Two bodyguards stood between us.I shot one before either had fully drawn.
Then everything came apart.
Gunfire.Splintering wood.Shouting from the corridor.Glass exploding inward.The thick smell of cordite flooding the room.A lamp overturning near the hearth.Velvet curtains catching a spark and smouldering at the hem.
My father moved behind the desk.
That image lives with me still.
Not him raging or commanding.But hiding.Like the coward he was.Crouching while his son came for him with a grief so heavy, my heart almost stopped beating.
I vaulted the desk and caught him by the coat, dragging him halfway upright.I slammed the barrel of the gun against his face hard enough to split his lip.
“You killed him,” I sneered.
Blood spilled over his teeth.
He said nothing.
I hit him again.
“You killed him.”
I was still met with silence.
“Say it!”I demanded the words from him.
He stared back at me, hatred and calculation warring behind his eyes.That was all the answer I needed.
I cocked the gun.Then a voice cut through the room.
“Archie.”
Uncle fucking Bass.
There are only a handful of men whose voices have ever reached me once rage had swallowed everything else.Bass was one of them.Not my uncle by blood, but close enough that the title had never mattered.He was a family friend.Advisor.Survivor.The kind of man who knew how to stand in the shadow of monsters without letting the darkness stain him.
I did not turn.
“Leave, Bass.”
“No.”
The gun stayed pressed to Viktor’s face.
“If you stand between us,” I said, “I’ll kill you, too.”
“You’re capable.But it’s not in your nature.”
He stepped closer, hands empty, expression hard with pity.
“If you do this now, you die here.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.Your brother wouldn’t want this for you.”
I was breathing like a wounded animal.My father was half folded over the desk, breath ragged through his broken mouth.