Page 28 of Konstantin

That’s what matters. Not what happened between us. Not the way my skin still burns from his touch. Not the way he speaks like he owns every secret I’ve spent years hiding.

What matters is that now, I have access. To him. To his office. To everything he doesn’t want anyone to see.

If he’s the one who framed Nate, if he has the evidence tucked away somewhere, hiding behind encrypted files and private safes, I’ll find it. I have to. Failure is not an option. It never has been.

Because Nate is rotting in a cell for something he didn’t do. Because I owe him everything. And this is the only way I know how to repay him.

I didn’t even suspect Konstantin at first. Not until my boss helped me dig into Tim, Nate’s partner, and found the rot—trail after trail leading to payoffs, suspicious case closures, connections to the Russians, to other low-level crime syndicates. Then I learned from a source on the street that there were rumors that the cop was gonna talk to the feds and my brother’s partner conveniently ends up dead.

But Konstantin isn’t stupid. If he’s keeping evidence, it’ll be well hidden. I realize I may be grasping at straws and I may find nothing, but I have to try. If I can bring the prosecutor the evidence that Konstantin was the one who ordered a hit on Tim, then my brother can go free.

Luckily for me, I have an IT friend at the bureau who can hack just about anything. Riley started at the FBI around the same time I did. Brilliant, fast-thinking, and dangerously good at anything involving a keyboard. She’s cracked data that’s taken full task forces weeks to access.

And more importantly? She adores Nate. Always has. But he never saw her that way.

Once she knows what I’m doing, she’ll help me. I know she will. She won’t even blink before jumping in headfirst.

All I need is a sliver of data. A single file. One connection. And the rest will fall into place.

I just have to be careful. Konstantin may play the part of the seductive monster with ease, but I know better than to let my guarddown. He’s charming, yet lethal, and definitely not someone to underestimate. The man’s always watching.

And if he even suspects why I’m really here? This game I’m playing won’t just cost me my career. It’ll cost me my life.

“So, about that dream…” Margo says gently, pulling me out of my spiral.

My eyes snap to hers, the calm behind her red-trimmed glasses anchoring me for a second. “Yeah, sorry. What about it?”

I definitely zoned out. Worse than usual.

“I was asking how long you’ve been having it again?”

I exhale, jaw tight. “A few weeks. It started up again right after Nate got arrested.”

That dream. That fucking dream.

Except it’s not. It’s too vivid. Too sharp around the edges. It feels like a memory I should already know. Like it’s right there, just behind a locked door I can’t kick down.

“I keep seeing it. Same closet. Same gunshot. But the faces are always gone, like my brain won’t let me see what I’m supposed to.”

“You were young. That’s normal,” Margo reassures me.

“I know.” I shake my head.

I had to be under seven. But Nate swears nothing like that happened. And my mom? She doesn’t remember either. Then again, she was always high, so I doubt she would.

“Maybe it is just a dream,” I add. “Maybe my mind’s playing tricks on me.”

But…something in me knows it happened. I felt it. That kind of fear? You don’t invent that out of thin air.

“Have you recalled any more details?”

“No.” My voice comes out flat. Defeated. “Same every time. I’m in the closet. Two men yelling. My mom’s crying. One man gets shot. I can still hear the gunshot like it just happened—like it’s happening right now in this room.”

I press my fingers to my temples, squeezing hard.

Come on, come on. There has to be something.

Shutting my eyes, I force myself back into the scene. Back into the dark, into the cold floor under my knees. The closet door cracked open just enough for me to see Mom’s bedroom. The shouting. The sound of someone begging. A flash. A bang.