My name is Nikolaj Dragovich. Pakhan of the Bratva. Blade of Moscow. Weapon turned king. When I left Vintermoor, I walked away with a fractured skull and a mind full of cracks.
Whatever I was before died somewhere between those walls, and what rose after was a man my father never managed to mold. A man without mercy. A man without fear.
A man even the Five Families are suddenly eager to bow to. Duty was never a choice, so why does the night refuse to leave me in peace?
Why do I hear a voice in my dreams that tightens like a hand around my throat, whispering a name I should know?
Why does a phantom memory cut deeper than any blade when I can’t place the face behind it? I don’t remember the life I left behind eight years ago.
But it remembers me.
