Page 121 of Inevitable Endings
They tried to strip him of his identity.
Tried to erase the king from the chessboard.
But it’s what’s above it that made the breath vanish from my lungs entirely.
Three letters.
I. M. B.
My initials.
He tattooed me onto his skin, he marked himself with me.
Dominik’s quiet beside me, staring into the middle distance like he’s halfway between here and whatever he has got going on regarding the Bratva. Ada’s finally stopped pretending to write and now just sits, arms crossed, watching the hallway.
Then the door creaks open.
Sawyer walks in, hands full of a tray of coffee mugs. “Hey, I grabbed coffee from—”
He stops, his gaze roaming around the table- focusing on Dominik. Someone who isn’t supposed to be here, or is unusual to see in this place.
His brows knit at the sight of us—bloody gloves in the biohazard bin, the way Ada won’t meet his eye, the tension you can smell like ozone before a storm.
“What happened?”
And before anyone can answer—
A crash.
I bolt upright.
The unmistakable clatter of metal on tile, the shriek of the vitals monitor flatlining from disconnect. My heart’s in my throat. I already know.He’s awake.
“Shit,” Ada mutters, pushing back her chair.
The hallway goes dead silent.
And then—
There he is.
Aslanov steps into view like a ghost staggering out of a grave. His black infused eyes that used to be bright green are scanning the hallway, blood seeping from the torn IV site, staining down his forearm. His eyes are wide, wild, animal-deep. He looks straight at us. No, through us.
He’s not seeing people. He’s seeing threats. Traps. Memory.
My stomach sinks as he moves closer to the table.
Eight eyes meet his, mine, Dominik’s, Ada’s, Sawyer’s, and hefreezes like we’ve struck him.
Sawyer doesn’t move.
I see it; the exact moment recognition hits him. It’s not just shock. It’s a flicker of horror behind his eyes, something raw and primal, as he finally connects the dots. The face in front of him is a name he thought belonged to a ghost. A man long dead, buried beneath layers of whispered stories, bloodshed, and violence. And now that ghost is here; alive, breathing, bleeding.
His stance changes. It’s subtle at first, a slight shift, but then his shoulders lock. His hands twitch, fingers curling instinctively like he’s fighting the urge to reach for a weapon. But there’s nothing there. Not anymore. Not in this place, not with his back against the wall, not with a dying man standing in front of him.
Sawyer knows who Aslanov is. He recognizes him.
Not just the heir to the Bratva throne, the brutal, calculating leader who carved his way through the criminal world. Not just the name men whispered in fear, the legend of a monster who drowned empires in blood and death.
