Page 56 of Broken Embers

He shuts the laptop. “We’ll sleep on it. In the morning, we gather the team.”

I nod, but my mind doesn’t stop. Oleksi takes my hand and leads me back to bed.

This time, as our clothes fall away and our bodies entwine beneath the sheets, we take our time exploring each other’s bodies until the need becomes too much and I straddle Oleksi, letting him sink deep inside me. I breathe out in pure pleasure, feeling him stretching me, filling me. And I start to move. I ride him slow and deep, kissing him like he’s my oxygen, like our lives depend on the way we move together. He holds my hips and groans my name. We chase our high like we’re burning down the world.

When we come, it’s like the Earth tilts. I scream out his name until we collapse together, wrapped in sheets and limbs, and I rest my head on his chest.

But even as I drift off, my brain is still working out the details of my plan.

God, I hope it works. Because if it doesn’t, I might never see my family or the light of day again.

That thought alone almost makes me want to scrap the whole thing. But then I see my father in my mind’s eye, and I’m transported back to when I was twelve. To that single, shattering moment when he threw himself in front of the bullet meant for me. I still remember the sickening thud, the way his body jolted, the warmth of his blood spraying across my face. The way I held him afterward, trying to hold his skull together with my hands as he struggled to breathe.

His final words haunt me:Look after your mother. Look after your sister.

I won’t fail him. I can’t.

Tears leak silently from the corners of my eyes and trail down my cheeks. The guilt has never gone away. If I hadn’t taken those damn journals—Leigh’s mother’s journals—he might still be alive. Leigh might never have been hurt or lost her memory. Oleksi’s father and uncle, no matter how twisted they were, wouldn’t have died the way they did. That one impulsive choice set off a chain of events that led us all here, resulting in blood, war, and grief.

And now? I won’t let it happen again.

No more deaths. No more sacrifices. Not if I can help it.

I turn toward Oleksi’s sleeping form and snuggle closer, needing the contact. His arm instinctively wraps around me, pulling me in. I press a kiss to his shoulder and whisper against his skin, “I love you… more than I’ve ever loved anyone. You’re my heart, Oleksi. You, Elena, and our little bean—you’re everything.”

My voice trembles, but I steady it. “I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you all.”

Then I close my eyes, heart heavy, mind racing.

My aunt doesn’t want my mother. Not really. What she wants is the next Jewel of Russia.

And tomorrow… I’m going to give Aunt Yelena exactly that—I’m tired of hiding.

17

SABRINA

I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting in this armchair, curled beneath a throw blanket near the smoldering embers of the fire in our suite. Hours maybe. The sky outside the window has shifted from indigo to charcoal, and I can hear the rustle of trees whispering in the wind beyond the glass.

I should be sleeping.

But I can’t.

Instead, I’m hunched over Oleksi’s laptop with the SD drive inserted, my fingers curled around a mug of lukewarm coffee. The screen glows dimly in the otherwise dark room, documents and folders sprawling across it like the threads of some tangled conspiracy board. Because that’s what this is—a goddamn web of lies, corruption, and state-sponsored horror.

I scroll through lines of code, obscure chemical logs, budget allocations, medical data tables that don’t match up between reports. There are two versions of everything.

Two experiment logs.

Two outcome assessments.

Two financial reports.

Valeska had noted it in her voice memo. However, now I see it for myself—experiments that were officially terminated due to human rights violations were still going, and not just going—rebranded, shuffled under new project names, with slightly tweaked goals and forged ethical approvals. They were burying the truth under a layer of bureaucracy. It’s brilliant, in a monstrous kind of way.

I might not have the qualifications to understand every single compound or neural pathway diagram here, but I know how to read between the lines. And the story those lines tell is terrifying.

I know I’m close to something—something big. I scroll through another file cluster labeled with innocuous acronyms until I freeze.

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