12. Ivan
12
IVAN
T he office is dark except for the glow of the monitors in front of me. The grainy CCTV footage plays out, the angles awkward but enough to catch every damning detail. Dmitri. Alice. The hallway.
I grit my teeth, my hands gripping the edge of the desk as I watch. Dmitri presses her against the wall, his body blocking most of her from view, but there’s no mistaking what’s happening. Her head tilts back, her lips part in a silent moan, and Dmitri’s hand moves beneath her dress, his posture unmistakable.
My chest tightens with anger—or is it something else? I push the thought away, my eyes fixed on the screen as Dmitri leans in, his mouth brushing against her neck, his movements calculated, deliberate. Alice’s hands clutch at his shoulders, and then she’s trembling, her body shaking against him.
I should stop watching. I should shut off the feed and let my rage focus on what matters—that Dmitri is toying with her, that he’s dragging her into something she doesn’t understand. But I don’t. I can’t. My eyes stay glued to the screen, my chest tightening as I watch her come apart under his touch, her face contorted in pleasure as she clutches at him.
Anger surges again, hot and consuming. But beneath it, there’s something else, something darker, something I don’t want to name. The silence in the room is deafening as I sit there, trying to collect my thoughts.
Dmitri.
He’s always been the difficult one. The unpredictable one. The one who refuses to follow rules or bow to expectations. Even as children, he had a way of testing limits—ours, our parents’, the world’s. If there was trouble to be found, Dmitri was always in the middle of it, smirking as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
I hit pause, the image freezing on Alice slumping against the wall, her face hidden against Dmitri’s chest. The room is quiet except for the faint hum of the computer, but my mind is anything but.
“Damn it, Dmitri,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair. This is reckless, even for him. Getting involved with the nanny? It’s a complication we don’t need, especially not with everything else hanging over us.
And yet…I can’t deny the pull I feel watching her, the way her body responds to him, the soft, unguarded look on her face. It stirs something in me, something I don’t understand, and that only makes me angrier.
I shove back from the desk, the chair scraping against the floor as I stand. I need to handle this before it spirals any further. Dmitri has always been a problem, always pushing boundaries, always testing limits. But this? This is too far.
The maids tell me he’s at the dining table, having breakfast.
Sure enough, he’s there, seated at the dining table, buttering a piece of toast with a carelessness that grates on my nerves. He’s dressed casually, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his dark hair still slightly damp from a recent shower. He looks up as I approach, his expression calm, almost amused.
“Morning, brother,” he says.
I stop at the head of the table, crossing my arms as I study him. As kids, he was the one sneaking out late, the one picking fights, the one who always seemed to attract trouble like a magnet.
And now, years later, nothing has changed.
“You want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?” I say. My voice is low, controlled, but the edge is unmistakable.
Dmitri looks up, his expression not shifting a bit. If anything, his smirk widens slightly. “You’ll have to be more specific, Ivan. I think about a lot of things.”
I lean forward, my hands braced on the table as I glare at him. “Alice,” I say sharply.
His smirk falters just slightly, and I see the flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Ah,” he says, leaning back in his chair, his tone casual. “You’ve been watching the cameras again. Should’ve known.”
“Don’t deflect,” I snap. “You’re crossing lines, Dmitri. Lines that will only complicate things for everyone.”
“Lines,” he repeats, his tone mocking as he takes a bite of his toast, chewing slowly before swallowing. “You always were obsessed with lines, weren’t you, Ivan? Rules. Boundaries. But here’s the thing—lines were made to be crossed.”
My jaw tightens, the anger bubbling closer to the surface. “This isn’t just about you,” I say. “It’s about the family. About her. The nanny, Dmitri. The one who’s here for my children. Do you have any idea what kind of mess you’re creating?”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Mess? I think you’re overreacting, brother. She’s not exactly running away screaming.”
“That’s not the point!” I bark, slamming my hand on the table, making the plates rattle. “She’s not part of this. She’s not part of us. ”
Dmitri leans forward now, his expression hardening, his smirk replaced with something sharper, colder. “And what are you so worried about, Ivan? That she can’t handle it? Or that she doesn’t belong to you ?”
The words hit like a punch, and I take a step back, my jaw tightening. Dmitri watches me, his gaze unflinching, challenging, as if daring me to admit the truth.
But I won’t. I can’t.
Dmitri’s eyes narrow. “I know exactly what I’m doing,” he says, his voice soft but sharp. “Can you say the same?”
His words hit harder than I expect, and for a moment, I can’t speak. I realize that he knows. He knows about the flicker of jealousy I felt watching that footage, the way my anger isn’t entirely about him.
He leans back in his chair. “Ah,” he says, setting his toast down with deliberate care. “So this is about her. You’re interested.”
“She’s off-limits,” I say finally, my voice like steel. “Do you understand me? Off. Limits.”
Dmitri shrugs. “Whatever you say, big brother.”
But the gleam in his eyes tells me all I need to know.
Dmitri’s smirk is back in place, as if the entire conversation we just had was a game he’s already won. My patience wears thinner with every passing second, but I force myself to stay focused.
“We don’t have time for this,” I say, my voice low, controlled. “There are real threats out there, Dmitri. The Solonov family isn’t going to sit back and wait for us to clean up our mess.”
At the mention of the Solonovs, Dmitri’s expression sharpens. “The Solonovs haven’t been a problem since we put Pavel out of commission,” he says, his tone lighter than it should be. “I doubt his son has the balls to step up.”
“Don’t underestimate Lev,” I say, my jaw tightening. “He’s been quiet, but he’s watching. And then there’s the Kovals. You think they haven’t noticed that we’re spread thin? That Luka and Mila were nearly taken yesterday?”
Dmitri leans back in his chair, his gaze thoughtful now, though he doesn’t lose that infuriating air of nonchalance. “The Kovals are cowards,” he says. “They’ll wait until they’re sure they have the upper hand.”
“And what if that’s sooner than we think?” I snap. “We can’t afford distractions, Dmitri. Not now.”
His eyes narrow, a flicker of something darker crossing his face, but before he can respond, my phone buzzes on the table. I glance down, and the moment I see the message, the world tilts on its axis.
I know what happened to her.
They’re simple words, but they hit like a punch to the gut. My chest tightens, my breath catching as I stare at the screen, the letters blurring together. It’s impossible. It can’t mean what I think it does.
“What is it?” Dmitri asks, his voice cutting through the haze.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, my voice rough. I can feel his eyes on me, probing, but I can’t look at him. My mind is racing, every nerve on edge as I try to process the message.
I type a quick reply— Who is this? What do you know? —and hit send. But the message doesn’t go through. The number is untraceable, blocked. My frustration mounts as I try again, only to be met with the same result.
“Dmitri,” I say, my voice low, urgent. “How do you trace a number that doesn’t go through?”
His brows furrow, the teasing edge gone now. He straightens, setting down his coffee. “Let me see it.”
I hesitate for a moment before handing him the phone. He glances at the screen, his expression unreadable, then looks back at me. “Who sent this?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, my voice tight. “But I need to find out.”
Dmitri nods, already pulling out his own phone. “I’ll get on it. But it’s not going to be easy. If they’ve gone to the trouble of masking the number, they know what they’re doing.”
I exhale slowly, trying to calm the storm in my chest. My mind drifts back, unbidden, to Elena. To her smile, her laugh, the way she used to hum softly when she thought no one was listening.
Her death was an accident. That’s what we were told. A car crash, the details fuzzy, the investigation inconclusive.
“Ivan,” Dmitri says, pulling me back to the present. “This is about her, isn’t it?”
I glance at him sharply, but he doesn’t flinch. His gaze is steady, his expression unreadable, but I can see the flicker of understanding in his eyes. Dmitri knows me too well to be fooled.
“She’s been gone for years,” he continues, his voice quieter now. “Why would someone bring her up now?”
“I don’t know,” I say, my voice rough. “But I’m going to find out.”
Dmitri nods slowly, his expression thoughtful. “You’re thinking it wasn’t an accident,” he says, not as a question, but as a statement.
I don’t answer, but the silence speaks for itself.
The truth is, I’ve always had my doubts. The timing was too convenient, the circumstances too strange. Elena was careful, meticulous. She didn’t make mistakes, especially not behind the wheel. But the investigation turned up nothing, and I had two children to protect. I couldn’t afford to dwell on it.
Now those doubts are back. And this message—cryptic, chilling—feels like the missing piece of a puzzle I never wanted to solve.
“Do whatever it takes to trace that number,” I say finally, my voice steady but cold. “I don’t care what it costs.”
Dmitri nods again, his gaze hardening. “Consider it done.”
If there’s even a chance that Elena’s death wasn’t an accident, I’ll burn this city to the ground to find out the truth. And God help whoever had a hand in taking her from me.