8. Ivan
8
IVAN
I make my way to my office, the quiet of the halls swallowing Cathy’s last shouts. She’s under my roof, on my terms, and every inch of resistance will only feed my need to see her crumble at my feet.
I marry her. I get revenge on that piece of shit she was engaged to. That’s all that matters in this life. Revenge. Never let those who wrong you get away with it.
My second-in-command, Nikita “Nik” Kozlov, is waiting for me in the office, drink in hand.
Nik’s as solid as they come, built like a tank with broad shoulders and a scar slicing down his left cheek onto his neck, a memento from an old vendetta.
He’s wearing a faded leather jacket over his black shirt, his stance relaxed but alert. Nik is the only man I trust with sensitive orders, and he rarely disappoints.
He gives me a curt nod as I step inside, shutting the door behind me. “We have an issue, Ivan. Thought you’d want to hear about it first.”
“Go on,” I say, settling behind the desk.
“Yuri Petrovitch,” he says, voice laced with contempt. “Ten percent off the top.”
“I know about that. The cost of business. You wouldn’t come all this way to tell me that.”
“He’s not just been skimming from the shipments.” His eyes narrow. “He’s been selling the missing product, undercutting our prices to the same users.”
I let out a cold laugh. “Did he think I wouldn’t notice?” I keep my voice calm, though inside, a dark satisfaction coils. This kind of disloyalty deserves nothing less than the kind of brutal correction I most enjoy. Blood will spill.
I study Nik, who’s watching me closely, clearly waiting for permission.
“Should I talk to him?” he asks, keeping his expression carefully neutral. Nik knows what I’ll say, but he’s giving me the chance to decide just how far this punishment should go.
I shake my head. “I don’t give warnings to men who cheat me, Nik.” My tone is cold, each word carrying the weight of finality. “Bring me his head.”
“He’s worked for us for twenty years. Are you sure?”
“Mercy is for the weak,” I reply, my voice steady, almost clinical. “If we show any sign of it, our enemies will see it as a weakness to exploit.”
He nods again, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. “I’ll take care of it.”
He fetches me a drink, a heavy glass bottle in hand, two glasses balanced in the other. He places them on the table, and as he does, I catch sight of the faint scar running all the way along the back of his neck. The jagged line, faded with age, serves as a reminder of a lesson we learned young, too young.
He pours the drinks, and my mind drifts back, pulled to a memory as vivid as if it happened yesterday—a bar, thick with smoke, the harsh lights catching on the gleaming bottles behind the counter.
I was only eleven, Nik beside me, just a boy himself, and my father seated across from us, looking more like a king surveying his court than the man who’d raised me.
The bar was tense, filled with men who’d only known violence as their way of communication, but as a child, I believed that my father would protect me. He was a king, after all, and kings don’t abandon their own.
But that night, he did.
It happened so fast. The first scuffle broke out, and my father’s eyes darted away from me, toward the back exit. I called to him, barely understanding the situation, but his steps only quickened, his figure disappearing into the shadows as Italian mafia men turned their attention to us.
Nikita took a hit first, a bottle smashing across his neck. He cried out, blood flowing faster than I thought possible, and instinct took over. There was no help, no saving grace—just survival.
I pushed back, feeling a wave of cold resolve I hadn’t known existed within me. I shielded Nikita with my body, snatching a gun from the hand of the nearest man. I killed for the first time that night.
In that moment, I understood the lesson my father was teaching me: no one is there to protect you but yourself. Not even your own blood. You take care of yourself in this life, no one else will.
Nikita raises his glass to mine, snapping me back to the present. His face gives away nothing, but I know he remembers that night.
It was a brutal lesson, one that cut deep enough to scar us both.
I take a sip, letting the burn of the drink settle over that cold, familiar memory, solidifying my resolve.
Compassion is nothing but a liability—a chain that can pull you down when you least expect it. My father taught me that, intentionally or not, and I’ve lived by it ever since.
“Do you ever show mercy?” he asks, leaning back, swirling his drink. “I mean, ever?”
“Mercy is for the weak.”
My thoughts shift to another time, a different betrayal, but one that served to sharpen my beliefs.
It was during my teenage years, just after I’d managed to build a network of friends, the kind you think will watch your back no matter what.
One friend in particular, Misha, had grown close to me over the years. We’d made our own plans, toasted to each other’s health, even laughed about carving out our place in the Bratva together. I trusted him—foolishly, I now know.
But trust is a weakness same as mercy, and Misha made sure I learned it. One night, after too many drinks, he betrayed me, selling my name to the authorities in exchange for a bribe.
I barely escaped that night, the sharp sting of betrayal far worse than the close call with the law. My trust blinded me, led me into a trap. I’d seen him as a brother, and he’d sold me off without a second thought.
As Nikita and I drink in silence, I can feel the old anger simmering under the surface, the kind that steels my resolve rather than weakening it. Trust no one. Take care of number one.
Nikita glances at me, as if sensing the tension. “The plan, is it in motion? Sergei told me Peter got Cathy here.”
“It all proceeds exactly as planned,” I reply, my voice cold and unwavering.
“At last Elena will be avenged,” he says, raising his drink. “Vashee zda-ró-vye.”
I return the toast, letting my gaze drift past Nikita, staring into the shadows of the room as a final memory rises, one I rarely allow myself to revisit.
My sister, younger than me by ten years, the only spark of light in my world. She grew up sheltered, protected from the life I’d known, her laughter bringing warmth to my darkest days whenever she returned from her school in Geneva.
She was everything that I wasn’t—kind, trusting, innocent. And she paid the price for it.
She met Jimmy five years ago. She’d gone looking for the small town experience in America. Found him. He wormed his way into her life, charming her with lies, treating her like a possession.
My hands clench around my glass as I remember her desperation, her heartbreak in those final messages. The darkness she couldn’t escape finally claimed her, and she took her own life.
He took her light and twisted it, poisoned it. And now, he thinks he can get his claws into Cathy just because of who her father is?
He found out who Elena was after she died. Then he hid like a fucking coward while I hunted him. I finally found him a year ago. Was planning to torture him to death until I saw Cathy. I couldn’t help myself. I started watching her. Twelve months I watched her, found out everything about her, became obsessed with her.
I found out who her father was, and why Jimmy picked her as his next victim.
I got caught in her innocence and the little prick vanished again. Like a cockroach, off hiding in the dirt somewhere.
I found out she was in the city. Found out she needed work. Put my plans into motion the same day. Now here she is, locked in a bedroom.
Nikita shifts, a faint flicker of something softening his usually hard gaze. “Elena was something else. She kept us all sane.”
I nod, swallowing down the anger and pain. “He destroyed that.” I glance over at Nikita, feeling the weight of our shared grief. “He will suffer as she did. The waiting will only make the pain sweeter when it comes.”
An alarm barks into life on the wall. I whip out my cellphone and check the source. “Fire, Cathy’s bedroom,” I say.