Page 112 of Emperor of Havoc

Never mind the fact that my “way in” eventually became the whole fucking game.

Katarina.

She was just supposed to be a means to an end. Get close to Kolya through her. A clean, surgical infiltration of the Ishida-kai camp to extract the truth I needed and bring Kolya to his knees.

It didn’t stay clean or surgical.

Because every time I look at her, half of me burns for revenge, for the justice I owe Akira. The other half burns forher.

Burns for the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not paying attention, like I’m both the storm and her safe harborfrom it. For the way her breath catches when I touch her, the way her strength falters for just a second before she lets it roar back to life.

She’s my chaos and my control wrapped up together.

I need proof. Not for Kolya. Not even for Akira. For me.

And yet… What if Kolyadidn’tkill Akira, and I’ve been wrong all along?

Honestly, part of me truly hopes that’s what I’ll find. Used to be that all I wanted was revenge. Now I’ve found something much better. Something Iwant even more.

The easiest path right now would be to let this lie. To walk away from the vengeance and the pain, and focus on her. Focus on the fact that she’s here, and somehow mine.

But then I remember Akira’s voice, his laugh, the way he believed in me when no one else did. He didn’t just save me from myself—he built me. He deserves better than to be forgotten. He deserves justice.

And that’s not something I can just walk away from.

So I’m stuck. Torn between the man who taught me to be what I am, and the woman who’s showing me what I could be.

And proof is the only way out of this bullshit. The only way I can make sense of the chaos, and forgive myself for using the woman I now love.

I pause at the kitchen doorway, my eyes landing on Nina, seated at the breakfast bar with a cup of tea and a book. Her dark hair is pulled into a loose bun, and her sharp blue eyes flick up to meet mine.

“Morning,” I growl as I approach.

She raises an eyebrow. “Morning.”

For a second, I wonder if something is off with her. But then she smiles, looking at me curiously, and I shake the thought away.

Maybe it’s just that I slept sitting up on a couch with my neck at a fucked-up angle and no Katarina curled against me.

“Have you seen Kat?”

Her face flickers again with that strange look, but she keeps her smile.

“No,” she shrugs. “Have you?”

I shake my head as I walk over to the counter and pour myself some coffee. I take a sip, turning to glance back at Nina, who's returned to her book.

A spark of an idea ignites inside me, and my mind begins to do what it does best:

Scheme. Turn. Plot. Figure out the weaknesses in those around me and see how I can exploit them. I turn it off around my family, and those I love. But with other people?

It’s a lethal weapon.

The trick with Nina is subtlety. She’s loyal to Kolya in a way that only someone desperate to escape her horrific past could be. Yes, there's bad blood between her father and Kolya. But Kolyasaved her. He plucked her from the wreckage of her own family and gave her a life far better than the one she fled. She owes him everything.

At least, that’s what she tells herself.

But everyone has cracks.

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