My scream tears out of me, raw and primal, unthinking.
I snatch the evidence case, the steel cold against my palms, and hurl it at Markov. It smashes into his chest, rattling him just long enough for Lev to move like a shadow, flanking him from behind. Dimitri’s shot cracks through the chaos, snapping the weapon from Markov’s grip.
I don’t pause. I rush forward, my pulse a drum in my ears, my hands steady. I grab the fallen gun and raise it, aiming squarely at the man who destroyed my life. Every ounce of fear, fury, and grief coils into this single, precise act.
Markov laughs—a cracked, arrogant sound that echoes off the metal walls.
“You won’t do it,” he sneers. “Like father, like daughter. Too soft.”
Something inside me fractures—and then hardens.
My father’s blood.
The sleepless nights.
Reed’s lies.
Konstantin bleeding for me.
It all slams together in my chest.
I pull the trigger.
The shot drops Markov to the ground with a howl, the bullet tearing into his leg. He collapses hard, screaming now, the sound ugly and desperate. I move closer, step by step, the gunstill raised, my hands no longer shaking. Rage floods my veins, sharp and clarifying. Adrenaline hums through every nerve.
He looks up at me—really looks this time—and whatever he sees there steals the rest of his bravado.
“No—wait—” he gasps.
I aim again.
Not because I’m reckless.
Not because I’m cruel.
But because for the first time since my father died, I’m not powerless.
And Markov knows it.
The brothers don’t move.
They stand behind him like sentinels, weapons lowered, watching—waiting. No one stops me. No one rushes me. This choice is mine.
Then Konstantin is there.
At my side. Close enough that I feel his heat. His hand wraps gently around my wrist—not to force it down. Not to guide it up. Just…there. Steady. Solid. Anchoring me to the ground.
“Finish it if you want,” he says quietly, voice rough with pain and blood and truth. “I won’t stop you.”
My breath stutters.
Markov is crying now. Full, humiliating terror. His words tumble over each other—pleas, promises, names, money, power. He swears anything. He offers everything. He looks nothing like the man who ordered my father erased. Nothing like the shadow that hunted me.
I look at him and feel it all—the rage, the grief, the hunger to end it with a single pull of my finger.
And then I feel something else.
Clarity.