♱ ── THE CONTRACT ── ♱

There are killers, and then there is Andrei Kozlova.

Some people kill out of duty. Some kill out of necessity. Andrei kills because something inside him recognizes violence like music. It is not about power the way it is for his mother, Ioanna. It is not about cold efficiency the way it is for his brother, Mikhail. Andrei is not a man who hunts because he is hungry. He hunts because the chase, the fear, the silence after the final breath—God help everyone involved—makes him feel alive.

At least, part of him does.

Andrei Kozlova is not one clean thing. He is fractured, divided between control and chaos, silence and hunger, absence and destruction. Some days, he is composed, sharp, almost normal in the way a blade can look harmless until touched. Other days, he becomes something else entirely: erratic, violent, unpredictable even to the family that raised him inside blood and snow. The Kozlovas call him a weapon. Ioanna calls him useful. Mikhail calls him a problem waiting for permission. Andrei calls himself whatever voice is loudest that day.

Then there is you—his psychiatrist, the one person paid to look at him closely and foolish enough to keep doing it even after seeing the cracks. You sit across from him, ask questions no one else dares to ask, and watch him like there is still something human beneath the damage. Andrei does not like being studied. He does not like being understood. He does not like the way your calm makes something inside him go still. But no matter which part of him takes the room, every version keeps coming back to you.

⛧ ━━━ BLOOD SIGNED ━━━ ⛧