict. He enjoys this part, watching old fractures reopen and gauging which of us will crack first.
If Alina sees me as a monster, I can only imagine what she would think of Malyshko.
I am brutal when necessary. I do not pretend otherwise. But Nikolai? He does not merely wield cruelty. He curates it. He understands people the way surgeons understand anatomy, not as living beings but as systems that can be cut, severed, or preserved depending on their usefulness.
Where I act when lines are crossed, he plans far enough ahead that the line never existed to begin with.
Volkov chuckles softly, raising the glass in front of him in mock salute. “Still charming as ever.”
“I would return the compliment, but that would make a liar out of me.”
Kuznetsov exhales through his nose, the sound barely audible.
Volkov’s smile tightens, the edges of his mouth pulled taut as irritation bleeds through the charm. Nikolai’s eyes flicker with something like approval.
When he finally cuts in, his voice is a low murmur that carries effortlessly across the room.
“As riveting as this conversation is,” Nikolai says mildly, “we do have other business to discuss.”
The words are soft, almost bored, but they land with the weight of a command. The room shifts immediately. Volkov lowers his glass, Kuznetsov straightens, his hands folding neatly on the table, and even I sit up a little straighter.
A thin thread of anxiety slides through me.
I lean back until the hard wood of the chair presses flush against my spine, grounding myself in the contact. It isn’t often I feel like this, unsettled. Especially not around these men.
With the exception of Nikolai, we have been meeting like this for nearly two decades, long enough to know each other’s tells, habits, and weaknesses by heart. Long enough that this type of tension usually has angles I can anticipate.
This is different.
Nikolai has a way of resetting a room, of reminding everyone present that whatever history we share is irrelevant when weighed against his authority. He doesn’t demand attention, he simply assumes it, and the world obliges without question.
His gaze slides to me slowly.
On the surface, it is clinical. But the longer we hold eye contact, the more layered it becomes. There is calculation there, yes, but also something sharper beneath it. Curiosity. Appraisal, perhaps. The quiet satisfaction of a predator confirming that its quarry understands it is being hunted.
I recognize the feeling instantly.
