"You brought home a stray?" I exhaled sharply, staring at my brother and the girl in his arms. Renata chuckled, always amused by chaos, always entertained by the things that set my blood boiling. "A pretty one." I barely heard her, too focused on the way Nikolaj was looking at the girl—like she was something sacred, something worth protecting. I knew that look. I had once looked at Natasha like that. Before that bitch stole her from me. Nikolaj's voice cut through my thoughts, sharp and unwavering, as if his decision had already been made. "She stays." Our father watched, silent and unreadable, until, to my surprise, he smiled. A slow, deliberate expression that didn't belong on his face—not in this moment, not in this family. I felt a flicker of something I couldn't name, something I didn't trust. A quiet exhale left him, a sound more amused than surprised. "Mila." Mila lifted her chin, shoulders squaring. "Yes, Father?""Have the maids take her inside," he instructed, voice calm, yet laced with something absolute. "Get her bathed, dressed, and fed. Make sure she is... comfortable." I scoffed, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Wow, Papa. Aren't you growing to be considerate?" He turned to me, his eyes holding something I didn't like. Something I recognized. He tapped my shoulder, a gesture that felt too casual, too planned. "Take a walk with me, Avian. We have a topic to discuss—" his pause was calculated, his gaze unwavering—"a Kalashnik topic."

The estate was quiet at this hour, the world outside lost in a haze of moonlight and winter's chill. But the quiet didn't reach the halls, not where my father and I walked, his voice thick with something I didn't quite recognize. Regret? No, that wasn't a luxury Dymytri Kuznetsov afforded himself. We strolled through the garden, past the rows of flowers Renata had planted, the ones I always thought had no place here. Beauty and blood didn't mix, not in our world. But my father had allowed them to grow, just as he had allowed this conversation to happen. "I went to the club." I didn't respond, not at first. "I saw the girl." The words should have meant nothing. I had seen her a thousand times, in my head, in my memories. The way she fought. The way she screamed. The way they made sure she never would again. But Dymytri's voice carried weight tonight, like he had seen something he hadn't been prepared for. "You let it go too far, Avian." I scoffed, shoving my hands into my pockets. "And now you care?" His steps slowed. I felt the shift in the air before I saw it—the tension that clung to him like smoke after a fire. "I should've given you limits," he admitted, and for the first time in my life, I heard uncertainty in his voice. "I should've told you to end it before there was nothing left of her." I turned, studying him, searching his face for the man I knew—the one who never second-guessed himself, who saw people as pawns, not tragedies. I found cracks instead. "She's still breathing, isn't she?" A muscle in his jaw twitched. "That's not the same as being alive." I thought about the last time I saw her, the way she barely reacted anymore. How she stopped trying. How they broke her until she simply... existed. A hollow victory. "Mikhail wants an alliance," my father said finally. "And he wants her out." I tilted my head, amused. "After three years, now he remembers she exists?" Dymytri's eyes darkened. "He doesn't care about her, Avian. He cares about what she represents. About what she was supposed to be before you took that from him.""Good." He exhaled slowly. "I agreed." I didn't react. Didn't move. Didn't blink. But something inside me went cold. "She's being released," he continued, watching me carefully. "But I won't send her back to Mikhail. He'll just use her again, trade her like a bargaining chip until she's dead in a ditch somewhere. If she walks out of that club, it won't be as a Kalashnik." I already knew where he was going. "She needs to be protected," he said. "She needs to belong to someone who won't discard her." The words settled between us, heavy and inevitable. "She marries me." Dymytri studied me for a long moment before he sighed, nodding once. "So be it. But you do not hurt her anymore."

The club reeked of sweat, cheap cologne, and the filth of men who thought they were untouchable. The air was thick with cigar smoke, drowning the scent of spilled liquor and sin. I had never stepped inside before. Never needed to. I knew what happened behind these doors. Tonight, I walked through them. The room was dimly lit, the kind of low light meant to hide the worst of the sins committed here. Laughter rang out from the far end, a deep, guttural sound that grated against my ears. Then I saw her. A fragile thing, slumped on a stained leather couch, her wrists bruised from hands that had pulled and grabbed and never let go. She didn't move when one of the men grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look at him. "Still pretty," one of them mused, running a calloused thumb along her cheek, pressing against an old bruise. "Even after all this time." She didn't flinch. Didn't react. Not anymore. The laughter died first. Then the murmurs. Then the movement altogether as they finally noticed me. The man gripping her wrist froze, his fingers going slack as he slowly turned his head. I didn't say anything. Didn't have to. He dropped her. She hit the floor with a dull thud, a mess of brittle hair and bones. She was too malnourished to brace herself, too weak to care. She didn't make a sound. Didn't react. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Then I spoke. "Out." Chairs scraped against the floor. Someone knocked over a glass in their haste to leave. The men scattered, tripping over themselves in a desperate bid to escape my presence. Within seconds, the room was empty. Except for me. And her.