Nikolai

The silence in my office was thick enough to chew on, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the soft clink of glass as Atlas refilled our whiskey. The peaty burn did nothing to scour the bitter taste from my mouth. My knuckles throbbed in time with my heartbeat, a dull, aching reminder of the fury I’d tried to pummel into the training bags.

Igor broke the quiet, his voice a low, displeased murmur. “This is a precarious situation, Nikolai. A political landmine wrapped in a ...