Chapter 31
KONSTANTIN
There’s a long pause, the kind that says everyone’s thinking the same thing but no one wants to say it aloud. “What about the doctor?” I ask. “He made it out?”
“He’s safe, yeah,” Lev replies. He’s silent for a moment before he speaks again. “But are you sure it was right to let the doctor go?”
I don’t answer right away. I’m staring out the window, watching the wind nudge the branches of the elm trees that line the side fence. The warehouse is gone. Too many of my men are gone. And the doctor—our one shot at a quiet miracle for my son—is gone too.
“I couldn’t risk it anymore,” I say finally. “He was compromised the second he stepped out of that clinic. If they wanted to silence him, they would’ve done it with a bullet. But they didn’t. That means he’s leverage now. And I won’t have my son’s life turned into a bargaining chip.”
Lev nods slowly, arms crossed, his jaw working like he wants to argue but can’t quite find the ground to stand on. “So what now?” he asks.
“We come up with something else,” I say. The words feel like ash in my mouth. “We find another way to help Nikolai.”
Lev shifts his weight, looks down, then back up at me. “That’s easier said than done.”
“Everything is,” I reply. “But I didn’t make it this far by doing what was easy.”
Behind me, Nadya leans against the wall, silent. But I can feel her watching me, the weight of her presence a quiet tether keeping me from slipping too deep into the dark.
We don’t have a plan yet. Not a solid one. Not the kind that will buy my son a future without Dmitry’s shadow hanging over him.
But we’ll build one. Because there’s no other choice.
Not for my son.
Not for any of us.
It’s late, and the house is too quiet.
The kind of quiet that clings to the walls and makes your pulse throb louder than footsteps on tile. I should be sleeping—I told Lev I would, after checking on security protocols again—but I couldn’t.
I leave the house a little after four-thirty, taking the back staircase so Lev won’t hear the front door and worry Nadya with another report of my insomnia.
The kids are finally asleep—Mila curled against Nadya’s side, Nikolai propped on extra pillows so he can breathe.
I watch them for a moment longer than I should, knowing every step I take tonight could be the one that keeps them safe—or ruins us completely.
Downstairs, the garage is dark except for the green glow of the battery tenders.
I ignore the sedans and open the keyed lockbox on the wall.
Inside is a single fob—matte black, unmarked.
The armored personnel carrier we use when shipments go through contested territory sits under a tarp at the far end.
It isn’t meant for city streets or single-man crusades, but I’m done waiting for perfect circumstances.
By the time I roll the big engine out, dawn is a thin silver line over the East River.
I punch the throttle, feeling eight tons of reinforced steel surge forward, tires snarling against pavement.
My head is clear in the way it only gets when the line between survival and catastrophe is needle-thin—every breath measured, every heartbeat loud.
The phone buzzes on the console. Nadya.
I let it ring twice, then thumb the answer button on the steering spoke.
“Konstantin—where are you? I’ve been looking for you. I thought I heard something and then you aren’t in your bed.”
“I’m a little busy,” I say, keeping my eyes on the empty avenue that funnels straight toward the bridge.
There’s a pause, and when she speaks again I can hear that she’s standing up, probably pacing, the floorboards creaking in my mind’s ear. “Busy doing what? Your voice—Konstantin, what are you doing?”
I swallow, jaw tight. “I’m not going to sit back and watch everything fall apart.”
“Tell me where you are right now.” Panic edges into her words, brittle and rising.
The city blurs past; traffic lights flip to green as if the streets understand I’m not stopping. “Making sure Dmitry finally hears me,” I say. Then I end the call before her protest can reach my ears, thumb lingering on the red icon a fraction too long.
The crash still echoes in my bones as I step through the shattered front doors, boots grinding over slivers of stained glass and bits of plaster.
Smoke from detonated airbags clings to my clothes; the metallic tang of my own blood rides the back of my throat.
I follow the marble corridor by memory—past ancestral portraits lit only by wall sconces, past the empty alcove where my mother’s violin once rested.
A lone chandelier flickers overhead, crystals chiming as if the house itself trembles.
The armored truck gives one last groan before dying in the marble courtyard, steam billowing from the hood. I kick the heavy door open, metal screeching on its hinges, and step into blinding floodlights.
Three guards sprint from the portico, rifles up.
My ears are still ringing, but my sights are clear.
I fire a short burst from the carbine yanked from the back seat—rubber rounds, center mass.
Two drop hard, skidding across polished stone.
The third regains balance, squeezes off a scatter of panicked shots that chew white chips out of the fountain behind me.
I charge before he can reset, slam him against a pillar, wrench the rifle free, and butt-stroke his helmet. He slides to the ground, out cold. I let the rifle dangle from its sling and push through the double doors, shoulders heaving, pulse thundering against my ribs.
Inside, the foyer is chaos—staff scrambling, more guards barking orders.
A heavyset man steps from an archway wielding a pump-action shotgun.
I pivot left, grab a decorative spear from a wall display, and hurl it low, pinning his ankle to the hardwood.
He howls, drops the weapon. I keep moving. No time to finish him.
I know this house better than any place on earth—each corridor, each blind corner.
I vault the marble banister, land on the grand staircase, and barrel toward my father’s wing.
Footsteps thunder behind me. A guard lunges from the library threshold; I check him with a shoulder, twist his wrist until the gun clatters, then shove him into a glass curio that explodes in a storm of crystal.
The office doors loom ahead, mahogany etched with the Buryakov crescent.
Two more men stand post, but hesitation flickers in their eyes—no one expected me alive, let alone charging.
One levels a pistol. I fire first—another rubber round, dead-center.
He folds. The second drops his weapon and backs away, hands lifted.
“Out,” I snarl, and he bolts like a spooked deer.
I slam my shoulder into the doors. They shudder, resist. A second hit drives one off its hinges, wood splintering inward. I shove through and freeze.
My father is already standing, hands folded behind his back, as if the commotion is an opera he purchased tickets for months ago. The office is dim, only a banker’s lamp burning on the desk.
Blood pounds in my ears. I’m breathing hard, sweat and plaster dust in my eyes. Dmitry regards me, head tilted, a faint gleam of satisfaction curving his mouth.
“You didn’t have to kill half my security,” he says mildly.
“They’re breathing,” I rasp. “Unlike the men you burned alive last night.”
He gestures at the chair opposite his desk. “Sit.”
I stay standing, weapon raised. “If you’re going to shoot me, do it. But you stay the fuck away from my son.”
He lifts the pistol, checks the chamber with a precise click that echoes off oak paneling, then levels it. My heart barely stutters. I’ve been waiting for this barrel my entire life. But instead of firing, he lowers it—slow, deliberate—and slides it across the inlaid leather blotter.
“You’ve finally grown into your name,” he says. “A man worth fear.”
“I didn’t come for praise. What do you want from me? Why are you doing this? If you think I killed Roman, and God I wish I had, but I didn’t.”
His face hardens. “I’m beginning to suspect that.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
He doesn’t say anything, just paces the room.
“I did my own research after you accused me of trying to kill my grandson before even meeting him,” he says, clasping his hands behind his back. “Your boy’s condition—restrictive cardiomyopathy with marrow involvement. Rare. But treatable, given the right donor.”
Ice sluices down my spine. “You don’t have any fucking idea—”
His reflection in the glass is a pale shard.
“Actually I do. You see, I found out from my sources that you were trying to look for donors, international ones even. Don’t look so surprised, son.
I’m not an idiot. The only reason I didn’t find out about Nikolai and Mila sooner is because you didn’t know either.
But that’s not the point. You see, I ran the HLA markers myself after managing to get my hands on Nikolai’s reports. ”
I stand up, slamming my hands on the table. “You’ve crossed all the lines. How dare you—”
“Let me finish,” he says. Something about his voice gives me pause. He turns, and I see something unfamiliar tighten the lines around his mouth—fear, or maybe shame. “I’m a match, Konstantin. The best you’ll find.”
For a breath the room tilts, desk and gun and father all sliding out of alignment. The idea of Dmitry’s blood in my son’s veins feels like fusing lightning to fine porcelain.
“I want to donate,” he says.
I swallow hard, dizzy with disbelief. “This is another play. A collar disguised as kindness.”
His smile is thin. “If I wanted leverage, I’d have taken a hostage, not offered an organ.” He gestures to the abandoned pistol. “Do you see any shackles here? Despite what you might think of me, I don’t want my blood to die.”
I don’t answer. The floor seems to pulse beneath me, memory tangling with present. Dmitry in a gray overcoat at my first sparring match, Dmitry turning away at Mother’s funeral to answer his phone, Dmitry tonight lowering his gun. He would never do that.
“And before you brand me the villain of every tragedy,” he continues, voice gaining weight, “I did not burn your warehouse. Someone else is circling you. Someone who doesn’t care whose children get caught in the cross fire.”
“You expect me to believe you?” My voice scrapes raw.
“I expect you to want your son alive more than you want me dead.”
His words slam into the hollow part of my chest where helplessness festers. Nikolai’s fever-bright eyes, the small gasp he makes when fluid steals breath from his lungs—those memories crowd the study like ghosts.
“You tried to have me killed in Barcelona,” I say.
He doesn’t deny it. “Do you blame me? My own bastard going against me? I had to do something. And you’re here standing in front of me, aren’t you?”
I shake my head. “Then why?” I ask, because nothing about this man makes sense when he offers mercy. “Why now?”
Dmitry crosses back to the desk, places both palms flat as though bracing himself against a tide. The lamplight leaves half his face in shadow, but his eyes gleam, wet and ancient.
“Because I’m tired,” he says, and the tremor in his voice is real enough to still my pulse. “Tired of burying Buryakov sons. I buried my brother, who I’m just finding out might have died because of the same disease. I stood over my oldest son’s corpse. I will not stand over my grandson’s tomorrow.”
I search his face for the angle, the trap, the inevitable twist of the knife. But for the first time I find only a man—old, battered, haunted by ghosts of his own making.
The air quivers with possibilities—vengeance, forgiveness, ruin, redemption. I realize my knife hand is shaking.
“I could kill you now,” I say quietly, half expecting him to reach for the gun and prove me right.
“You could.” He inclines his head, accepting the truth of it. “Or you could let me save him. Then kill me after, if you still wish.”
A hollow laugh escapes me. “You think I’d let that debt linger?”
He smiles—an echo of the boy he might once have been. “We all owe someone something, Konstantin. Let me pay mine.”
In the stillness I hear my own heartbeat, feel the knotted chain of our family history tighten—and, impossibly, loosen—as if the decision has already been made. For Nikolai. For the son who carries my blood and none of my sins. I breathe out slowly, the weight of centuries pressing on my lungs.
“We do this my way,” I say at last, voice shaking. “My doctors, my schedule, my security. You disappear when it’s done.”
Dmitry nods, relief flickering like candlelight before he extinguishes it. “As you wish.”
Outside, sirens wail distantly, called by someone who heard the gate explode. Inside, the gun between us remains untouched—silent witness to a truce neither of us ever imagined.
And for the first time since the fever began, hope feels heavier than fear.