89●VIKTOR KIREEV (POV)

89●VIKTOR KIREEV (POV)
VIKTOR KIREEV

I stand still in the middle of the room, the shirt still in my hands, the silence heavier than I like. I’m used to the chaos of Las Vegas, to the constant noise of the casino nightclub I manage, to loud music, lights, and people taking up too much space. There, silence barely exists.
Here, it fills every corner, and it bothers me more than it should.
My coming to Moscow was necessary. I knew that when I decided to come, the moment I found out, I later aligned it with Alexander’s request for help. It wasn’t just about seeing Harper again, nor just about helping my brothers find out who’s behind all of this. It was about being present when things started to spiral out of control, as I can see they increasingly are.
But not in the way I imagined.
When I saw the mark on her neck, I didn’t need to ask much. I just wanted to hear it from her. I wanted confirmation. Not because I didn’t know, but because I did.
Harper has always had this magnetism over the three of us. It’s not just me. It’s not just Dmitri. It’s all of us. She affects us in different ways, hits different pressure points, but she always hits them.
Dmitri marks his territory. He always has. Not with words, but with actions—with presence and intensity. He doesn’t share what he considers his.
But here’s the thing—Harper doesn’t belong to anyone.
She never has.
And the way she looked at me today… the way she moaned for me… wasn’t the look of someone being taken against her will. It was the look of someone who decided to let go of her resistance, showing she felt the same.
I run a hand through my hair, irritated with myself for remembering the way she pushed me to my last ounce of restraint. I tried—God, I tried—not to cross the line of desire with Harper, but it became more and more impossible ever since she challenged me in her bedroom.
I waited, waited for the right moment.
But then Dmitri was the first to act, the first to mark her.
The image of her standing in the hall, her hand suspended in the air after he walked past her like she didn’t exist, comes back hard. That bothered me more than the mark on her neck, because it wasn’t expected that he would act so coldly toward her—yet he did.
Harper doesn’t deserve coldness.
I let the shirt fall onto the bed. I’m not tired enough to sleep. I’m too irritated to pretend nothing happened.
Dmitri must still be in the office. He never goes to his room when he’s like this—only after he’s finished some torture that demanded too much from him, not when all he wants is to keep what he’s feeling inside. As much as Dmitri has completely focused on his growth as Alexander’s enforcer, being a Vor, he’s never been one for relationships. He may have gotten involved with one woman or another, but he never let it turn into anything serious or lasting.
And I need to understand what he really feels for Harper—what he wants with her.
I leave the bedroom, determined, rushing down the stairs. I descend so fast that soon I’m standing in front of the office door. I remain there for a second, feeling the tension on the other side of the wood.
He knows I’m here—he’s far too alert to miss any sound.
I turn the handle and walk in.
The office is partially lit by the desk lamp. Dmitri is sitting in the chair, his body leaning forward, a glass in his hand, his fingers gripping the crystal too tightly. His head is lowered.
He doesn’t look up immediately.
I close the door behind me, the silence stretching for a few seconds.
Then he slowly raises his gaze. There’s nothing friendly in it, his brows drawn together.
“Did you come to rub it in my face that you managed to take Harper to your bed, little brother?” he asks, his voice low—too controlled for someone like Dmitri.
I don’t move, nor do I offer a provoking smile—not yet.
“If I wanted to rub something in your face, it wouldn’t be like this—and you know it,” I reply.
His jaw tightens. He sets the glass down on the desk with force, the sound echoing through the room.
“You knew what you were doing when you took her—the question is where you took her, knowing Harper is being targeted in Moscow.”
The question carries a note of accusation.
“I took her somewhere no one could touch her,” I answer, keeping my tone steady.
“Where?” he presses, settling back in the chair. “Because if you say it was anywhere inside this city, I swear—”
“It wasn’t in the city.”
He pauses. His expression shifts, assessing me as best he can. He’s using his interrogation techniques on me—is that really what I’m seeing?
“Then where?”
I hold his gaze a second longer than necessary.
“To the cabin.”
The silence that falls between us is different. He grabs the glass on impulse and drains the clear liquid in one swallow.
“The cabin?” he repeats, his voice still low but less controlled.
“Yes.”
He runs a hand over his face, letting out a humorless laugh.
“You must have lost your mind. You took her into the middle of the mountains, thinking no one could have followed you there?”
“No,” I shoot back. “I didn’t lose it—on the contrary, it’s a great place, impossible to track. No one knows about that location. As far as I know, our father made sure that the cabin couldn’t be tracked—not even found on a map.”
“And you think I don’t know that?” he snaps, leaning toward the desk again. “That cabin is isolated for a reason.”
“Exactly.”
He stands up, walking slowly in my direction, staring at me as if measuring the distance between attacking me and listening to me.
“You took her to the one place where you would have had her all to yourself,” he accuses, his voice turning rougher, lower.
“I took her out of reach of whoever wants to kill her,” I reply. “What happened there was the will of both of us.”
His gaze darkens.
“So you’re confirming you succeeded.”
“I am—and I’ll confirm even more that it was fucking good, hearing every one of her moans for me.”
He stops a step away from me, staring, his jaw locked tight.
“You always wanted that.”
“She’s promised,” I continue, now letting the provocation come without a filter. I want to pull even more from whatever place this fury of his is coming from. “You know that. You always have.”
His expression turns dangerous.
“Promised to the family,” he growls.
“Promised to me,” I correct. “From before you even started looking at her like that.”
It hits exactly as I expected.
He shoves me in the chest—not hard enough to knock me down, but enough to mark his territory.
“Don’t use that against me. You think you’re smart enough, think you have the right to claim her like that—as if she were an object?”
“I’m not using it,” I answer, firm. “I’m reminding you. And I know better than anyone that she’s not an object.”
His breathing is heavy now, closer to exploding than staying in control.
“You think tradition decides what she feels?” he fires back.
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it.
“You think that because there’s some old agreement, it gives you the right? Maybe it’s very different from what you imagine, little brother.”
I tilt my head slightly, letting the provocation land at the right moment.
“Not a right,” I reply. “But precedence, yes.”
His eyes narrow.
“You’ve always had everything handed to you, Viktor,” he growls low. “Territory. Respect. Name. But the promise you think is yours—maybe it’s completely different.”