Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
FIONA
Once we arrive back home, I change into clean clothes, the shower with Aleksei helping me feel a bit more human.
With his hand in mine, we head downstairs and I know I’m going to have to face my parents. Konstantin had already told them what happened before Aleksei and I got home, and I’m sure they’re nervous, as they should be.
“It will be okay,” Aleksei says as we make it down the stairs, his lips pressing to my forehead right before we enter the den, where he said they’ll be waiting.
My arms curl around him for a moment too long, and he grips me against his chest.
“You do not have to talk to them if you don’t want to. They can wait.”
“No.” I pull back. “I want to get it over with.”
Squeezing his hands, I draw in a long inhale.
“I will be nearby.” He kisses the corner of my mouth before he turns and leaves.
Then I make my way to the two people I used to trust more than anyone in this world. They don’t say anything at first. Neither do I. The silence between us is heavy, thick with everything that’s happened, everything they never told me.
My mother tries to meet my gaze, but her eyes are already glistening with unshed tears, and my father won’t even lift his head. They sit on the sofa like they’ve aged twenty years in the span of a few hours.
A part of me wants to scream at them and demand they explain how they could do this, how they could lie for so long. But no words come. It’s like I have a million things to say, but I don’t know where to start.
“I’m sorry, Fiona,” Mom finally whispers, brows knitting tightly. “Please try to understand where we were coming from.”
I look at her, and for the first time, I actually see the fear etched there.
“My father…” she starts and pauses like it’s all so difficult. “He was a horrible man. He didn’t care about me. All he wanted was money and power, and I was just a thing he could use to get more.
“Your father…” She takes his hand and kisses his knuckles. “He was my only love, and when he told me we could run together, that he knew people who could make us disappear, I took the chance. Because I was already pregnant with you, and we needed to protect you.”
I swallow, throat thick as she continues.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew how you felt. About people like my family.” Her words falter. “Knowing where you came from, what you were tied to, it would’ve broken you.”
She’s right. Back then, it would have. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. But now that I’m married to Aleksei, nothing is the same.
My mother wipes her cheeks. “We are truly sorry, tesoro. I just did what I thought was right for you.”
I close my eyes. “And selling me? Was that protecting me too?”
Her face crumples, and this time it’s my father who speaks, finally lifting his gaze.
“That was wrong. We were wrong, stellina. We made a grave mistake, and for that, we will always pay the price.”
I blink back the swell of tears trapped in my lower lashes.
“If you can’t forgive us,” he says, “I understand. Because I can’t forgive myself either.”
“I just…it’s all too much right now. It’s like I’m getting hit with one thing after another, and I don’t know how much more I can take.”
They sit there, this gaping chasm between us full of everything they’ll never be able to take back. And still, some broken part of me wants to reach across it. Because they’re my parents. Because no matter how much they lied, how much they failed me, they love me in the only way they know how.
“Is there anything else you’ve been keeping from me?” I ask. “Because now is the time to tell me.”
My mother shakes her head. “There’s nothing else, Fiona. I swear to you.”
“She’s right,” Dad adds. “And you listen to me. We’ll give you all the space you need. We’ll move out. We shouldn’t be here.”
I shake my head. “No. Stay. Please. At least until Aleksei finds whoever’s left and ends this. It’s not safe yet.”
Mom’s gaze drops to her lap. “I’m so sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am for all of it.”
“I know.” I walk to her and take her hand, squeezing it gently.
Her chin shakes, and something inside my chest gives way. I don’t know who I’m comforting anymore: her, myself, or all of us at once.
A hollow silence settles over the room, stretching between us. None of us speak because there are no words left. Just the quiet, and everything we’re trying so hard to hold together.
ALEKSEI
Konstantin leans over the counter, phone set to speaker as it rings, while my knuckles ache from clenching them too hard.
But I can’t stop. Every image that flashes through my mind is Fiona. Her cheek scratched up, the bandage I put on the back of her neck where they ripped the damn tracker out of her like savages.
I cannot wait to tear Elio’s throat out.
The line clicks, and then Adriano Scutari’s voice fills the room. “Konstantin. To what do I owe the call?”
“We plan to kill your uncle, Elio, and everyone associated with him. He took Fiona and tried to marry her off to the Volkovs.” His tone stays even and composed, like he’s just listing what he plans to have for dinner.
“If the Grazia family stands in our way, it will be taken as a declaration of war.”
There’s a pause, enough to hear Adriano thinking on the other end, calculating how to answer without appearing weak.
“We understand,” he finally says. “As you already know, my uncle was acting on his own. Neither my father nor I are involved. Whatever you need to do, you have our permission.”
Konstantin glances at me, his mouth curving into a faint, satisfied smile before he speaks again. “Very good. That is what we wanted to hear. Do you know where he and his men could be hiding?”
He sighs, like he knows he has no choice but to tell us. “He owns a shipping warehouse in Brooklyn. If I had to guess, that’s where he’d be hiding.”
Konstantin’s satisfaction grows. “We appreciate this. Please tell your father we send our regards.”
“Thank you.”
“I think after this is over, we all need to talk and figure out how to better unite our families so this never happens again.”
“We look forward to it.”
“Us too. Speak soon.” Konstantin ends the call and fixes his stare on me. “We end this tonight.”
He doesn’t need to tell me to get ready. I’ve been at war since the moment they took her, and I won’t rest until I have their heads.
I hated leaving her, but this had to be done. We return to Brooklyn, our men stationed around the warehouse, mere miles from where they were keeping Fiona. Surveillance revealed that the Volkovs are definitely inside. And if they are there, so is Elio.
We fan out without a word, the click of safeties releasing the only warning this place will get. Kirill and Anton peel off toward the back with half the men, while Konstantin and I move in from the front.
Two guards by the entrance never make it to their radios.
My silencer takes the first clean through the eye, while Konstantin drops the other with a single shot to the throat.
They collapse like puppets with their strings cut, and we’re already through the door, while Kirill and Anton shoot their way inside, surrounding them from all sides.
Gunfire cracks like thunder through the large space as men scramble, none of them prepared. We took most of their guys out already, and they barely have any here. Five, ten maybe.
One stumbles with a pistol raised, and I put three rounds in his chest before his weapon clears the doorway. Another tries to retreat, but Kirill intercepts him mid-turn, shooting him point-blank in the gut, then his head.
We clear the space body by body, the air thick with gunpowder and the scent of death. Screams echo while I scan the space for Elio, needing him alive.
Just as I head for the back door, I find him trying to escape with three men surrounding him. I let out a shot, dropping one of them, while Konstantin and Anton surround the others.
“Took you long enough,” Elio drawls, a smug grin on his face.
I raise my gun, the muzzle aligned perfectly with the center of his skull. “Your own nephew gave you up. You must not be worth much.”
He chuckles. “Neither is my nephew. Weak little bastard, like his father.”
My temples pound so hard, the floor seems to vibrate beneath my boots as I think about how Fiona must have felt when they tore that tracker out of her.
“You’re going to wish for death when I’m done with you.” I step into his space, his men doing nothing about it.
He doesn’t flinch. “We all die, my friend. I am not scared of anyone. Especially you.”
The words barely leave his mouth before I slam the butt of my gun into his temple with a sickening crack.
A sudden thud echoes from the left, somewhere behind a stack of boxes. I meet Konstantin’s eyes and jerk my chin, letting him know I’m going to check it out. Kirill falls in behind me, gun raised, covering my flank as I move forward.
When I round the corner and see who’s crouched there, a laugh breaks out of me.
“Well, well. Daniil Volkov. We have been looking for you.”
The Pakhan of the Volkovs looks nothing like he once did. The years have aged him poorly. He’s, what? Sixty-five? Too bad he won’t see to sixty-six.
“Ya tvayu mamu yibal,” he curses, like I would even care what comes out of his mouth.
Konstantin answers without missing a beat. “That’s not very polite.”
“My brother’s right.” I fire a single round into his foot.
He howls, collapsing, and I grab him by the collar, dragging him out to the SUV, while our men take Elio and all the others who are still clinging to life. The bastard groans in the back next to Elio, head lolling.
Wait until they find out what I have planned for them.
Konstantin’s estate rises as we make it down the private road, heading toward the barn, where his Calabrian pigs wait for their dessert.
All fifteen of them.
Once the vehicles stop, we haul them out of the SUVs one by one, forced to their knees in the dirt as zip ties cinch tight around their wrists.
Elio laughs. “Well, this is dramatic.”
Konstantin steps forward, hands behind his back like he’s about to give a lecture. “We like the entertainment. Life tends to be boring otherwise, don’t you think?”
A slow, knowing grin curves across Elio’s mouth, while Daniil’s face twists with rage.
Elio lifts his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Then let’s not drag it out.”
I move in, crouching down in front of the two of them, forcing their eyes to meet mine.
“You laid your hands on my wife.” My tone is anything but calm. “You ripped her tracker out and left her bleeding like an animal. You enjoyed it when she screamed, didn’t you, Elio?”
He doesn’t deny it. “She’s still alive, isn’t she? Don’t I get a thank-you for that?”
In an instant, I grab him by the collar and slam his head into the ground, the impact cracking through the dirt. The others flinch, but no one dares move.
Mud streaks his face, blood mixing with it, and I plant my boot on the back of his neck, grinding down until he groans.
“You’re not dying quickly.” I press harder. “You will feel every second of what you did to her. And you will die screaming.”
He wheezes out something that might’ve been a laugh…until Konstantin places the bone saw in my hand. Then the color drains from his face.
“What…what are you going to do with that?” he whispers.
“Teach you a lesson you will never forget. Not even in hell.”
Digging his face into the dirt, I let the rage take over as I slice through the length of his back, his screams adding to the beauty of the moment. I cut through flesh and grate against bone, just beside his spine.
When he cries, it doesn’t slow me. It feeds something feral inside me. I carve down the other side, the earth drinking his blood as the crack of his ribs echoes, flesh splitting beneath my hands.
Dropping the saw, I reach inside him, fingers slick with blood, and rip out his lungs, setting them carefully on his back like butchered wings.
“You are not laughing now, are you?”
He shudders, twitching in the dirt, his body broken, but he’s not dead yet.
“No, no, please!” Daniil breaks completely, sobbing like a coward.
I shove his body down, the saw slicing across his back. His scream tears through the air, and I leave him with his lungs on his back too, his face angled toward Elio so they can watch each other die.
When I straighten, my gaze drifts over to the rest of their men. The fear hits them all at once. Some beg. Others sit in silence, knowing there is no point. They will die today.
Lucky for them, I do not have time to drag this out. I want to get back to my wife, who needs me.
Picking up my gun, I level it at the first man’s skull and pull the trigger. One by one, they fall, and I feel nothing but the cold clarity of vengeance.
When the last one collapses at my feet, I walk away. From the blood, the wreckage, from death itself.
Because I have something worth living for now. And she’s the only thing that matters.