ANDREI
THEY PUSHED NIKOLAI past me on a gurney, and for the first time in a decade, I didn’t move. Didn’t bark orders. Didn’t clear the hall. Didn’t follow.
Just stood there.
Blood soaked through his shirt, staining the linen deep red. The side of his gut was wrapped in gauze already, but I could still see the pulsing dark spot where it bled through. His hand twitched once.
And then nothing.
They shoved through the steel doors. Claude collapsed to the floor like something broken. And me?
I just stared.
My fingers curled into fists, nails biting into skin. The rage was still there. Clawing. Coiled around my ribs like wire, too tight to breathe.
He wasn’t supposed to bleed for anyone.
That wasn’t Nikolai. Not the man who taught me silence was survival. That blood was power. That wea
