30. Konstantin
THIRTY
Konstantin
“ Kotya didn’t need to hear what Roman was saying.”
I feel immense relief when Yura’s voice pops up over the speakers. He’s alive. Roman didn’t kill him.
But nobody has found my father yet. I look at the screens, trying to make out what’s going on in the manor. Unfortunately, between the storm, the flickering lights, and all the gunshots, it’s utter chaos. I can’t see my father anywhere, and nobody has mentioned finding him.
As I check all the cameras, I realize where the blind spot is. There’s only one place my father could be hiding out in.
I get up, squeezing Sierra’s shoulder, and shuffle to the van doors.
“Kotya? Hey! Where are you going?” Sierra shouts.
“Stay here,” I order, pulling out my earpiece and tossing it aside. “Keep watch over Nikolai and Yura.”
She shakes her head. “No. You can’t go like this. Kotya, they’ve got it handled. Everyone out there? They have it handled. Okay?” she pleads.
“I’m going,” I tell her. I lean in to kiss her. “This is my father. I have to see it through.”
“No,” she says, grabbing for my arm, but I move out of the way. “Kotya, I’m fucked if someone finds me here. I’m too close to the house. You can’t bail on me.”
The words that had worked the first time don’t have an effect on me this time, not when the adrenaline is pulsing through my system.
“You aren’t alone,” I tell her. I point to the driver’s seat, where Stepan is being conspicuously quiet.
Sierra follows my gaze, letting out a frustrated sound. “No offense to Stepan, but he’s not you.”
“Yura and Nikolai will come back,” I tell her. I kiss her again, then push away. “I’ll be right back.”
I don’t wait to listen to more of her protests. As soon as I step out of the van, I’m pelted by a barrage of rain. I’m instantly soaked, but the storm gives me more cover than the clear night would have. If Sierra shouts for me, I don’t hear her.
I run toward the compound, and I use the hole Nikolai and Yura had made to get onto the property. They had gone for the guest room, but I make my way across the yard until I find my workshop.
The lights are on inside.
I push the sliding door open to find my father sitting on the rocking chair, his pistol across his lap.
I tighten my grip on my own gun.
“Konstantin,” my father greets.
I step under the roof of the work shed and wipe some of the water from my face. “Roman is dead,” I tell him.
For a split second, my father’s expression falters. Then it goes hard again. “Disappointing. I thought he was stronger than that.”
Despite the callous words, I can tell he’s affected by that news.
“Does that make me your heir now?” I ask.
My father doesn’t answer. I don’t know what I want to hear—that he values me as much as my brother? That he is proud of how I took out the competition?
But I don’t have any hope of that. I knew, last night, that it was over. No matter what my father says now, it will not be enough for me.
“Roma was a good man,” my father says, standing up. “He knew how to follow the rules. He didn’t try to rise above me.” He shakes his head and stops by the half-constructed crib. “But you were never content to simply do as you were told.”
“I tried that,” I counter. “I tried to fit into the mold you wanted, but all it got me was pain and humiliation. You put Petrov in charge instead of me!”
My father lets out a dark chuckle. “Is that what this is all about? Because I didn’t let you claim this operation?” He shakes his head. “I was right. As soon as you tasted power, you wanted more of it.”
He raises his gun and aims it at me.
I aim back, my body completely steady.
“What do you want, Konstantin?” my father asks. “Money? Connections? I have both. But if you kill me, you will get none of it.”
“I have money, I have connections,” I bite back. “You think the people in Russia will care about me here?”
Now my father’s eyes narrow. “You don’t intend to return?”
I shake my head. “There is nothing for me there. You ensured that. You could have let me have this portion of our empire, and I would have slaved away for you for the rest of your miserable life. But you could not allow me even that small victory. You could not stand to see me thrive.”
“Are you not thriving?” My father lowers the gun and runs his hand along the railing of the crib. “Who is this for, Konstantin? You did not make a crib for Roman’s boy.”
Fury washes over me, watching him touch the imperfect thing I made, which is not as good as the cribs I could buy yet has all of my dreams inside it.
“It is for my child, my heir ,” I tell him. “Step away from the crib.”
“So Vasily was right about that woman.” My father lets go and shakes his head. “My testament is clear. Everything goes to Roman and his firstborn son. If you want your child to inherit anything, I would need to talk to my lawyers.”
That doesn’t surprise me at all. “Did you even consider me for a single second?” I demand. “Did you wonder if your other son should receive any of your fortunes?”
“Why should I have?” my father asks. “You are a bastard. I have no proof you are even my blood—your slut mother could easily have fucked another while I was away. You are lucky I took you into my household at all.”
The casual insult toward my mother has anger rushing over me. I sprint forward and pistol-whip him, sending him crashing against the crib. He suppresses a groan of pain.
His gun clatters into the crib, and I grab him by the collar to throw him to the ground. He scrambles to get up, but I kick him in the side.
“Konstantin!” he shouts, and fucking finally, he doesn’t sound calm and collected.
“My ‘slut mother’ deserved better than you!” I yell, kicking him again. “You think you can toy with people like that? You think everybody will put up with you because you say so?” I keep kicking him, the adrenaline making my anger even more potent.
I hear his bones crunch underneath my boot.
My damp clothes cling to my body, and a burst of lightning illuminates the world outside the shed.
I should just shoot him. I should end it here and now.
But this man is responsible for a lifetime of suffering. It’s unfair that he should end quickly and easily.
He needs to suffer too.
I stop, my breaths coming in heavy. “You are a weak, miserable old man,” I tell him. “You do not deserve a quick death.”
I grab his broken body and drag him farther into the shed, where the power tools are. He moans pitifully.
“Stop,” he begs. “I will… You can have…”
“I want nothing,” I hiss at him. “You are many, many years too late to make reparations.” I lift him onto the work bench and turn to my tool shelf.
The power saw had worked wonderfully on Sierra’s ex-boyfriend, but I don’t want to damage the sawblade like that again. I reach instead for the heavy hammer.
“I will break every bone in your body,” I tell him. “You will feel the agony you have subjected me to, year after year.”
“I never… I never…” my father wheezes. “Please!”
I laugh at him. “You never hit me? That is a lie. Every time you withheld your affection, it was a cut to my soul. Every time you ignored me, you shattered my will.” I tighten my grip on the hammer and slam it down on my father’s ribs.
He howls in agony. I lift the hammer and bring it down again, this time on his hand. Again, on another part of his body. I hear bone crunch and skin split as white bone bursts forth.
A noise from behind me startles me, and I hold the hammer up as I spin around to face the door leading into the workshop.
I expect to see one of my father’s men, or maybe even one of our reinforcements, but Nikolai is leading Sierra and Yura into the shed.
Sierra sucks in a breath as her eyes go to my father’s broken body on the bench. Like Nikolai and Yura, she’s completely soaked from head to toe, and her shirt clings to her body—clings to the swell of her stomach, too, a blatant reminder of what my father would’ve denied me.
“Kotya,” Nikolai begins, then stops and shakes his head before going on even as my father groans. “Need help?”
“No,” I say, and I slam the hammer into my father’s skull.
He lets out one last gurgling cry of pain. The spasms stop.
My father is dead.
Sierra carefully approaches, and while her eyes flick to my father’s corpse again, she seems strangely unbothered by the violence. “It’s done,” she says quietly, standing a few feet away from me. “Everything’s cleared out. This…” She grimaces. “This was the last of it.”
“Yes.” I grip the edge of the workbench, which is slick with blood. I can taste the copper on my lips.
There is nothing recognizable about the mangled sack of flesh in front of me.
But it was my father.
I blink, and suddenly tears spill out of my eyes. I reach up to stifle a sob, but it’s too late. The sound that escapes my lips is like a creature dying, pitiful and pained.
Sierra is on me in a second, her arms wrapping around my chest. There must be blood, so much blood, but she ignores it. “It’s okay,” she whispers to me. “It’s okay to hurt.”
“I hated him,” I say, unable to stifle the sob. “I should not mourn!”
Yura joins her and rests his head against my shoulder. “I will hate him for you, Kotya. You may feel whatever you feel.”
Nikolai steps up close, onto the other side. “No one’s judging you, Kotya.”
Sierra nods against me, and she reaches up to touch my face and brush at the tears. “It’s only the four of us. No one ever has to know.”
I nod, clinging to her, to them. The people who gave me the strength to break away from my father. The people who gave me the strength to thrive .
None of them complain about how long it takes me to collect myself. My tears have finally dried enough to be explained by rainwater, and I pull away enough to kiss Sierra.
There is so much blood on me, but she doesn’t even flinch away from the taste.
Then I turn to Yura, and I kiss him, too. He gives in easily, bending to me and showing me what I’ve ignored all these years—the devotion that is deeper than loyalty alone.
When we break away, I look at Nikolai.
He rubs his hand across his face, then with red cheeks, he leans in to give me an awkward, clumsy kiss. “Yeah,” he says self-consciously.
Sierra snorts. “No one asked you anything,” she tells him. She kisses him, too, then Yura, and the four of us exchange those kisses as the rain continues to fall around the shed. It’s like we’re in a different world entirely, and everything I have to be responsible for has fallen into the background.
Unfortunately, we cannot stay here forever. A loud ringtone interrupts us, and Sierra laughs self-consciously. “I think that’s Kyran.”
I sigh. “Answer it. Tell him you are alive.”
She nods, pulling her phone out of her pocket and swiping at the screen. “We’re fine,” she says by way of greeting. “Is everything okay?”
While Sierra talks to her brother, Yura comes up to me. He rests his head against my shoulder again. “It’s yours now, Kotya. Everything your father denied you.”
“Yes,” I say. My eyes follow Sierra, and how the shirt clings to her stomach. “We aren’t done though.”
Nikolai shakes his head. “We’re done for tonight. We’ll weed out the stragglers tomorrow.”
I am not naive enough to believe that everybody will fall into line instantly. But this will send quite the message.
I am not a man to be trifled with.
This is my empire.
They will think twice about crossing me ever again.