Chapter 21 #2
“Michael.” I made my voice gentle, careful. “You allied with the Bratva who wanted to kill my husband. Tell me about that.”
His expression changed, pride surfacing across his features. “The Pakhan was very interested in knowing where you were hiding. We helped each other. His men flushing you out, me watching from the shadows. He wanted your husband dead.” Michael smiled, thin and cold. “I just wanted you.”
The alliance. He had given our location to Max’s enforcers. Every attack, every close call, every moment of running for our lives. Michael had been feeding information to killers who wanted us dead, just so he could keep tracking me.
The attack in the cabin. The enforcers who had nearly cornered us.
Dmitri bleeding out while we ran for our lives.
Every moment of terror, every sleepless night, every desperate escape.
Michael had orchestrated all of it. Not directly, perhaps, but by feeding intelligence to creatures who would have torn us apart without hesitation.
“You could have gotten me killed.”
“I was always watching.” His voice was patient, like I was missing the obvious point. “I would never have let anything happen to you. The Russians were just tools, Lena. Means to an end. Once they served their purpose, I was going to take you somewhere safe, somewhere he could never find you.”
“I almost died.” The words came out harder than I intended. “Bullets were flying. Men were shooting at me. Your Bratva allies didn’t care about your plan to keep me safe.”
Michael’s expression did not change. “I would have intervened if it came to that.”
“You weren’t there.” I stared at him, seeing the delusion for what it was. “You were watching from the shadows while I ran for my life. You can’t stop a bullet with surveillance footage, Michael.”
Barely controlled rage bled into my awareness from where Raphael waited.
The alliance had cost us everything. Days of running.
Dmitri wounded. Viktor risking his life in the challenge against Max.
And all of it because Michael had decided to ally with monsters to claim me for himself.
His wolf strained against his control, fury radiating through the bond at what Michael had done to our pack, to our family.
Raphael was moving now, his coiled energy positioning for the strike. Viktor and Dmitri were in position too, surrounding the cabin, closing off any escape. It was almost time.
But I needed to do this first. One last thing before the violence began.
“Michael.” I waited until his eyes met mine. “I’m sorry our father failed you. He failed us both.”
The words landed with physical force. Michael’s mask cracked, the careful composure shattering for just a moment. Grief welled up in his eyes, raw and unguarded, the pain of a child who had never been wanted bleeding through the man’s facade.
“He gave you everything.” The words were barely a whisper. “The hotel. The money. His name. And he gave me nothing but a job and silence. Like I didn’t exist. Like I was something to be ashamed of.”
“He treated you that way.” I held his gaze, refusing to look away from his pain. “Richard Hughes was a coward who abandoned a child rather than face his own mistakes. That was wrong. You deserved better than that.”
Michael’s expression changed. Not the hunger, not the obsession.
Softer. Almost human. His eyes glistened, and for one heartbeat the little boy he must have been shone through.
The child who had watched from the shadows while his father built a life with another family.
The son who had never been claimed, never been loved, never been allowed to belong.
I thought about what it would have been like to grow up that way. To know your father was alive, was successful, was giving everything to a daughter who did not even know you existed. To watch from the outside while someone else lived the life you should have had.
It did not excuse what Michael had done. Nothing could excuse murder and stalking and alliance with killers. But for one fragile moment, I understood the wound that had festered into this obsession.
For one fragile moment, the brother Michael could have been became visible.
The man who might have walked into my life openly, who might have introduced himself as family and given us both a chance to heal the wounds our father had left behind.
The man who might have been loved, if he had only chosen differently.
Then the moment passed.
“But none of that changes anything,” I said. “I told you before. You made a real relationship impossible the moment you chose obsession over honesty.”
“Lena.” His voice was warning now, the grief hardening back into something dangerous.
“You could have introduced yourself. You could have told me the truth about who you were. Instead you watched me from the shadows for years and killed anyone who got in your way.” I shook my head. “That’s not love, Michael. That’s possession.”
“Everything I did was for us.”
“There is no us.” I kept my voice steady, even though my heart was racing and my wrists were screaming and Raphael was coiling to strike just outside the walls. “I already have a family with someone else.”
“Your mobster.” Michael’s voice went flat, all emotion draining away.
“My husband. My choice.”
The words hung in the air between us. Final. Irrevocable. I had offered him compassion, had acknowledged the wound our father had left in both of us. I had given him something real, something true. And he had not been able to accept it.
The silence stretched between us, thin and brittle as ice over deep water. Michael stared at me with eyes that had gone dead, all the hunger and hope bled out of them, leaving only the husk of a man who had lost everything he thought he wanted.
The bond went quiet. Raphael had stopped moving, his focus absolute, his readiness complete. He knew what was coming, could feel my certainty, my acceptance of what was about to happen.
Then Michael’s lips curled into something that was not quite a smile.
“Then he can watch you die.”
He stood, crossing toward the door where he had set down the gun when he came in.
His movements were calm, measured, like a man following a script he had memorized long ago.
This was always how it was going to end, I realized.
No matter what I said, no matter what choice I made.
In Michael’s mind, there was only one ending to this story, and he had been walking toward it for years.
I had given him every chance. Every opportunity to step back from the edge, to find some human part of himself that was still capable of connection. And he had chosen this instead.
Clara’s breath hitched in the corner, a sob she was trying to swallow. I wanted to tell her it would be okay. I wanted to promise that we would both walk out of this cabin alive. But I could not make promises while watching Michael reach for the weapon that could end everything.
Then he was moving. The coiled stillness erupted into motion, all fury and speed, a wolf who had run out of patience.
Now.
Michael’s hand closed around the gun.
I braced myself against the chair, my raw wrists straining against the loosened rope, every muscle tensed for whatever came next.
Clara was sobbing across the room, small, broken sounds that barely registered over the thundering of my own heartbeat.
I wanted to go to her. I wanted to put my arms around her and promise that the nightmare was almost over.
But my hands were bound. And the nightmare was still unfolding.
Raphael was closing in. Not just Raphael. Viktor’s steady presence off to the right, Dmitri’s controlled fury to the left. The pack was here. All of them. Ready to tear apart anyone who threatened what belonged to them.
What belonged to Raphael.
Me.
Outside, something moved in the darkness. Fast. Inhuman.
Michael turned toward the door, the gun rising in his hand.
The door exploded inward. A massive black wolf crashed through the splintering wood, all teeth and fury.
Michael fired.
The sound was deafening in the small cabin. Clara screamed. And through the bond…
Nothing.
Silence.