This wasn't the first time Yelena had seen Mika like this.
Not even close.
She had seen him lash out like this even as a child, a little boy still tripping over his own feet and struggling to manage the overwhelming power buried in his blood.
Those early days had been chaos. Taw, explosive, volatile.
When he was still growing into himself, Mika had no filter. No hesitation. No sense of boundaries between anger and annihilation.
And most of all, if anyone so much as insulted her or even hinted at disrespecting their family, that young boy would transform.
Into something hateful. Into something unrecognizably violent.
He didn't retaliate like a child. He retaliated like a beast chained too long, who'd finally snapped the links and decided he would never be caged again.
If someone insulted Yelena, Mika didn't insult back. He broke noses. Dislocated jaws. Teared limbs apart.
Once, he pulled a man's heart to a stop without ever laying a finger on him.
Yes.
