Page 5 of Beautiful Ruin

With that, all four Pakhans rise without another word.

I push off the wall the second Ivan stands. The cold stone leaves my back as I straighten, every muscle in me adjusting instantly from observation to movement. My boots make almost no sound against the floor as I move closer to my Pakhan, but I still feel eyes flicker briefly in my direction.

I don’t return the attention. My focus settles where it belongs. On my Pakhan.

Ivan doesn’t look at me as I fall into step beside him. I know the exact pace he prefers when he’s angry but unwilling to show it. We leave side by side, our footsteps clipped and even against the floor, and move down the long hallway toward the foyer.

When we step out through the front doors, the cold settles over us quietly, chasing away the heat still clinging to my skin from inside. My breath fogs in front of me, briefly. The night stretches black and immense around the estate, the floodlights carving hard planes out of stone and snow and the dark silhouettes of fir trees lining the drive. Somewhere beyond the perimeter, Moscow burns dimly on the horizon.

The convoy waits in a black line at the base of the steps. I descend the steps, my boots crunching lightly against the thin crust of ice over gravel, and move to the middle vehicle. The rear door handle is cold enough to bite when I pull it open and I step back without speaking, allowing Ivan to slide in first.

He does so without looking at me. His expression is tight. The meeting didn’t embarrass him, exactly. Ivan is too proud to experience something like that in an ordinary sense. But it thwarted him and his ambition.

Once he’s inside, I duck into the rear compartment beside him and pull the door shut behind me with a muted, heavy thud. The interior is warm, faintly leather-scented with the sterile undertone of expensive cologne. Bulletproof glass, tinted to near-black, turns the world outside into a series of abstract shapes. Soft recessed lights run along the ceiling and pulse once when the car is shifted into gear. The seats are deep black leather and cold at first touch despite the heat. Opposite us, a fold-down compartment sits flush in the side panel stocked with fluids and the sort of emergency medical kit one hopes never to need.

The driver pivots smoothly away from the line without waiting for a verbal cue. In moments, we are gliding down the long approach road toward the main gate, tires humming low over the paved drive.

Inside the cabin, the silence stretches between us, though I don’t fill it. Neither does Ivan.

The estate lights sweep across the windows in intermittent bands as we pass the last checkpoints. As soon as we clear the perimeter, Ivan exhales through his nose. It is quiet, but in the confined space of the back of this SUV, it sounds close to a scream.

“A waste of time,” he mutters.

I glance at him without moving my head. “You knew they’d push back.”

His gaze stays fixed on the window next to him, or maybe on the reflection of his own face in the glass. It’s hard to tell in this light.

“I knew Volkov would. He always does.” A flicker of irritation crosses his face, quick but unmistakable, tightening the corner of his mouth before smoothing out again. “But Malyshko… surprised me.”

My brow raises without meaning to.

His surprise is what confuses me more. Out of any of them, Malyshko has always been the more cautious one, careful in a way the others mistake for passivity until it is too late. He is not the type who lunges at the first opportunity presented. He waits and watches, letting everyone else exhaust themselves before deciding which pieces are worth preserving and which are ripe for removal.

If anyone at that table was going to resist Ivan trying to drag the Pact out of the underworld, it was always going to be Nikolai.

Unless… Ivan believed the current crisis would make him more receptive.

If so, that was a severe misread.

Silence stretches for a heartbeat. Then he continues, “They’re afraid because they can’t see past the next election. If we anchor ourselves inside the system as it stands now, we will control the country no matter who sits in office.”

That is what Ivan has always wanted. He wants a system that cannot spit him out when administrations change and loyalties curdle and public outrage starts sniffing around old arrangements. He wants a seat at the table so deeply bolted in place that whoever wins the election is forced to sit across from him, no matter what.

I open my mouth to answer him, cut off by glass exploding inward in a glittering storm.

The SUV lurches sideways so hard, my body jerks with it before my brain can catch up. Tires shriek against asphalt, a high animal scream swallowed almost instantly by the deeper, uglier roar of impact against a solid structure. My shoulder slams into the door, bone and metal colliding in a burst of blunt force that rips the breath from my lungs.

The world snaps sideways again when the other side of us is hit. My head cracks against the window frame. Pain flares white-hot behind my eyes, a white burning to black so quickly, it feels like being dropped beneath deep water. Something hot runs along my temple, blood or sweat or maybe both.

Darkness rushes in, a black tide folding over my senses and pulling them under before I can claw at any one detail long enough to keep hold of it. For one endless second, there is nothing. Then the ringing starts.

I come back gasping.

Air tears into my lungs so sharply it feels wrong, poisoned. Smoke hits my throat on the inhale and I choke on it immediately, coughing hard enough to send another spike of pain through my skull. My eyes snap open to a world gone crooked and fractured.

The windshield ahead is a shattered spiderweb, every crack glowing faintly where stray light from the road catches in it. The body of our driver hangs from his seatbelt, unmoving. Beyond it, the dark is smeared and broken, impossible to read. The hood is crumpled upward at an angle it should not be able to hold, steam or smoke hissing from somewhere underneath in frantic white bursts. The cabin stinks of deployed propellant, scorched wiring, and the coppery tang of blood.

For one disoriented moment, I don’t know which way is up.