Chapter Thirty-One #2
“You lost numerous contracts because of your inability to fulfill them. With your business and your reputation damaged, the first half of my plan was a smashing success.” I didn’t just want to kill Sergei.
I wanted to ruin him. Nothing was more important to that man than his legacy.
How people saw him. I wanted to take that away from him before he died.
I wanted Sergei to fucking suffer for everything he’d done to my family.
“The second part of my plan, well, I think it’s even more devious than the first.”
For the first time, Sergei spoke. For the entire time I’d known him, he’d been an unmovable force. Strong. Powerful. Stoic. Suddenly, he looked his age. Fragile and weak.
“What did you do?” he whispered.
“I fucked with your mind. You have a yearly appointment with your physician, don’t you?”
He sucked in a harsh breath. “You didn’t.”
I smiled. “I did. You’re not dying, Sergei. You’re actually fit as a fiddle. The medication you’ve been taking has been making you worse, not better. Drug-induced paranoia is a serious thing, and something you’ve been suffering with for a while.”
It took a lot of manipulating on my part, but it was all worth it. I had to pay off several doctors and nurses to get what I wanted, and it all came from my own personal cash. It was worth every penny, if you asked me.
It had been so hard to keep it all to myself.
To not utter a single word of my plan to anyone over the past six months.
I knew if I told my siblings or my father my idea, they wouldn’t hear a bar of it.
They would think it wouldn’t work. That it was a silly plan to try and implement, and it would all be because it came from me.
So, I’d said nothing. To anyone. Just worked in the background to tarnish my grandfather in every aspect of his life.
It had all worked out perfectly. His own men were terrified of him because he was a loose cannon. Liable to snap and kill anyone he deemed as a threat, which, thanks to the drugs, was everyone in his orbit. His clients didn’t trust him to fulfill their orders anymore thanks to all the failed deals.
Everything had gone according to plan. There was just one thing left to do.
I crouched down in front of him. Sergei was in such a shocked trance he didn’t move. Didn’t acknowledge how close I had suddenly gotten to him. Astonished, bright blue eyes locked onto me.
“How did you do this?” he asked in bewilderment.
Not why did you do this, but how. How did I, Lukyan Volkov, the half-wit of the family manage to orchestrate one of the best takedowns in Mafia history?
My eyes darkened as the beast that stayed locked up inside me was finally set free.
Sergei’s eyes widened. “You’re—”
I stabbed him in the chest. He choked, sucking in a painful breath. My head tilted to the side in curiosity. “Do you see me now, Grandfather?” I whispered darkly. “Do you see the man that I am?”
His hand clamped around my wrist, trying to remove the knife. I held on tight, refusing to let it budge, and grabbed him by the hair, forcing his head up so his gaze would stay locked with mine.
“I want you to look at me,” I whispered, slowly pressing the blade in deeper and deeper.
“I want you to look into the face of the man responsible for ruining your entire legacy. Everything you worked so hard to achieve. It was all destroyed by me. The grandson you deemed a liability. The grandson you underestimated. You’re going to die today, Sergei, and you’ll die knowing it was me who took you down. ”
Blood began to slowly seep out of his mouth and down his chin. Eyes burning with hatred, he bared his teeth at me. I had to give it to the old fart, he was one tough motherfucker.
His hand moved again, and I tensed, preparing to block any attack he might try and inflict on me in his last dying moments. But he didn’t attack. His hand wandered up and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt.
A pendant of some sort was gripped between his fingers.
I cocked my head to the side. What is that?
A triumphant smile graced his lips as he pressed it. It lit up, bright and shining, and emitted a loud, ear-piercing droning noise.
Dread settled deep in my body. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t good. I yanked it off his neck and backed away, inspecting it. “What is this? What did you do?” I pushed it again and again, hoping it might undo whatever it was designed to action, but even I knew it was hopeless.
When I looked back at him, he was slouched in his chair, my blade still stuck firmly in his chest. His eyes were vacant. Lifeless. Sergei was dead, but he’d died with that fucking smile on his face.
I looked down at the pendant in my hands again. What is going on—
The door to his office burst open. Mr. Average stood in the doorway, chest heaving, panic in his eyes. The same pendant in my hands was around his neck— lit up exactly like Sergei’s.
His gaze snapped to my grandfather, taking in his dead, lifeless form, and then back to me.
He lunged.