Chapter 35 Chapter Thirty-Five: The Lesson of Glass

Chapter 35 Chapter Thirty-Five: The Lesson of Glass
The docks smell like metal and memory. Rust. Diesel. Salt thick enough to taste. The air feels suspended, like the world is waiting for permission to breathe. I hate that it reminds me of him—of Roman—because everything does. Every flicker of light against the water. Every shadow that looks like it’s about to move.
I lean against a stack of cargo crates, the wood damp beneath my palms. Alina stands a few feet away, her posture a soldier’s even when she’s still. The woman carries her silence like a weapon, sharp and deliberate. The kind of silence Roman uses right before he breaks someone’s will.
I should hate her. She’s a living piece of his past, a reminder that he’s not mine, not really. But something about her feels familiar—the stillness, the weight behind every word. I think that’s what scares me. Maybe Roman has a type: women who don’t know when to run.
The rain hasn’t started yet, but the sky looks ready to break. I wrap my arms around myself and ask the question that’s been burning holes in my chest since she appeared. “Who are you, really?”
She doesn’t look at me. “You already know.”
“I know what you said. You worked for his father.”
“I worked for whoever kept me alive,” she corrects, voice flat. “Sometimes that meant him. Sometimes it meant Roman.”
“And now?”
“Now?” She finally turns, eyes glinting under the dim dock light. “Now it means me.”
“You saved him,” I press. “In the tower, when everything went to hell—you were there before he even called you.”
“I was following orders.”
“His?”
She shakes her head slowly. “His father’s.”
The answer lands like a fist to the ribs. “You’re still working for him.”
“No.” Her mouth curves slightly, humorless. “I stopped working for dead men years ago.”
“Then what do you want from him?”
“Closure,” she says simply. “And a chance to see if the boy I trained became the man I hoped he wouldn’t.”
That gets my attention. “You trained him?”
Her shoulders roll once, dismissive. “Every heir needs a handler. I taught him how to shoot, how to read a room, how to lie without blinking. How to survive a father who thought weakness was a disease.”
The wind carries the faint clink of metal from the boats moored nearby. I force myself to meet her eyes. “And me? What did you think when you saw me?”
For the first time, she hesitates. “I thought you’d be a mistake. You weren’t supposed to exist in his world. He brings women in, but they never last. They’re distractions, pressure valves. Not partners.”
“So what changed?”
“You did,” she says quietly. “He didn’t break you, and he didn’t want to.”
The admission sits heavy between us. I should feel triumphant, but all I feel is exposed. “You loved him once,” I say, not as a question.
She exhales. “Roman doesn’t inspire love. He inspires loyalty. The kind that gets you killed.”
I don’t know why I whisper it, but I do. “He’ll come for us.”
She nods. “He always does. The question is who follows him.”
I step closer, lowering my voice. “Did his father hurt you too?”
Her laugh is soft and ugly. “His father hurt everyone. I was lucky enough to walk away with both eyes and a scar that reminds me why trust is a myth.”
“What scar?”
She lifts the collar of her jacket. A long, pale line traces her throat, nearly invisible in the gloom. “A lesson,” she says. “For speaking out of turn.”
“Roman—did he know?”
She nods. “He saw it. And he learned what silence costs.”
The cold wind cuts between us. For a moment, I can’t tell if she’s warning me or forgiving me for something I haven’t done yet.
“What happens if he loses tonight?” I ask.
“Then the city eats itself. His father’s allies will come out of hiding, and everything he built will burn.”
“And if he wins?”
She tilts her head toward the sea. “Then he’ll have to become the very thing he swore he’d never be.”
I bite my lip hard enough to taste iron. “He’s not his father.”
She looks at me with something close to pity. “Keep telling yourself that, kotyonok.”
The nickname hits me like ice. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why?” she asks. “Because it sounds better from him?”
I don’t answer.
Lightning veins across the clouds. Alina glances at her watch. “He’s late,” she mutters. “He’s never late.”
“Unless someone slowed him down,” I say.
Her eyes flick to mine. “Or he’s bringing company.”
I want to ask what that means, but the low hum of an engine interrupts. The sound vibrates through the metal of the dock, through my bones. A light appears in the fog, then another. The cars approach, twin shadows cutting through the rain-slick dark.
“Here we go,” Alina says.
Headlights sweep briefly across the far end of the dock, white slicing through rain fog. The black car we left behind the tower pulls into view, moving slower than it should. The driver’s side door opens, and for a heartbeat the sight of Roman stepping out floods me with relief so sharp it almost buckles my knees.
But then I see the blood. It slicks down his arm, dark against his pale shirt, spreading from a shoulder wound that looks deep. He shuts the door with a deliberate slowness that doesn’t belong to him—it’s too cautious, too aware of being watched.
“Roman!” I take a step forward before Alina’s hand snaps out, catching my wrist.
“Wait.” Her voice is a blade’s whisper. “He’s not alone.”
Another car glides to a stop behind his, window tint black as void. For a long moment, nothing happens. Then the rear door opens and two figures emerge—both tall, both dressed in the sleek black coats I’ve learned to associate with his father’s men. They shouldn’t exist anymore. Roman killed them all. 
Roman’s voice cuts through the rain. “Lena, stay back.”
The command triggers something instinctive in me—fear and obedience braided together—but I force my legs to move. “You’re hurt.”
“I said back,” he growls, sharper now, but there’s no real anger behind it. Only exhaustion and calculation.
The men fan out, one to each side, movement practiced and cold. I recognize the look—they’re not mercenaries. They’re pakhan’s men. His father’s loyalists. The ones who survived.
Alina’s voice is calm, but her eyes are wild. “He’s not dead, is he?”
Roman shakes his head, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “He’s alive enough to send replacements.”
“And they’re here for you?” I whisper.
“No,” he says, cocking his gun. “They’re here for the throne.”
The first enforcer steps forward, raising his weapon. “By order of the Vory, you’re relieved of command.”
Roman laughs—a low, humorless sound. “You think the bratva runs on orders?” He fires before the man can blink. The body hits the ground, rain already washing the blood into the cracks between the planks.
The second one doesn’t hesitate. He fires back. The bullet grazes Roman’s shoulder, spinning him slightly, but he’s already returning fire. The crack of gunfire echoes against the cargo containers, bouncing down the docks like thunder.
“Move!” Roman grabs my hand and drags me behind a stack of crates. “They’ll circle.”
Alina takes the opposite flank, her movements efficient, almost surgical. “He sent a small team,” she calls over the rain. “He wants to make it look clean.”
Roman reloads. “He always did.”
“How do we stop it?” I ask.
He glances at me, his eyes sharp through the downpour. “By ending the family business.”
He signals to Alina. “Two left.”
She nods and disappears into the mist. A muffled shot answers seconds later.
Roman turns to me, his breath unsteady. “There’s a safehouse two blocks from here. You go there and wait.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
He gives me that small, crooked smile that never reaches his eyes. “You will if you want me to live. They’ll come in waves until I cut the head off.”
Before I can protest, a bullet tears through the crate inches from my face. Splinters rain over us. Roman fires back, hits something solid. A cry splits the night.
Alina reappears, blood on her cheek but steady. “That’s all of them for now.”
Roman wipes the rain from his face with the back of his hand. “Not all. He’ll send more.”
She steps closer. “Then we move before they regroup.”
Roman hesitates, glancing at the horizon where faint red lights mark the city skyline. “No,” he says. “We draw them out.”
Alina frowns. “Here?”
He nods. “Here. This is his message. Mine goes back the same way.”
He pulls his phone from his pocket, smearing blood over the screen, and dials a number from memory. When the call connects, his tone changes—colder, precise. “It’s done,” he says in Russian. “Tell him the docks belong to me again.”
A pause. Then, quietly, “And tell him if he sends another man, I’ll send a son.”
He ends the call and looks at me. “Time to go.”
I want to ask what he just started, but something in his expression stops me. The blood, the rain, the quiet certainty—it’s the same look he wore the night I met him in that hotel bar: a predator who’s already decided what burns next.
I follow him into the dark, the docks alive with the ghosts of old empires and new wars.
✧ ✧ ✧
The city swallows us whole. Every streetlight feels like a target, every corner another pair of eyes. Roman drives fast, one hand on the wheel, the other pressed against his shoulder. Blood seeps through his shirt again, bright against the dim dash light. I keep waiting for him to speak, to explain, but the silence between us feels heavier than the gun in my lap.
Finally, I say it. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”
Roman’s jaw tightens. “He’s not a man anymore. He’s a shadow made out of debts and promises. Killing him doesn’t end anything—it just makes the ghosts louder.”
“Then what did you mean by ‘send a son?’”
He glances at me, eyes flicking like knives between the road and my face. “It means I’m done running from his name. If he wants his throne back, he’ll have to bleed for it.”
Alina, slouched in the back seat, snorts softly. “You can’t fight the bratva alone.”
“I’m not alone,” Roman says. His eyes cut to mine for just a second too long, and I realize he means me.
We reach the safehouse before dawn—a quiet, nondescript building tucked between warehouses and forgotten bars. Roman kills the headlights and coasts to a stop. The rain has turned to fog, wrapping the street in something that looks almost peaceful.
Inside, the air smells of gun oil and salt. There’s a small kitchen, two bedrooms, and a steel table scarred with old burns. Alina moves immediately, checking windows and entry points like muscle memory. Roman sets his gun down, then his phone, then finally the blood-soaked shirt. The wound looks worse in the light, but he ignores it.
“You need stitches,” I say.
He doesn’t answer right away. When he finally looks up, it’s like the distance between us has changed. “Stitches won’t fix what’s broken.”
Alina rolls her eyes. “Save the poetry, boss. Sit down before you fall down.”
Roman does, reluctantly, letting me clean the wound. He doesn’t flinch. He just watches me like he’s memorizing the shape of my hands, the way I breathe. “My father kept files on everyone,” he says. “Politicians. Cops. Rivals. And us. I burned most of them when I left, but he’ll still have copies. He’ll use them.”
“To do what?” I ask.
“To remind me what I owe him.”
Alina leans against the doorframe. “He’s already moving. The docks were just a test. The old families are splitting—half of them still think he’s the rightful pakhan.”
“And the other half?” I ask.
Roman answers quietly. “Waiting to see who kills who first.”
The room hums with unspoken things. Alina’s eyes are on him, sharp and assessing; mine are on his hands, still trembling faintly despite his control. There’s blood under his nails. It doesn’t look like it’s all his.
“You should rest,” I say.
He gives me a tired smile. “You think I can sleep with all that waiting outside?”
“You could try.”
“I’d rather plan.”
“Then plan,” I whisper, “but don’t do it alone.”
He studies me, then looks past me to Alina. “We’ll need men we can trust. Start with the ones who left before the purge. The ones who wanted out.”
She nods. “They won’t like seeing me again.”
“Good,” he says. “Let them remember who they used to be afraid of.”
When she leaves to make the calls, Roman finally exhales. I finish wrapping his shoulder. My hands are steady, but my voice isn’t. “If he’s alive, he’ll come for you.”
Roman’s expression softens—not tender, but resigned. “He’ll come for everyone I love first. That’s how he teaches loyalty.”
“Then I’ll be ready,” I say.
He catches my wrist before I can move away. “No,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing the pulse at my throat. “You’ll stay close. You’ll listen when I say hide. And when I say run—”
“I won’t.”
He almost smiles. “You never do.”
The first light of morning leaks through the blinds, thin and cold. Roman’s phone buzzes once. He doesn’t look at it. He doesn’t need to. Whatever message it carries, we both already know what it means.
War has started.