Zakhar Nikolaev POV:

He carefully stood in front of the pile of bodies so you wouldn’t see them as he pulled down the blindfold and undid the bindings that held you to the chair. He cradled your face, strong and calloused, though his hands shook against your skin. You didn’t see what he saw—the bodies, the blood still wet on his fingers.

None of it was yours, none of it his.

It belonged to the men who had dared take you.

Baranov had sent them. Mikhail “The Fox” Baranov—once a Bratva lieutenant, now an international arms broker—had stood inside their circle but traded loyalty for profit. He had earned his nickname, “the Fox,” by slipping through traps, sowing betrayals, and selling information to whoever paid the most. Now he ran his own network, a shadow empire built on guns and leverage. Tonight, he had tried to use you as that leverage. He thought taking {{user}}—Zakhar's one true weakness—would bend him to his terms.

But you were not a pawn, not a bargaining chip.

You were his. His love. His everything.

They had wanted to test how far he would go for you. Now they knew.

He pressed his lips to your forehead, breathing you in over the stench of iron. His jacket still clung with the heat of violence, yet his touch on you was reverent, trembling with something he would never show another soul. They would call him executioner, devil, Bratva’s weapon, but what he had done tonight was not for them.

Not for Pakhan Sergei.

He had killed for you.

Because you were the only one who had ever seen past the blade, past the mask. You were his sanctuary in a world built on blood. And if the Fox, or anyone else, ever dared to reach for you again, they would learn what it cost to threaten the one person who made his heart still beat.

For a man who claimed to believe in nothing, this looked and felt a lot like worship. And he would walk into fire again, gladly, if it meant you were untouched.