Chapter 18
๐ ๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ก
Vladimir didnโt move.
Not a blink, not a twitchโjust that tall, immovable figure, half-turned, his gaze fixed somewhere between my face and the floor as if pinning me there without actually touching me. The silence pressed in, thick and cold, until the pulse in my ears became deafening.
“Did you hear me?” I asked, as I took a step towards him, heat crawling up my throat.
He gave my question no answer; instead, he simply turned fully to me.
That had to count for something, didnโt it? I thought to myself. Everything about this situationโme walking tentatively towards him, the palpable charge in the tense air, the way my eyes darted over his features, looking for some warmth or openness and finding noneโwas like standing at the edge of a cliff.
I had been on the edge far too long; it was time I jumped.
He remained as cold and steady as the marble beneath our feet.
I swallowed, but the lump in my throat stayed lodged, a stone I couldnโt move.
“For three years, this has been the only thing in my life that mattered. Every choice I made, every hour I worked, every coin I savedโit all bent toward this p>
I took a breath, the words tasting like iron. “School, my hustling… it was never about the future. It was a war chest. If the police couldnโt find him in twenty years, I knew Iโd have to be ready for the long haul p>
I stepped closer without meaning to, the air between us shrinking, pressing. His expression didnโt shiftโnot a flickerโbut I kept going.
“I prepared myself for years… decades, if I had to. I made peace with the idea that I wouldnโt have a life outside this. That every birthday, every sunrise, every scrap of breath I took… would belong to this one mission. If I donโt avenge the woman who loved me despite what I represented My voice faltered, the weight on my ribs crushing me. “Then why did I find out? Why did I let her die in my stead? What was it all for?” I asked, like he would understand.
The words scraped painfully out of me, raw and jagged.
I closed more of the gap, hoping to reach the humanity I prayed existed in him. I stopped short, cold rolling off him in waves that sank into my marrow.
I looked away when his eyesโthose probing, unblinking eyesโmorphed into another anvil on my chest.
“I see him in my mirror, I see him in my motherโs pain, I see him in the disdain of my family. I see him in every insult I ever swallowed, in every door that was slammed in my face. He is the shadow that follows me into every room; he is written into the fibre of my very being. He will always be there, while the woman he destroyed remains ashes in a ceramic bowl. If the consequence of his heinous deed is that his daughter is not meant to be the one to put him down like the dog he is, then what was the point in me surviving? What is the use of my miserable existence p>
He remained unmoved, his mouth set in the same hard line, his face carved from something older and less forgiving than stone. If my words had struck him, they had left no markโmuch less a dentโin the fortress the Alpha had built around himself.
The silence quickly became oppressive.
“Alpha Kustav Volkov of Nightshade Pack,” he finally spoke, his words quiet but still managing to echo. “That is the man you wish to eviscerate p>
I blinked. “That is his name,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he replied, his tone inscrutable. “He does not die p>
My breath hitched, hope withering.
“He does not fall. He is dismantled, piece by bloody piece. No flesh left to decay, no bones left to burn, nothing left for the wolves to gnaw at.” His gaze flickered for a fraction of a second. I could not read it. “Kustav is an infection. An affliction that cannot simply be cured or washed away. He ravages, he desecrates. And even when he is done, the body must be burnt to ashes, because if a splinterโif a speckโof him survives, he regrows, he rebuilds, and spreads. And so the vicious cycle begins again p>
His voice remained level, not a note heightened, controlled as if he spoke of the weatherโand somehow, it only hit harder.
“Kustav is not new to atrocities; there is a book of his crimes. Your mother is one in a multitude of victims p>
“Then how is he still breathing?” I asked, my jaw ticking.
“How are the dictators of your world still alive, Lilith?” he asked me. His gaze didnโt harden, but something old and chilling crossed itโan echo of a memory I was sure I didnโt want to see.
“How come they can commit mass slaughter, burn villages, and still have statues built in their honour?” His voice was steady, but each word landed like a drop of ice water against skin. “The same reason Kustav still breathes. Because no one with the power to cut the head from the snake has been willing to take the risk of what follows. And those without the power… are buried before they can try p>
Something in my chest twisted. “So youโre saying no one dares p>
“I am saying Kustavโs death is not just an end,” Vladimir replied, the faintest shadow of something unreadable passing over his expression. “Itโs a trigger. Remove him without precision, and you donโt end the nightmareโyou spread it. His Gammas would tear the borderlands to ribbons. The Concord would fracture. Thousands would die before the first month was done p>
My stubbornness spoke before my common sense could. “I can p>
The step he took towards me left me breathless, his eyes hardening now, piercing frostbitten blue that cut through the heat of my voice. “You canโt do anything p>
My breath caught.
“Do you think I have not imagined my claws ripping out his entrails? Crushing his skull beneath my jaws?” His gaze bored into me, unrelenting in its intensity. The ice in his eyes melted to lava so hot I wanted to create distance, but I could not move. “But some wars,” Vladimir said, stepping closer, “you canโt win with a single kill. Kustav is not a man you slay in an alley. Heโs a fortress. You dismantle him the way you would dismantle a kingdom: brick by brick, loyalty by loyalty, until thereโs nothing left to rally behind p>
Underneath the anger he could no longer hide beneath his mask of ice was something familiar. In between every line that twisted his face… was something I recognised.
It was grief.
It was the old kindโnot the raw, bleeding one that brought a man to his knees, begging for reprieve. No, this had carved deep, calcified over time, lined his entire person and sharpened him.
But as if he realised I was trying to unravel the enigma that he was, he slammed his walls back up.
Whatever glimpse I had caught was gone, shuttered by a man with the kind of discipline that could turn him into a statue at will. The shift had been so instant I could have imagined itโthe heat, the humanity.
He turned effortlessly, faster than I could blink. “Good night.” His voice could have frozen hell over.
He walked away without turning around.
The knot in my stomach tightened as it all hit me like a wrecking ball. I wanted to destroy a man, only to find out I needed to bring down an entire pack.