A weight has been pressing on my chest since I left Russia.
Or more accurately, since I left Lia.
The view of her running after me, crying and screaming in the middle of the freezing snow, still plays at the back of my head on repeat.
I run a hand over my face to dispel those images. If I think of her, I won’t be able to get on with my plan.
I won’t be able to save her and our son.
While finding out she’s been meeting with Luca behind my back was like being stabbed with a thousand blunt knives, I believed every word she said.
If it were the old me, I wouldn’t have. If anything, my trust issues would have gotten the better of me and I would’ve taken it out on her. But that’s not the case now. Not only do I trust her, but everything she said made sense, filling in the missing puzzle pieces.
After the assassination attempt, her mental health took a sharp decline and her descent to rock bottom was fast. At the time, I thought it was due to witnessing the assassination attempt since she was always stressed about that side of my life. However, knowing that she killed someone with her own hands explains how she often went into a trance.
And she did it for me.
Lia, who used to tremble in front of a gun, killed someone to protect me.
I probably shouldn’t be proud of that fact, but I am.
Even if I want to strangle her accomplice with my bare hands.
“Find Luca and kill him,” I tell Kolya who’s sitting beside me in the back seat as Fedor and another guard occupy the front.
We’re heading straight from the airport to Sergei. I haven’t stopped by the house, merely calling Ogla to inform her about the course of action to take once I’m gone, just as I’ve spent the entire flight telling Kolya what he’ll do from here on out.
“With all due respect, sir. Luca is not the problem now.”
“He is. Since he’s so invested in her and knows that she’s Lazlo’s daughter, his roots run deeper than I thought. He wants to hurt her and has manipulated her all along, which means he’s most likely one of the Rozettis. He was probably assigned to keep an eye on her and he’s used her ever since. Remember the guard who betrayed their secret about hiding Lia from Lazlo after we tortured him? He said that Lia is their trump card against the Lucianos and they’ll use it whenever they see fit. They kidnapped her mother while she was pregnant with her and married her off to one of their own to keep her under their thumbs.”
“Wouldn’t Lazlo know about her mother? The pregnancy? Her grandmother?”
“She wasn’t her real grandmother, Kolya. She was merely a woman who knew Rachel Gueller at some point in her life, and the Rozettis paid her well to pretend to be Lia’s grandmother.”
“Why couldn’t it be that Lazlo knew he had a daughter somewhere and simply never paid attention to her?”
“He’s heirless, Kolya. Believe me, if he knew he had an offspring somewhere, he wouldn’t hesitate to bring him or her into the family.”
“So now what?”
“I want Luca and anyone he works with dead. Since he knows about Lia’s origins, he’s a danger to her.”
“You’re the one who’s currently in danger. You could force Lazlo’s hand by telling him about her. If you bring him around, Sergei might forgive you.”
“No.”
“Boss.”
“If Lazlo finds out about her, he’ll know I duped him all along and will stop at nothing until he takes her. She’s well protected away from him.”
“With all due respect, she won’t be protected when you’re dead.”
“Yes, she will be. You will make sure of it.”
He releases a deep sigh, staying silent for a beat too long. “Is it worth it?”
“Is what worth it?”
“Losing everything for her?”
A small smile grazes my lips. “Absolutely.”
Fedor stops the car in front of Sergei’s house, then accompanies me and Kolya inside.
We pass by a huge painting of angels battling demons in the entrance. It’s a piece of art that Nikolai and Sergei acquired from the black market and exhibited where it’s visible to anyone who walks in.
The previous and the current Pakhans’ display of power in even the smallest of details is intriguing. Through the painting, they subconsciously make their guests pick a side. Angels or demons. Good or evil.
I always thought myself above such mind games, but now, as I stare at the furious paranormal faces frozen in their battle cry, I can’t help but feel a slight twinge of discomfort.
Another thing they hoped to accomplish by placing the painting here.
Sergei’s senior guard stops Kolya and Igor at the bottom of the stairs and speaks in gruff Russian, “Only Volkov is allowed upstairs.”
Kolya steps beside me. “I’m going with him.”
“Only Volkov,” the guard repeats, pulling his gun out.
Kolya reaches into his holster, to bring out his own weapon, no doubt, but I shake my head at him. I follow Sergei’s guard up the stairs toward his office, but before I go inside, the guard steps between me and the door. “Your gun.”
This is the first time I’ve been asked to leave my weapon at the door. While I figured Sergei didn’t call me in for tea, if he’s going as far as disarming me, this might as well be my death certificate.
I reach beneath my jacket, retrieve my gun, and give it to the guard. He searches me for any hidden weapons before he knocks on the door and opens it for me.
It takes me a moment to walk in. If it were a few years ago, I wouldn’t give a fuck about being summoned, but if it were a few years ago, I wouldn’t have let my system fail me. I wouldn’t have been illogical.
I wouldn’t have been…alive.
Because even though I performed the act of living before, I’ve never truly lived until Lia came into my life.
I meant what I told Kolya earlier, Lia is worth failing my system, digging my own grave, and putting myself in this unfavorable position. I would do it all over again if it means having her.
The guard follows me inside, then closes the door and stands in front of it in case I try to escape.
Not that I would.
Sergei sits in the lounge area with Igor and Vladimir across from him, their expressions as hard as granite. Four of their guards are in erect positions by the balcony.
I stop before Sergei and don’t bother greeting him. “You asked for me?”
“Yes, I asked for you.” Sergei grips the armrest of his chair tight. “Don’t you think you have some explaining to do, Volkov?”
“What type of explaining?”
“Richard’s death.” Vladimir stands and stares at me. While we’re about the same height, he’s bulkier and has a more piercing stare. “I know you killed him.”
“Proof?”
“Recordings. You probably didn’t know that he secretly recorded everything that happened in his office.”
He couldn’t have. If he did, my hackers would’ve found out when they cleaned up his digital files afterward.
Unless…
“How did you find them?” I ask.
“That doesn’t matter, the content does.”
“How did you find them, Vladimir? If you had before now, you would’ve come forward with it, but I assume you got outside help. Someone sent you those files recently.”
“Why the fuck does that matter?”
“Who sent them to you?”
“You’re in no position to question me, Volkov. It’s the other way around. Why don’t you tell us why you killed our candidate for mayor?”
“I will if you tell me who sent you the recordings and how.”
“Or I can just kill you without hearing your explanation.”
“Tell him, Vladimir,” Sergei says after watching the exchange silently.
The man in front of me scrunches his nose at being ordered to do the very thing he has no desire to do. “They were emailed to me.”
“By whom?”
“It was an encrypted address. I couldn’t track it down.”
Whoever got those recordings hacked into Richard’s files right after I left and before I ordered my hackers there for a thorough cleanup. But if he had those recordings on me all along, why wait until now to use them? They could’ve threatened me with them or sent them to Vladimir earlier.
Unless their only aim is to get rid of me. But why now, of all times?
“The fact remains, you killed Richard, who could’ve become an asset to us.” Igor glares at me. “Why?”
“I assume you listened to the recordings and already know why I did it.”
“Say it, Adrian.” Sergei’s voice rises with every word. “Enlighten us with the fucking reason why you endangered the brotherhood’s future in this city.”
“He touched my wife and had to die.”
“You know what also died with him?” Vladimir snarls in my face. “Our chances for having a mayor under our control. So tell me, Adrian, is he only dead because he touched your wife or because you’re playing house with the Italians? Because, now, their candidate is mayor and guess fucking what? Lazlo is telling him to refuse our shipments.”
“Watch your fucking mouth, Vladimir. Do not speak of my wife or my honor again.” I stare at Sergei. “I told you my reason, Pakhan. If you think I’m able to betray the brotherhood after everything I’ve done for it, then do what you must.”
“You hid it from me when you could’ve told me.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you would have demanded I eliminate the reason why I made such a decision and derailed me from my logical thinking.”
“I’m demanding it now. Divorce the woman who’s muddying your thinking and I will overlook this incident.”
“Pakhan,” Vladimir and Igor say at the same time.
Having lived my entire life in the brotherhood and witnessed Nikolai’s and Sergei’s brutality, I know this isn’t a chance the Pakhan would offer anyone.
I should accept it while bowing my head and being grateful.
However, I stand tall. “No.”
Sergei rises and Vladimir steps out of the way, allowing the older man to meet my gaze with his harsher one. “Are you refusing a direct fucking order, Volkov?”
“Yes.”
“Either you do as you’re told or you’ll face dire consequences.”
“I’ll face the consequences.”
“You’d rather die than fucking divorce that woman?
“I know you won’t stop if I divorce her. As soon as I do, you’ll have the full liberty to kill her.”
“What do you care? You only married her for Jeremy.”
“I will not divorce her, Pakhan. If you want punishment, take it from me.”
“You know what the punishment of betrayal is, Volkov.”
“Fully. I watched my mother being executed by my father, per your brother’s orders.”
“And you’re telling me that you’re ready to meet that fate for a nameless nobody?!” he yells, his face reddening.
“Yes.”
“I’m disappointed in you, Volkov. You’re supposed to be better than this.” He dismisses me with a hand. “Take him out of my fucking sight until I decide how to kill him.”
Igor stares at me with his usual neutrality. “If you had married my Kristina, none of this would’ve happened to you, and if it had, I would’ve pleaded your case. However, you chose a nobody and you’ll end as a nobody. Georgy must be rolling in his grave.”
Fuck my father and fuck Igor.
Despite everything, marrying Lia was the best decision I’ve made in my life.
Two guards grab me by my arms. I don’t struggle as they lead me out of the office.
Probably to my last stop.
The only thought that keeps me calm is that Lia and Jeremy are safe.
