All By Design: A Nikolai Lantsov Series

Just A Short Time Chapter One: didn't see the news

this time: Zoya knows better than to believe that whatever is going on between Y/N and Nikolai will last. It is the believing, though, that might do her in.

this chapter's song: paris

Zoya Nazyalensky is accustomed to bad endings. Saints know she's seen enough, caused enough, even been in enough of them to know. This one shouldn't faze her, then. It does anyway. The worst part about it, she decides, is that it hasn't started yet. All of the players are still in the good part, the part where they think they can get away with anything they want. Zoya knows otherwise. She always has.

Zoya is watching one such ending now, trying to figure out how bad it's going to get. This story is worse than the others; it's caught up not just her friends in this twisting mass of red lines and knotted thread, but her as well. The conspirator of all this, the one who drew up his sick master plan, didn't realize how much it would consume him. Perhaps none of them truly do.

It was not her idea, this. That doesn't mean her hands will be clean of blood in the end, only that she was not the one to first plunge the knife into a heart or two. Aleksander set this into motion a couple of months ago. Zoya had sat there, listened, and known that this one would hurt.

She's tried to rid herself of troublesome things like a conscience. Zoya has specialized in looking the other way over the years: for Alina, for Genya, even for herself. This should be no exception, and at the beginning, it wasn't.

The plan was simple. In all honesty, Zoya thought it was a sign that maybe Aleksander was finally quieting down, practicing kindness instead of that never ending cruelty. Y/N L/N was going a little too far, everyone knew it. Zoya tried her hardest to course correct, but by the Saints, she's never met with a person more determined to drag down everything with her. Maybe that's a sign that Y/N's rebellion will save her someday, but for now, it just forces Aleksander's hand, and that has never been a good thing in all Zoya's time of knowing him.

Zoya had been summoned to Aleksander's office late one evening. It was not the first time her path had led to the so-called War Room when the lights were mostly off and no one else was around to see what happened. It used to excite her. Zoya has grown up, and now all she feels is fear.

Aleksander had been pacing as he always did when troubles grew to test his mettle more than normal. Zoya cast her gaze around the office, searching for signs of change. That's the first indicator of his temper, as she's learned; anything from a picture frame placed facedown can signal the end. The far wall is plastered with the photos of Aleksander's clients, his conquests.

There's an empty spot in the top row that he still hasn't bothered to cover up. Then again, perhaps he keeps it barren in the hopes that he'll be able to hang the photograph back up again. Zoya knows his delusions, though, and she knows that Alina Starkov will never come back here unless it's to burn the place down.

Y/N, though, Y/N stays, and it is Y/N that they were to discuss that night. Alexander had stood, gripping the back of the chair in front of him until his knuckles ran of blood and turned deathly white.

"She's out of control," he'd whispered, his syllables unsettling and snakelike.

If there's one thing Aleksander hates more than anything, it's a lack of control. He fancies himself a general sometimes, the sole schemer in a war no one ever knows they're serving in until it's too late.

Zoya cleared her throat. "She can still be convinced to settle down."

In all this time, Zoya still doesn't know if she was lying or not. Y/N is Y/N, she refuses to make anything she does make sense. Sometimes, Zoya doesn't even think Y/N knows who she is. The public sees one side of you; if you let that part of yourself grow too strong, you start forgetting what's real and what isn't. Y/N is just starting to fall. Zoya has no idea if she's going to catch herself or not.