Chapter 3 #4
Perhaps he saw a son. Perhaps only the heir he had spent decades building. With Lev, the two had always been difficult to separate.
“Hold them together, Danya.”
“I will.”
His fingers tightened once.
“Pakhan.”
The word left him with his last breath.
His hand slipped from my wrist.
I kept pressure on the wounds.
Pointless.
My body did not accept what my mind knew. I pressed harder. Blood moved around my fingers. Lev’s eyes stayed open, fixed on a point beyond my shoulder.
“Father.”
Nothing.
I had imagined his death before. Any heir did. A hospital. A rival’s bullet. His heart failing behind the desk where he had ruled for most of my life.
I had imagined standing beside the chair and taking the weight from him in an orderly transfer.
I had not imagined kneeling in his blood while Mikhail Orlov’s daughter knelt in her father’s.
The room filled with footsteps.
Arkady entered first, weapon drawn. Nikita came behind him. Two of our men followed and stopped at the threshold.
Arkady saw Lev.
His face emptied.
Then it filled with violence.
“Who?”
“Leonid Gusev,” Anton said.
Arkady turned toward the rear passage.
“He’s gone,” Anton added. “For now.”
“We seal the streets,” Arkady said. “Every Orlov vehicle. Every Orlov man in this building.”
Anton stood.
His father’s blood marked both knees of his trousers.
“The murders happened inside a Sokolov building.”
Arkady took one step toward him. “Choose your next words carefully.”
“My father came here under your protection.”
“Your men—”
“They killed our fathers together because they want us to kill each other separately.”
Ksenia’s voice cut through both men.
She stood slowly. Blood covered her hands and the front of her green dress. Her face had gone pale. Tears stood in her eyes but had not fallen.
She looked at Arkady first.
Then Anton.
“The garage failed,” she said. “So they did this. One Sokolov guard shot by an attacker dressed as staff. Both fathers killed by a trusted waiter. A rear passage left open. Every detail gives us someone else to blame.”
Arkady’s chest rose and fell.
Anton stared at her.
She turned to me.
I was still kneeling beside Lev.
Pakhan.
The word had changed the room before anyone else understood it.
My father’s authority no longer existed. It had not dispersed. In our world, power did not tolerate emptiness.
It had moved to me.
I rose.
Blood slicked my palms. My shirt cuffs were red. Every face in the room turned toward me.
Grief could come later.
If I allowed it now, men would die before midnight.
“Seal Volna,” I said.
My voice sounded unchanged.
That was useful.
“No one leaves. Restaurant, baths, kitchen, offices. Every exit is locked and guarded.”
One of our men reached for his phone.
“Collect every phone in the building,” I continued. “Guests, staff, family. No calls except through Nikita.”
Nikita nodded. No joke. No smile.
“Pull all security recordings. Entrance, kitchen, service corridors, street. Preserve the devices, not only the files.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Arkady.”
He looked at me.
“You do not retaliate.”
His face hardened. “Daniil.”
“That was an order.”
“Gusev—”
“We find him. We take him alive if possible. No Voronin property is touched. No Orlov man is detained except under the same rules as everyone else inside this building. You do not retaliate, Arkady.”
Arkady stared at me as though I had struck him.
“When you’re Pakhan, you can punish us.”
His words from the security room returned.
Hours ago, they had been a joke.
Now Lev’s blood cooled on my hands.
“I am Pakhan,” I said.
Something broke in Arkady’s expression.
Not resistance.
Grief.
He looked at our father’s body. Then back at me.
“Yes, Pakhan.”
Anton turned to the Orlov men gathering outside the door.
“You heard him,” he said. “Orlov personnel comply. Phones surrendered. Vehicles stay where they are. No one acts without my order.”
The men hesitated.
Anton’s voice dropped.
“Now.”
They moved.
Ksenia remained beside Mikhail. One hand rested on the back of his chair, though he no longer sat in it. Perhaps she needed the support. Perhaps she did not realize she was using it.
I looked at her across the bodies of our fathers.
Minutes ago, I had held her against a corridor wall and wondered what else could make her blush.
I had wanted time.
Time to ask why she built old buildings back into something useful. Time to tell her I had noticed her. Time to learn what lived beneath her careful dresses and watchful eyes.
That time had ended before it began.
Now she was Mikhail’s daughter.
Anton’s sister.
The living point where the Orlov alliance could either hold or rupture.
And I was Lev’s son no longer.
I was Pakhan.
Ksenia met my gaze. Grief stripped every polite layer from her expression.
There was no softness in it.
There was trust, but only enough for the next decision.
For now, that would have to be enough.
“Together,” she said quietly.
Her father’s last instruction.
My father’s too.
I nodded.
Across their blood, before we had the chance to become anything else, Ksenia Orlova and I became allies.