We sit there on the floor for what feels like an eternity. The walls I built, the cage she lived in—the dynamic has shifted. I pick her up, cradling her against my chest as I stand. She wraps her arms around my neck, clinging to me as if I’m her only anchor in a storm. I walk out of the solarium and toward our bedroom. This time, I’m not afraid of the door.
I lay her down on the sheets and climb in next to her, pulling the duvet over us both. She tucks herself into my side, her hand resting over my heart.
“Stay,” she whispers.
“I’m never going anywhere,” I promise.
I watch her as she finally drifts off into a fitful sleep. The weight in my chest hasn’t fully vanished—it has transformed into a cold, burning purpose. Viktor is still out there. My uncle, the man who raised me into this life, might be the greatest traitor of them all.
I close my eyes, the sound of her steady breathing the only thing keeping me grounded. Tomorrow, the world will return. Tomorrow, I will start the hunt for the real story of that night. But tonight, there is only the heat of her body against mine and the knowledge that the woman I’ve been chasing finally knows I didn’t pull that trigger.
I hold her close, the silence of the room heavy with the tasks ahead. We are two people standing in the wreckage of a lie, and I will be the one to clear the debris.
I drift off, my arm tightening around her. The serpent on my arm doesn’t feel like a mark of pride anymore. It feels like a target.
A target for the vengeance I owe her.
28
LENA
The world doesn’t look the same anymore.
I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the dust motes dancing in a beam of afternoon light, and I feel like I’ve been hollowed out. Everything I built my life around for five years—the hatred, the resentment, the righteous anger that kept me upright in the face of Razvan’s power—it was all based on a lie. A lie fed to me by the shadows of a night I thought I understood.
Viktor.
The name tastes like poison in my mouth. My uncle-in-law. The man who sat at our table, the man who supposedly cared for the Volkov legacy, was the one who pulled the trigger on my father. He didn’t just kill my father, he stole my ability to trust my own eyes. He made me hate the man who was actually trying to save me.
I reach into the hidden pocket of my robe and feel the hard edges of the flash drive. Pyotr’s legacy. My father’s insurance policy. I’ve held onto this like a weapon, waiting for the moment to use it against Razvan, but now I realize it was never meant for him. Itwas meant to expose the rot at the center of the Bratva—the rot that started with Viktor.
I stand up, my legs feeling shaky but my mind clearer than it’s ever been. I need to give this to him. I need to show him what my father died protecting. As I pull open the heavy bedroom door, I nearly collide with a wall of black suit and muscle. Mike is standing there, his hand raised as if he was just about to knock. He looks surprised to see me moving with such purpose.
“Lena,” he says, his voice low and steady. “Razvan is in the study. He’s trying to find what really happened five years ago.”
“I know,” I say, clutching the drive. I look up at him, really looking at him for the first time without the lens of fear. “Mike, wait.” He stops, his brow furrowing. I take a breath, letting the tension out of my shoulders. “I never said it before, but thank you. For that night in the dungeon. When you brought me the food. When you didn’t look at me like I was just a piece of property. You were the first person who made me feel like a human being again.”
Mike’s expression softens, a rare, genuine warmth breaking through his soldier’s mask. “You were never property to me, Lena. I hated seeing you in that cell. I’m just glad Razvan woke up before it was too late.” He reaches out, awkwardly patting my shoulder before his hand settles there with a protective weight. “You’re like a sister to me. I mean that. If anyone tries to hurt you, they have to go through me first. You’re family now. Real family.”
I feel a lump form in my throat, and before I can stop myself, I wrap my arms around his middle. He stiffens then hugs me back, a solid, brotherly embrace that makes me feel safe in a way the walls of this estate never could.
“Thank you, Mike,” I whisper against his chest.
He pulls away, giving me a sharp, encouraging nod. “Go on. He’s waiting.”
I nod, turning toward the study. I walk down the long, silent hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs. I don’t knock this time. I push the doors open and find Razvan sitting behind his desk, surrounded by monitors and half-empty glasses of Scotch. Dmitri is there too, his fingers flying across a keyboard, his face illuminated by the blue light of a dozen scrolling windows. Razvan looks up, his eyes bloodshot and haunted.
“Lena,” he says, half-rising from his chair. “You should be resting.”
“I’m done resting,” I say. I walk straight to the desk and set the silver drive down on the blotter. “My father died for this. Pyotr spent ten years documenting the truth because he knew this day would come. Decode it. All of it.”
Dmitri doesn’t wait for an order. He snatches the drive and plugs it into a secure terminal. For the next hour, the room is silent except for the hum of cooling fans and the occasional click of a mouse. Then, the files begin to open. It’s all there. A decade of Viktor’s bloodwork. The assassinations he ordered under the previous Pakhan’s nose. The ledgers showing he was siphoning funds into offshore accounts. But the centerpiece is a video file, dated the night Razvan’s father died. We watch in horrific silence as the footage shows Viktor entering the elder Volkov’s office. There was no struggle. There was no “traitor” coming from the outside. Viktor shot his own brother in the back of the head while he was reading a book, then spent the next hour planting evidence to frame my father.
“He killed him,” Razvan whispers, his voice sounding like it’s being dragged over broken glass. He grips the edge of the desk so hard the wood begins to groan. “He killed my father and then made me hunt the man who was his most loyal friend. He made me destroy your life to cover his tracks.”
“Razvan,” I say, reaching out to touch his arm, but he’s already reaching for the burner phone on the desk. His face is a mask of lethal, cold fury. He dials a number from memory, his knuckles white.
“Viktor,” Razvan says when the call connects. His voice is terrifyingly calm. “I’m looking at the drive. I’m looking at the video of you in my father’s office. I’m looking at the offshore accounts.” There is a pause, and I can hear a faint, panicked squawk from the other end. Razvan’s eyes turn to ice. “Don’t lie to me. Not anymore. You killed an innocent man. You ruined his daughter. You murdered your own blood for a throne you were never fit to sit on. Retribution is coming, Uncle. There is no hole deep enough for you to hide in. Wait for my judgment. Do not move. Do not breathe. If you disappear, I will burn every city in Russia until I find your corpse.”