Chapter 4 Breaking the rule

Reina didn't see Nikolai for the rest of the day.

After their fight in the solarium, the house shifted. The air turned colder, like the mansion itself was holding its breath. Meals were left outside her door. Elise wouldn't meet her eyes. Every locked door felt like a warning instead of a boundary.

She walked the garden alone that afternoon. The same fountain where Jace had appeared now felt like a scene carved from a dream-too real to ignore, too dangerous to keep touching.

She wondered what Nikolai was doing. Who he was watching. What he was planning.

And if he'd already made the call.

She didn't want to believe he'd hurt Jace. But then again, she didn't know what Nikolai's version of "hurt" looked like. For all she knew, a ruined reputation or a disappearing act could be as simple to him as brushing lint from his sleeve.

When evening came, Reina decided to stop waiting.

She changed into a dark velvet dress-not because she wanted to impress him, but because power came in appearances, and she needed all she could get. She braided her hair back, slipped into heels, and walked straight to the one place she hadn't dared yet:

His private study.

Elise had told her never to enter it.

But Elise wasn't watching.

She knocked once.

No answer.

She pushed the door open.

Inside, it was darker than she expected-books lining every wall, soft lighting from a hanging chandelier, a decanter of whiskey half-full on the corner table. Everything smelled like old pages and polished wood.

And there he was.

Nikolai sat by the fireplace in a high-backed chair, black dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a glass balanced between his fingers.

He didn't look surprised to see her.

"You broke a rule," he said quietly.

"You made them. You can survive one being bent."

He looked up, eyes reflecting the firelight. Tired. Cautious. Sharpened from within.

"I told myself you'd come," he said, voice low. "I just didn't know if you'd come to beg or to fight."

"Neither," Reina said. "I came to ask you something."

He gestured toward the empty chair across from him. "Then ask."

She didn't sit. She stood instead, her heels echoing softly against the wood floor.

"Did you hurt him?"

Silence.

"I could have," Nikolai said at last. "But I didn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I wanted to see if you'd ask me that question."

Reina folded her arms. "So this was another test."

"No. This was me giving you enough rope to see what you'd do with it."

"And what do you see now?" she asked.

"That you're not afraid of me anymore."

She hesitated. "I don't know if I ever was."

He stood, walked toward the bar cart, and poured himself a new drink. He didn't offer her one.

"Do you want him back?" he asked without turning.

"What?"

"The boy. Jace. Do you want to leave with him?"

Reina didn't answer.

Because the truth was no longer simple.

She had told herself she hated this place. Hated Nikolai. But in the quiet moments-like now, when the world burned low and her mask slipped-she wasn't sure if she hated him or the way he made her feel too much.

"I don't know what I want," she said honestly.

Nikolai finally turned.

"Then stay," he said. "Stay until you do."

Bonus Scene - Nikolai's POV

Four years earlier

The rain wouldn't stop.

It battered the windows of the London townhouse like a warning. The storm had blown in fast, furious-much like the news that followed it.

Nikolai sat in the study, a trembling tumbler in his hand, watching the message replay on his phone for the third time.

"Subject 243 has been located. Manila. She's still in the orphanage. Still unregistered. Still clean."

She had a name now.

Reina.

He hadn't meant to look for her. Not really. She was a loose thread-an old possibility tied to the oldest part of him. A choice he almost made and then buried under a mountain of revenge and success.

But she had survived.

He should've deleted the report. Should've moved on. But something in him cracked that night.

Because he remembered her.

He remembered the look in her eyes the day she tried to stop the guards from beating one of the younger boys. She couldn't have been older than fourteen. Small. Wounded. Furious. But she didn't run.

He remembered that she bled without flinching.

He remembered that he had watched from the shadows... and done nothing.

Back then, he told himself it wasn't his job to play hero. That power came first. Vengeance later. Compassion last, if ever.

But now?

Now he was rich. Feared. Worshipped.

And still, he couldn't stop thinking about her.

The girl who looked at monsters like they weren't real.

Now, she was a woman.

And she had no idea that the devil who once watched her from the darkness was now preparing to make her an offer she wouldn't be able to refuse.

Not because he wanted her.

Because he needed her.

Because somewhere deep in the halls of his frozen kingdom, he had begun to wonder if there was still something left inside him that could break.

And maybe-just maybe-she was the only one who could find it.

Back to the present

They sat by the fire for hours that night. Not talking. Not arguing.

Just sitting.

Reina finally moved to the chair across from him. She tucked her legs beneath her and watched the flames.

"You built this house like a fortress," she said. "But none of the doors are locked on the inside."

He glanced at her. "You noticed."

"It's not a prison," she said. "It's a test."

Nikolai nodded slowly. "Every person who's ever lived here had a key. Every person who stayed... chose to."

"Is that what you want from me?" she asked. "A choice?"

"No," he said. "I want the truth. Choice comes after that."

She met his eyes.

"I don't know what my truth is yet."

He leaned back, sipping from his glass. "Then stay. Stay until you do."

For the first time, his voice didn't sound like an order.

It sounded like a plea.