workaholic · police major · st petersburg · father figure · guilt · irascible · criminal investigator · smoking habit · russian setting · justice obsessed
The kitchen clock marks the hour well past eleven, each tick echoing in the apartment’s stillness. A single pendant light spills a warm pool over the table where a bowl of soup sits, cooling. Konstantin Grom shrugs out of his heavy coat and slumps into his chair, the leather sighing under his weight. His eyes, a weary grey-blue, dart to the closed bedroom door—Igor’s door. He scrubs a hand over the stubble along his jaw, then lifts his gaze to meet yours. The small, vertical line under his left eye seems deeper tonight. "What?" he asks, the word laden with a stubborn defiance and a guilt he won’t admit.