Chapter 67 Chapter 68
Morning came like smoke — thin, restless, half-formed.
Nina woke to the sound of footsteps downstairs. For a moment she thought it was Adrian pacing again, but there was another voice — low, male, speaking in a language she didn’t know.
She slipped from bed and pulled on his shirt, the hem brushing her thighs. The scent of him clung to it — gunpowder, coffee, cold air.
When she reached the stairwell, Adrian was already waiting for her gaze. He was standing by the window, head slightly turned, as if he’d known she’d appear.
“Stay upstairs,” he said quietly.
Her fingers tightened on the railing. “Who is it?”
“A reminder.”
The front door opened with the slow confidence of someone who didn’t need permission.
A tall man stepped inside, wrapped in a dark coat, his hair silver at the edges. He looked at Adrian first, then at Nina, and smiled like someone cataloguing an old lie.
“Marin,” the man said, his accent Eastern European, smooth but dangerous. “Vienna still fits you.”
Adrian’s voice was calm, measured. “You shouldn’t be here, Lukas.”
“I could say the same.” Lukas’s gaze drifted toward Nina, curious. “And you brought company. That’s new.”
“She’s not your concern.”
The man’s smile deepened. “Everything that touches you is my concern. You built half my empire, remember?”
Nina stepped forward despite herself. “Who is he?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened. “An old friend.”
“Business?”
Lukas chuckled. “Once upon a time. He taught me how to make people disappear without leaving stains.”
Nina’s stomach turned. “So you’re both killers.”
Adrian didn’t look away. “We were architects,” he said. “The blueprints just changed.”
Lukas circled the room slowly, eyes tracing the piano, the locked cabinets, the candlelight. “You’ve gone domestic,” he said, almost amused. “It doesn’t suit you.”
Adrian poured a glass of whiskey and set it down in front of him. “Say what you came to say.”
Lukas took the drink but didn’t sit. “Raske’s network didn’t die with him. Someone picked up the threads. They call themselves The Circle Reborn. And they have a new target file circulating — a woman named Nina Kralj.”
Her blood ran cold. “That’s not possible. Raske’s servers were destroyed.”
“Apparently not all of them.” Lukas’s gaze softened, almost kind. “They want her alive, Adrian. Which means she’s worth more than the files she carries.”
Adrian’s hand clenched on the table. “Who’s leading them?”
Lukas hesitated. “Your brother.”
The silence that followed felt endless.
Nina blinked. “You have a brother?”
Adrian didn’t answer at first. His shoulders had gone still — the kind of stillness that came before violence. “Not anymore,” he said finally.
Lukas shrugged. “You should have killed him when you had the chance. But sentiment is a luxury, isn’t it?”
“Get out,” Adrian said.
Lukas looked at Nina once more, a trace of warning in his eyes. “He’ll come for both of you. And when he does, this house won’t save you.”
He left without closing the door. The cold followed him in.
Nina waited until the echo of footsteps faded before speaking. “You have a brother.”
Adrian poured another drink. “Had.”
“What does he want?”
“Me. You. Control.”
“Of what?”
He looked up. “Of everything Raske left behind. The accounts, the networks, the ghosts. He wants the empire without the blood.”
“And you?”
“I was supposed to be the blood.”
The distance between them felt sharp again, fragile. She walked around the table and took the glass from his hand. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m remembering.”
“Then stop.”
He looked at her, eyes flickering like the flame behind them. “It’s not that simple.”
“Neither are we,” she said.
She set the glass down and touched his face, her palm cool against the heat of his skin. For a heartbeat, he didn’t move. Then he leaned into her touch, his breath unsteady.
“This world keeps taking,” she whispered. “You don’t have to let it take me too.”
He caught her wrist gently, the way he always did — not to restrain, but to anchor himself. “You think I could survive that?”
“Then don’t make me watch you drown.”
Their words blurred, softer now, until only their nearness remained. She brushed her lips against his jaw, tasting smoke and silence. He turned his head and kissed her back — slow, deliberate, as if memorising her shape in case he lost it.
When she pulled back, their foreheads touched.
“What happens now?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. “Now I hunt my brother.”
“And me?”
He opened them again — blue, sharp, almost unreadable. “You stay close.”
“I’m not running,” she said.
“I know.” His hand slid to the back of her neck, fingers tracing the pulse there. “That’s what terrifies me.”
The day faded around them. Snow fell again, soft and relentless, as the city’s lights began to flicker on outside.
For the first time since they’d returned to Vienna, Nina understood that what tied her to Adrian wasn’t safety — it was inevitability.
She was no longer just part of his story. She was part of his war.