He dropped the call, mortified to find he was holding back tears. What had he really expected? For Alexei to drop everything and run back to him because Sascha was spouting deranged nonsense about demons? He was a grown man, for fuck’s sake. He shouldn’t be asking for Alexei to clean up his messes in the first place. And more than that, he knew better. People left—left Sascha—and they never, ever came back. Not his mother. Not any of his dozens of nannies. Not Alexei. Ivan would probably do the same someday, most likely by way of a bullet through his head.
