Chapter 6: The Bureau Guest
The morning after was always the hardest. The quiet aftermath. Kolya woke in Sergej’s bed, in the fortress of his arms, and for one blissful, groggy moment, he remembered only safety. Then the dull, persistent ache in his wrist announced itself, a throbbing purple reminder that seeped through the painkillers and shifted the entire axis of his world.
Sergej was already awake, watching him. He’d probably been awake for hours. “Morning,” he rumbled, his voice sleep-rough and infinitely gentle.
“Morning.” Kolya tried to smile. It felt fragile.
Sergej’s thumb stroked his cheekbone. “What do you need?”
Kolya knew what he meant. He could ask for anything. To stay buried here forever. To have Sergej never let go. But the thought of the penthouse, however luxurious, however much Sergej’s sanctuary, felt like a gilded cage today. The silence would be too loud. His own thoughts would chase themselves in circles. He needed life. Noise. The mundane buzz of people who didn’t look at him with pity or rage.
“I don’t want to be alone,” Kolya admitted, the words small.
“You won’t be. I’ll call in. We’ll stay—”
“No.” Kolya shook his head against the pillow. “You can’t. Your father’s process… you need to be there. Normal. Or he’ll suspect you had something to do with it.” He’d thought about this in the hazy space before sleep. Nikolai Petrov’s playbook was elegant, but it required perfect adherence from its actors. “I just… I don’t want to be in an empty space. Any empty space.”
Sergej studied him, his dark eyes missing nothing—the faint tremble of Kolya’s lip, the way his gaze kept darting to the door as if expecting a threat to materialize. He finally nodded. “Okay. I have an idea.”
An hour later, cleanly dressed in soft charcoal trousers and a cobalt blue sweater that made his eyes look less tired, Kolya stood in the marble foyer as Sergej made a call.
“Victor. It’s Sergej… I’m fine. Listen, I need a favor. Kolya’s coming to Quantico with me today… No, he’s okay. He just needs… a change of scenery. Can you pick him up? I have to be in early for a briefing with my father.”
A pause. Kolya could imagine Victor Volkov’s pragmatic, immediate assent on the other end.
“Good. Thank you. He’ll be waiting out front.” Sergej hung up and turned to Kolya. “Victor’s twenty minutes out. He’ll bring you straight to the bullpen. You can use my desk. The team will be there.”
The idea was both comforting and terrifying. The BAU bullpen was Sergej’s other domain, a place of harsh lights and harder cases, but it was also populated by people Kolya knew and, largely, who adored him. They saw him as Sergej’s quiet, brilliant shadow, the one who could make their stoic, intimidating profiler actually smile. They’d tease him, bring him coffee, ask him for his take on legal loopholes in their cases. To them, he was just Kolya. Not a victim. That alone felt like a lifeline.
“Okay,” Kolya breathed. “Okay, that’s good.”
Sergej pulled him in for a final, crushing hug, his face buried in Kolya’s hair. “If you feel a single second of being overwhelmed, you text me. I will be there in five minutes. I don’t care if I’m in my father’s office.”
“I will,” Kolya promised.
He stood under the portico as Sergej’s black SUV disappeared down the tree-lined drive. The morning was crisp, the sky a pale, watery blue. He focused on the scent of damp earth and pine, on the concrete solid beneath his feet, on the simple act of breathing. He was okay. He was standing.
Victor’s sedan, understated and spotless, rolled up precisely twenty minutes later. The elder Volkov got out, his posture military-straight, his silver hair combed back. His sharp blue eyes scanned Kolya with a single, assessing glance that missed nothing—the careful way Kolya held his left arm, the slight pallor of his skin.
“Kolya,” Victor said, his voice a gravelly baritone. He didn’t offer platitudes. He simply opened the passenger door. “Let’s go. The traffic on the Beltway is already a tragedy.”
The drive was quiet, the silence comfortable. Victor played classical music at a low volume and didn’t ask questions. His presence was a steadying force, devoid of intrusive pity. He was a man who understood that sometimes, the greatest support was a quiet, competent escort from one safe point to another.
When they passed through security at Quantico, a familiar gravity settled over Kolya. This was Raziel’s kingdom, and Sergej’s second home. The hallways echoed with purposeful strides and low conversations. Victor led him directly to the BAU bullpen.
The space hit Kolya’s senses in a wave. The relentless hum of computers and climate control, the sharp scent of stale coffee overlaid with the chemical tang of whiteboard markers, the glow of fluorescent lights on scuffed linoleum and paper-strewn desks. It was aggressively, blessedly normal.
“Sergej’s desk is there,” Victor said, nodding toward a tidy workstation in a corner, slightly apart from the clustered cubicles but still in the thick of the room. It had a second monitor, a high-backed leather chair, and a framed photograph of the two of them from a hiking trip in the Shenandoah, turned discreetly inward. “Make yourself at home. I’ll inform Raziel you’re here.”
“Thank you, Victor. Really.”
Victor gave a short, definitive nod. “You are family.” He said it as a fact, and then he was gone, melting into the maze of offices.
Kolya slid into Sergej’s chair. It was still warm, or maybe he imagined it. He set up his laptop, plugged in his charger, and opened a document—the official statement for Nikolai. He began to type, the clinical act of recounting the events in dry, precise prose somehow distancing the fear. The bullpen’s morning rhythm swirled around him. Agent Miller argued softly with someone about geographic profiling parameters. Two techs whispered about a new database update. The photocopier churned and whirred.
And then, like a subtle shift in barometric pressure, the room’s energy changed.
Kolya felt it before he saw him. A hush didn’t fall, exactly, but conversations dipped, keyboards clacked with a fraction less urgency. He looked up.
Sergej stood at the entrance to the bullpen, having clearly come straight from his meeting. He was in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit, his tie a slash of midnight blue. His eyes, those dark mirrors, swept the room and landed on Kolya with the force of a physical touch.
There was a storm in them. A controlled, ferocious typhoon of protectiveness and banked rage. The sight of Kolya here, in the heart of his workplace, surrounded by potential threats he couldn’t personally control, visibly unsettled the rigid discipline he wore like armor. He’d known Kolya was coming, had orchestrated it, but seeing it was different.
He crossed the room in a few long, silent strides. Agents subtly found reasons to look away, to suddenly be very interested in their screens. Kolya kept typing, his fingers trembling slightly on the keys.
A large, warm hand settled firmly on his shoulder. The grip wasn’t painful, but it was absolute, a claim and an anchor. Sergej leaned down, his body curving over Kolya’s seated form, a wall of mahogany-scented heat and implied strength. His lips were close to Kolya’s ear.
“You shouldn’t be here alone,” he murmured, the words so low they were almost a vibration. The deceptively soft tone from the penthouse was back, but now it was laced with a rawness that hadn’t been present in their private sanctuary.
Kolya tilted his head back to look up at him. In the fluorescent light, the shadows under Sergej’s eyes were more pronounced. “I’m not alone. The team is here.” He managed a weak gesture with his good hand.
“That’s not what I mean,” Sergej said, his gaze dropping to the cuff of Kolya’s sweater, which hid the bandage. His thumb moved in a small, unconscious circle on Kolya’s collarbone. The possessive touch sent a shiver through him. “You should be somewhere I can see you every second.”
“I’m fine, Seryozha.” The pet name slipped out, a plea for normalcy. “I’m working. It’s… it’s helping.”
Sergej stared at him for a long moment, the conflict clear in the tight line of his jaw. The team around them was ostensibly working, but the curiosity was a palpable hum. They loved Kolya. To them, he was the angel who’d somehow tamed their most formidable predator, the one who brought in homemade pastries on tough days and could explain constitutional law in a way that made sense. Seeing Sergej this visibly, physically unsettled over him was unprecedented.
Sergej saw the looks, the concerned glances disguised as professional focus. He took a slow, deep breath, and the storm in his eyes receded, not vanishing, but being forced down into the deep, calm waters of his discipline. He was, after all, relaxed about it. He was in his house, surrounded by his people. Kolya was the safest he could be outside of his direct arms. The team’s affection for him was a secondary security detail.
His expression softened, just a fraction. The hand on Kolya’s shoulder squeezed gently. “You didn’t eat the breakfast I left you,” he chided, his voice lifting slightly, allowing the room to hear a more familiar, bossy tone.
Kolya blinked, thrown by the shift. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“That’s not an excuse.” Sergej straightened up, though his hand remained. “You need fuel. Your brain doesn’t run on martyrdom and anxiety, kotik.” The Russian diminutive was tender, but the admonishment was clear.
A faint, genuine smile touched Kolya’s lips. This was a dance they knew. “You’re not my mother.”
“No, I’m significantly more stubborn.” Sergej finally released his shoulder, only to reach down and tap the desk beside the laptop. “I’m going to get coffee. You want a tea? Chamomile. With honey.”
It was an order disguised as an offer. The sheer, mundane domesticity of it was a balm. But Kolya, emboldened by the public setting, by the need to assert a tiny shred of control over something, felt a playful rebellion stir. He looked up at Sergej, and he pouted.
It was a masterful pout. His full lower lip jutted out just so, his eyes going wide and imploring. It was a look that had historically disarmed judges and gotten him out of countless social obligations he didn’t want to attend. “I don’t want chamomile,” he said, his voice soft but carrying. “It tastes like warm sadness.”
A few agents hiding behind monitors snorted, quickly disguising it as coughs.
Sergej raised one dark brow, a silent, amused challenge. Oh, you’re going to play that game here?
Kolya held the pout for a beat longer, then deliberately pushed his chair back. He stood up, his movements graceful despite the underlying tremor. He didn’t look at Sergej. Instead, he turned his gaze across the bullpen to the glass-walled office that overlooked the floor.
Raziel Volkov stood in the doorway of his office, having evidently just finished speaking with Victor. He was a monument of contained power in a perfectly fitted navy suit. His sharp amber eyes had been observing the entire silent exchange at Sergej’s desk, missing nothing. A faint, unreadable expression played on his sculpted features.
Kolya walked. He weaved through the maze of desks, feeling every eye in the room on him. He could feel Sergej’s gaze boring into his back, not angry, but watchful, curious to see what his little rebellion would yield.
He stopped in front of Raziel. He didn’t say anything. He just looked up at the immense, intimidating Unit Chief with those wide, beautiful eyes—eyes still holding a trace of yesterday’s tears—and then he simply stepped forward and hooked his left arm carefully around Raziel’s right, hugging it to his side. He rested his cheek lightly against the fine wool of Raziel’s suit sleeve.
The bullpen froze. The clicking of keys stopped. Someone dropped a pen, and the clatter sounded like a gunshot in the silence.
Raziel looked down at the top of Kolya’s head. He then lifted his gaze, over Kolya, to meet Sergej’s eyes across the room. A slow, deliberate, and utterly smug smile curved Raziel’s lips. It was a smile of pure, unadulterated victory in a silent, lifelong competition.
You see? that smile said. Your angel chooses my arm when you scold him.
Of course, he accepted it. Partly to spite Sergej, yes. But also because Kolya was, to Raziel, an extension of Natalia, and therefore under his own considerable umbrella of protection. And Kolya, in his current state, was a vulnerable, precious thing seeking the strongest pillar in the room. It was a primal instinct Raziel understood intimately.
“Chief Volkov,” Kolya mumbled against his arm, the picture of wronged innocence.
“Kolya,” Raziel replied, his voice a deep, calm rumble. He didn’t pull his arm away. He even shifted slightly to make the position more comfortable for him. “Sergej being overbearing again?”
“He’s trying to make me drink sad tea.”
“A capital crime,” Raziel said gravely. His amber eyes held a spark of light. “I have English Breakfast in my office. A properly aggressive leaf. And shortbread from that bakery Natalia likes.” He began to turn, gently guiding Kolya with the arm he was clinging to, leading him toward the sanctuary of his office. “You can work at the conference table. The view is better. And,” he added, pitching his voice just loud enough to carry, “the company is less demanding.”
The last comment was a direct, gleaming shot across the bullpen.
Sergej watched them go, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He didn’t look angry. He looked profoundly, deeply amused. A low chuckle escaped him, shaking his shoulders. He shook his head, the tension from moments before entirely dissolved into affectionate exasperation. His angel had sought refuge with a bigger, grimmer angel. It was, in its own way, perfect.
“Petrov,” Agent Miller called from his desk, a grin spreading across his face. “You’ve been downgraded.”
“Temporarily,” Sergej fired back, his own smile finally breaking through. He headed for the coffee pot. “He’ll be back when he realizes Raziel’s idea of comforting small talk is a lecture on the recurrence rates of organized crime hierarchies.”
The bullpen relaxed, the unexpected drama dissolving into the familiar rhythm of their day. The team had their answer. Kolya was okay enough to pull a stunt like that. Sergej was relaxed enough to allow it. And their Chief, the most terrifying man in the building, was currently being used as a teddy bear by a pouting prosecutor. It was the best gossip they’d had in weeks.
Inside Raziel’s office, Kolya let go of his arm as the door hissed shut, muting the bullpen’s noise. The bravado left him in a rush, leaving him feeling slightly dizzy.
Raziel pointed to the small round conference table by the window. “Sit.”
Kolya sat. Raziel busied himself at a sideboard, preparing two teas with the same focused efficiency he applied to crime scenes. He set a steaming mug of strong, amber tea and a plate of shortbread fingers in front of Kolya before taking the seat opposite him, his own mug black and unsweetened.
“The statement is written?” Raziel asked, getting straight to the point.
“Almost.”
“Good. Send it. Then put it away.” Raziel’s gaze was direct, but not unkind. “Your brain needs to work on something else for a few hours. I have a stack of financials for the Marino case that makes less sense than a nursery rhyme. You have the eyes for pattern disruption. Make yourself useful.”
It was the kindest thing he could have done. He was giving him a job. A real one. Not busywork, but a genuine analytical puzzle that required Kolya’s specific genius. It was an affirmation that he was more than what had happened to him.
“Thank you, Raziel,” Kolya said, his voice thick.
Raziel took a sip of his tea, his eyes drifting to the window, to the sprawling Quantico complex below. “He will never come near you again,” he stated, the words flat and absolute. “The process will see to it. And if, by some failure of the universe, he does…” Raziel’s amber eyes cut back to Kolya, and the dead calm in them was identical to Sergej’s. “Then it will be handled. Not in a break room. Not with a grab. Permanently. You are under our protection. All of us. Do you understand?”
Kolya held that fierce, golden gaze. He saw Natalia’s fire in it, refined and cooled into something lethally precise. He saw the unshakeable certainty of a man who governed monsters for a living. He believed him.
“I understand.”
“Good.” Raziel nodded once. “Now eat your shortbread. And tell me what you see in column F of that spreadsheet. It’s annoying me.”
Kolya picked up a cookie, took a bite of the buttery, crumbly sweetness, and pulled the first spreadsheet toward him. The numbers blurred, then sharpened. A problem to solve. A purpose. Outside the glass wall, he could see Sergej at his desk, talking calmly with Miller, glancing occasionally toward the office. Catching Kolya’s eye, Sergej winked.
Kolya felt the final, tight coil of fear in his chest begin to loosen. He was in the lion’s den, guarded by the pride itself. For the first time since the break room, he drew a breath that didn’t feel like it was made of shards.
He took a sip of the aggressive, excellent tea and got to work.