Nikolai's POV
The interior of the car was a tomb of quiet luxury. The world outside the tinted windows, dirty snow, bustling pedestrians, and garish Christmas lights was muted, reduced to a silent film. Nikolai sank into the butter-soft leather, a wave of dizziness and raw pain washing over him as the adrenaline of the walk finally subsided.
"Boss." Ivan's voice, tight with controlled panic, came from the front passenger seat. He had turned, his usually impassive face etched with deep lines of worry. "We have been searching all night. The Orlovs sent a message to the casino. They claimed they had you. We found three of their men near the river, but no sign of you."
Nikolai closed his eyes, leaning his head back. The image of the riverfront ambush flashed: the sudden glare of headlights, the shouted taunts in Russian, the flash of the knife coming from his left from Alexei's usual position. Alexei, who had been suspiciously absent tonight.
"They had me," Nikolai gritted out, pressing the heel of his hand against the bandage under his coat. The stitches pulled, a sharp, clean pain. "I got away. They got a knife in before I disappeared."
"We need to get you to the doctor. Now," Ivan said, already reaching for his phone.
"No." The word was flat, absolute, brooking no argument. He opened his eyes, meeting Ivan's in the rearview mirror. "It is handled."
Ivan's gaze dropped to Nikolai's torn, blood-crusted coat. "By who?" The question was dangerous, probing a vulnerability.
Nikolai didn't answer. He looked out the window as the city blurred past. He didn't see the skyscrapers. He saw her. Elena. The warm, worried pools of her eyes. The feel of her small, strong hands, steady and sure as they stitched his flesh back together. The way she'd flinched at the tattoo, but hadn't run. The absurd, unwavering conviction in her voice: Tonight, you're my patient. That's all.
Kindness. A currency that held no value in his economy. It was a weakness to be exploited, a flaw to be targeted. Yet, she had spent it freely on a stranger marked with a wolf. She had asked for nothing. Expected nothing. In his world, such a transaction was incomprehensible. It left him intellectually unsettled, like a complex equation that refused to solve.
The car descended into the private, subterranean garage of his tower. The elevator, accessed by his palm print, ascended silently to the penthouse. When the doors opened, he stepped into the vast, cool space. Floor-to-ceiling windows presented a breathtaking, panoramic view of the city he commanded. It looked clean, orderly, and peaceful from up here. A lie.
He walked to the center of the room, the only sound the soft tread of his shoes on marble. He shrugged off the ruined coat, letting it fall in a heap of bloodstained wool. He stood there, shirtless, the white bandage a stark parenthesis on his skin. The wolf on his chest, usually a source of fierce pride, felt like a brand of shame. He had been weak. He had been vulnerable. He had been at the absolute mercy of a woman with a kind heart and a suture kit.
The shame was a familiar, acidic burn. But beneath it, embers of something else glowed, unfamiliar and disturbing. A need to see that face again, not twisted in fear or concentration, but maybe… calm? Happy? He dismissed the thought as sentiment, the most fatal of poisons.
She was a complication. A witness. The Orlovs might have seen her. If they connected her to him, she would become a tool, a pressure point. They would hurt her to get to him. It was standard practice. She was in danger because of his failure, because a traitor's knife had found its mark.
That was the reason. The only logical reason. Protection of an asset. Elimination of a strategic vulnerability.
"Ivan," he said, his voice cutting through the penthouse silence.
Ivan appeared instantly from the hallway, a shadow given form. "Boss?"
Nikolai walked to the window, looking down at the ant-like traffic. He had power over all of it. Yet, his mind was trapped in a small, warm clinic smelling of lavender and fear.
"The woman who helped me," he began, his tone analytical, detached. "She is a vulnerability. To our operations. My presence there creates a link. The Orlovs are not subtle. They will find the link and attempt to sever it… through her."
Ivan nodded, his face hardening into the mask of a soldier receiving orders. "We can make the problem disappear. Quietly. No trace."
For a fraction of a second, Nikolai saw Elena's hands, gentle on his wound. He heard her voice: My job is to stop the bleeding.
A cold, quiet fury rose in him, not at Ivan, but at the world that made such an offer necessary. At himself for bringing this darkness to her doorstep.
He turned from the window. His eyes, when they met Ivan's, were not those of a man giving a difficult order. They were the eyes of the Volkov wolf, possessive, territorial, absolute.
"You misunderstand," Nikolai said, each word dropping into the silence like a stone into a still pond. "She is not a problem to be erased. She is under my protection."
Ivan blinked, the only sign of his surprise. "How do we protect an unknown civilian from the Orlovs, boss? The only way is to remove her from the board."
"Then we remove her from their board," Nikolai said, the plan crystallizing with chilling clarity. "We bring her onto ours. Here. Where can we control the environment? Where every threat can be seen and eliminated."
"You want to bring her here?" Ivan's control slipped for a moment, revealing his disbelief. "A civilian? Into the heart of your home? During a war with the Orlovs? Alexei will see it as."
"I do not care what Alexei sees it as," Nikolai snapped, the name of his possibly traitorous lieutenant sparking his anger. "You will find her. The woman from the alley. Her name is Elena Petrov. She is a veterinarian. You will not frighten her. You will be polite. But you will bring her to me."
He paused, the finality of the command hanging in the air. It was no longer about strategy. It was about something deeper, more primal. A debt. A possession. A need to see if that light in her eyes could exist in his world of shadows.
"Bring her to me," he repeated, his voice a low, undeniable force. "Now."
He tells his bodyguard, "Find the woman from the alley. Bring her to me. Now."