Page 34 of Empire
But intimacy is its own kind of theft. Careless words spoken after midnight when I’m angry and tired. Men don’t need full documents when they know where to look. Sometimes all it takes is one detail and enough intelligence to build the rest.
My father’s expression doesn’t change. “No?”
“No.”
“And yet details known only to you continue to bleed outward.”
His gloves creak softly when he holds his hands in front of him. “Do you know what weakness actually is, Salvatore?” he asks.
I keep my jaw locked. “No, sir.”
“It isn’t desire—desire is common. Men are animals, so that has never been a problem.” His gaze flicks once toward the photographs, then back to me. “Weakness is allowing desireto alter judgment. Weakness is when a private appetite starts costing the family publicly.”
I absorb that without blinking because he expects me to. Because men like my father don’t want flinching sons, they want sons who can be carved open and remain standing through the process.
“I should kill you for this.”
I don’t move or say a word—he knows I won’t. That’s part of why he says it this way. To remind me that my life belongs more to the line than to me, and that he could choose to end it if the line demanded it.
“But your death would solve the wrong problem,” he says nonchalantly. “A dead heir is messy, but a compromised one can still be useful.”
There’s the real knife.
My mouth goes dry. “What do you want me to do?”
A faint smile touches his mouth, and it’s the smile of a man hearing the only question that matters asked at last.
“I want the Dragovichs cut out at the root. The leak doesn’t begin and end with you. You’re just the access point,” he states. “Mikhail is expanding too confidently and too quickly with information he shouldn’t have. That means one of two things: either he’s smarter than I’ve given him credit for, or my son has been fucking himself into becoming a liability.”
Heat flares up the back of my neck, but not from shame, exactly—from helpless fury. Part of me wants to lunge across the desk and throw the photographs of us in the fire. The other part wants to deny that Ruslan had anything to do with this.
“I can fix it, Father,” I say.
He raises a brow. “Can you?”
“Yes.”
The answer comes too fast and too eagerly; we both know it. My father studies me for a long time before he nods. Then he says, “Good.”
And from that single word, I know whatever comes next will be worse than anger.
He walks around the desk and stops near the sideboard, where he pours himself a finger of whiskey but leaves it untouched. The implication is clear: he has all the time in the world because he owns enough of mine.
“I have no interest in killing you for embarrassing yourself with a man,” he says. “The world is full of stupid sons; they come and go. What I am interested in, is strategic correction.”
The room goes quieter somehow. Even the fire seems to go still.
“What kind of correction?”
He sets the glass down. “You will bring me information that will destroy the Dragovich family. Not gossip or scraps. I want structure, routes, proof that son of a bitch has been overstepping and undermining us. I want enough to kill them politically if I so choose, and physically if I need to.”
I stare at him—there it is. The real price. Not apology, contrition, or even distance. Use the man you love as a knife that opens the neck to his own bloodline and call it redemption.
My father takes another step closer to me, and I can smell the whiskey on him. “You will do this cleanly and without attracting attention. You have my permission to go to him at any time if that is what is needed. If you succeed, we will consider this lapse contained.”
Contained. As if what happens between Ruslan and me is some infection to be managed.
“And if I don’t?” I ask carefully, knowing there must be a catch.
