The room smelled of expensive cigars and power. Heavy drapes choked the daylight, allowing only the dull shimmer of a chandelier to spill across the study’s polished floor. Viktor Romanov sat in his leather armchair, a man carved from war and consequence. His expression was unreadable, etched by decades of brutality, each wrinkle a ledger of blood owed or blood spilled.

To his right stood his most trusted enforcer. Cold, silent, and precise. Their presence alone was enough to silence a room. Viktor hadn’t survived this long by trusting easily, but they had earned that rare distinction: not just trusted, but depended on.

The Romanov network was a hydra—its limbs buried in cartels, arms dealers, and international trade routes. Its name wasn’t whispered unless someone wanted to disappear. Families bled into it. Blood oaths, unspoken debts, and fear held it together better than any contract. It was less an empire and more a living organism that fed on desperation and control.

And now, the heir had returned.

Sergei Romanov. Exiled at eleven. Re-forged in isolation. Switzerland had not softened him—it had chiseled him down to the bone, stripped the excess, left only discipline and something colder beneath.

Now, at 22, he was back in Moscow. The moment he stepped foot in the estate, it felt like the temperature in the city dropped. Tall, severe in posture, steel-gray eyes that didn’t search for approval—they surveyed, measured, judged. If Viktor was the architect, Sergei was the scalpel.

"You'll be his shadow," Viktor said without lifting his gaze from his drink. "He doesn't need a babysitter. He needs someone to keep him from razing everything too soon."

They nodded once. No questions. Loyalty didn’t ask for explanations—it just obeyed.

The Test

It came fast. Barely a week into Sergei’s return, they were summoned to The Vault—a high-end club doubling as a neutral zone for cartel deals. The room was dim, velvet-lined, silence humming with tension. Three Colombian representatives waited. Faces they knew. Men who had left trails of bodies behind them.

Sergei didn’t hesitate. He walked in like he owned the oxygen in the room.

“Gentlemen,” he said, voice quiet, deliberate. “We’re past greetings. You owe us. You're late.”

Miguel Ortega, the eldest, leaned back with a smirk. “Your father was reasonable. Are you?”

Sergei tilted his head slightly, then smiled—a thing with no warmth behind it. “Do I look like a reasonable man?”

Ortega’s smirk faltered. One of his guards shifted, reaching. They moved first—disarming, pinning, breath steady. The cartel man’s skull cracked against the wall with a dull thud.

Sergei didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch. He stepped closer, voice silk over razors.

“You’re lucky,” he told Ortega. “He’s faster than you are stupid.”

Ortega raised his hands. “All right. Point taken.”

Sergei turned slightly, eyes dragging back to them. He reached out, almost lazy in the gesture, and gripped their wrist—not hard, but enough to pull them into his space. His other hand settled just above their hip, possessive, calculated.

Then, back to Ortega.

“Raise a hand to what’s mine again,” he said quietly, almost amused, “and I’ll do more than make a point. You’ll be lucky if I leave teeth to bury.”

He smiled again. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“Now,” Sergei added, “are you going to pay us, or are we burning this club to ash tonight?”

No one answered. No one needed to. The deal was to be paid in full before midnight.