Chapter 55 Sima
SIMA
The trunk ride doesn’t last long. I’d say thank God, but the moment the car stops, I realize I probably shouldn’t be thanking him just yet.
We screech to a stop—a trademark of my father’s men. The years may pass, but good old Bogdan and company just do not know how to ease down on the brake pedal.
The latch clicks. I’m ready to claw my way back to freedom, but that plan’s thwarted when bright fluorescent lights explode above me.
My eyes sting as they adjust. A second later, rough hands grab my arms and haul me out like I’m a duffel bag.
“Let me go!” I scream. “Get your fucking hands off of me!”
My shoes skid across the slick floor as they set me down. I smell the air, hear the way my screams bounce off, and realize we’re in some kind of garage. Big, echoing. Spotless in a way that makes me more nervous than if it were filthy. This is the kind of place that doesn’t get used for cars.
I never considered my father might have me killed, but now, I kind of am.
I barely have time to find my footing before one of them yanks me forward. We pass through a steel door and into the night again. The shift from artificial light to moonlight makes my head spin.
My brain tries to catch up to what’s happening, but everything’s moving too fast. We step out into a garden, a ridiculous one that I recognize on the spot, even if some details have varied over the years. Perfect hedges, fountains, roses lined up like soldiers.
Typical. My father always liked to dress up his rot.
The men drag me up a path of polished stone, past marble pillars and warm yellow windows, toward a house I know too well. His house. The same one that was supposed to be mine once, back when I was still someone else.
We step through the glass doors, into the foyer. It’s all chandeliers and thick, uncomfortable silence.
My kitten heels click too loudly on the floor. Every sound feels wrong, like I’ve broken something by existing here again. Just like old times.
And then I hear him.
“Bring her in.”
His voice hasn’t changed. The same smooth, cruel monotone I remember from when I was a kid.
The henchman shoves me forward. I stumble just as he emerges from the living room.
And there he is.
My father, Nikolai Danilo.
His expression curdles the moment he sees me. At his side, Maksim tenses.
“So it’s true.” Father’s voice doesn’t waver. “You’re alive.”
“You could sound happier,” I snark before I can think better of it.
Father’s face darkens instantly.
Shit. This isn’t how we play this. It’s not smart to mouth off to the man who literally holds my fate in his hands. If I want to do like the Bee Gees and keep stayin’ alive, I’m gonna need to learn how to shut it, and fast.
Maksim snorts at his side. One glare from Dad is enough to wipe the humor off his face and nail his gaze to the floor.
He descends into the foyer and stops a few steps away from me. Standing, whereas I am not. He has a fetish for looming over people. “Would you care to guess why I’m not?”
This time, I zip my mouth shut.
Father continues. “It’s because I lost two sons.” He starts pacing, the slow, measured prowl of the lion. King of the pride, fuck everyone else. “Two sons to your madness.”
“I didn’t ask you to send them after me,” I snap.
Because my heart is already cleaved in half with grief over them. Ugly, complex grief that won’t let me mourn them all the way.
Anatoli and Feliks were cruel. Too cruel for me to wish they were still in this world. The truth is, the world is better without them in it.
But they didn’t have to be cruel. They weren’t born that way. That was my father’s doing. His hand is the force that molded them into the monsters they became.
“Quiet.” He barely looks at me when he says it. He’s so used to shushing women, it doesn’t even register with him anymore. “You ran from me, Sima.” He spits my name like it’s a filthy word. “I thought you were dead.”
I wanted you to think that. I keep those words to myself, but they’re right there, on the tip of my tongue.
I ran because of you.
I disappeared because of you.
I let my mother think I was dead, let my brothers mourn me, lost the only family I’d ever had—
All because of you.
“Then Maksim found you.”
He pats my brother’s back, but Maks doesn’t look proud of himself. His gaze keeps darting away from mine. I can read the shame on his face, the second thoughts. I know, because I’ve been there, too. Making choices, facing regret.
“Unfortunately, he didn’t have the presence of mind to tell me. He told Anatoli instead. I assume you know how that turned out.”
I do. I wish I didn’t, but I do.
And yet, the alternative would have been worse. If I hadn’t told Petyr what Anatoli was planning, it would have been my husband dead on those docks. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Then Feliks picked up your trail,” Father continues. “He thought he’d go a different way. Get you last.” He clicks his tongue. “Again, that didn’t end well for him.”
His lips curl with disappointment. Not grief—disappointment. Like Feliks got himself killed for nothing and that was an inconvenience. A nuisance rather than a tragedy.
If I ever needed a reminder of why I ran, Dad is doing a spectacular job of giving it to me.
“So I had to step in.” His cold eyes finally find mine. “And I had to find out what you did.”
“What I did?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he roars, his composure suddenly gone. “You married the enemy. A Gubarev. And just to spite me a little more, you whelped for him. Had his ugly little bastard.”
“My daughter isn’t a bastard,” I growl.
And she sure as fuck isn’t ugly, I want to add, but my father cuts me off.
“She’s not a Danilo, that’s for sure.” He glares at me like I’m dirt. A stain on his perfect track record. “And neither are you.”
“Finally, something we can agree on.”
The slap comes before I can even blink.
Pain bursts across my cheek, bright and electric. My balance falters, and I hit the floor hard. The cold marble knocks the air out of me.
Terror floods my chest. He might actually kill me this time. And all I can think—stupidly, hopelessly—is that I’ll never see Petyr or Lilia again.
“Father!” Maksim’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears. He shoves past one of the guards and crouches beside me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Stay out of this,” our father snaps. “You think she’s family? She’s a traitor.”
“She’s your daughter,” Maksim protests. “My sister. She’s alive—isn’t that good news?”
“No.” His tone freezes us both. “She became a Gubarev bitch. I’d rather she was dead.”
It shouldn’t hurt as bad as it does. Shouldn’t sear through me like a knife through the heart, but God help me, it does.
Because this is my dad. The first man who should have protected me from the world. And he’s saying he’d rather have his daughter dead than married to the enemy?
Is that how little he loves me?
I don’t know why I’m surprised. Maybe, stupidly, part of me was hoping my father would act differently. That age and time would have softened his edges enough to let him see the error in his ways, make him want to change.
But of course that’s not the case. Nikolai Danilo doesn’t change. He bends the world to his will and forces everyone around him to change, even if it leads to their deaths.
Like he did to my brothers.
“Take her away.” He waves his hand dismissively. “Lock her up until I have use for her.”
Maksim’s hand finds my arm. He pulls me up, but his grip is softer than it has any right to be.
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t protest this time. “Yes, Otets.”
Our father doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. His men already have their orders.
And I already know what happens to people he plans to use.