Chapter 61 Petyr
PETYR
I don’t look back.
I stalk past Luka with the single-minded intention of getting out, without trading so much as a word with him about her. I go down long, empty hallways that seem longer and emptier because I’m walking them by myself.
But it doesn’t matter that I don’t turn. She’s all I can think about.
Her wide eyes. Her trembling mouth. I can still taste the fear in her voice, raw and broken, when she asked me if I knew.
Pain, something inside me corrects me. It wasn’t fear. It was pain.
I reject that voice. Because if I let myself start believing her lies again now, I’ll never get out from under her spell.
I’ll find myself turning on my heel and going back in there like none of it matters. I’ll pull her back into my arms and never let go.
But I have to let go. It’s the only way I survive.
I can’t risk Dimitri’s life again because of my selfishness.
“Blyat’.” I drag a hand through my hair.
I need to break something with my own two hands.
I have to hit something. Wreck someone, ruin them.
Someone who isn’t Sima. Despite the threats I made about sending her back to her family in pieces, I know deep down that I’d never hurt her. Even if she deserves it.
So I need to hurt someone else. Give this fury somewhere to go before it consumes me from the inside.
I stalk out of the building. One of the security guards glances up when I pass, but whatever he sees in my face makes him look away quick.
Good. I don’t have the patience for people right now.
The drive to the warehouse feels endless, even though I take every turn too fast. My hands are locked on the wheel, knuckles scratched and bleeding.
It’s a mistake to leave her alone. The rational part of me knows I should have said something to Luka. Better yet, I should have stayed behind myself. Ensured that my prisoner had nowhere to go.
But if I’d stayed, I would have caved. I’m not so stupid that I can’t recognize weakness when I see it, even in myself. And Sima hasn’t just exploited my weakness—she’s become it.
If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll stay exactly where she is. Because I may be soft on her, but I know how to follow a trail if I need to. I’ll sic every hound I’ve got on her and drag her back by any means necessary.
And she won’t like what happens to her freedom after that.
Stop it. You won’t do it.
“Shut the fuck up,” I growl at that nagging voice inside me. Usually, it sounds like my father, but today, it’s Dimitri I’m hearing. His calm, reassuring baritone calling me out on my bullshit. “I’m doing this for you.”
No answer comes to that.
I bite my tongue until I taste blood. Sima’s face—it just won’t leave me. Her teary eyes, her wrecked expression. She was staring at me like I’d gutted her.
“You… you knew?”
Guilt hits me, even though I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. She’s the guilty one.
And she didn’t even have the balls to acknowledge it to my face.
Still, her face keeps floating there. The hurt in her eyes hit me harder than I care to admit.
I slam my palm against the steering wheel. “Fuck!” The shallow cuts on my knuckles split open again. The sting helps ground me. Pain is useful. Easy to control.
Unlike the gnawing ache I feel in my chest whenever I close my eyes and see hers. That’s another brand of pain, one I can’t allow myself to feel, because it makes me fucking weak.
And I can’t afford that.
My Bratva is relying on me. More importantly, my brother is. He’s got no one else. Either I step up, or I lose him.
And I won’t lose another piece of my soul. Not tonight.
“Idiot,” I growl at myself and pound the heel of my hand against the dash. “Fucking idiot.”
She’s a Danilo. Always has been, always will be. She’s not a piece of me—she’s a piece in my game, nothing more. No matter what sweet lies she whispers in my ear, or how soft she looks curled up naked in my bed, that fundamental truth doesn’t change.
She’s been feeding her family information. That means I’ve been played from the start.
Nothing between us was ever real.
The only thing that matters right now is getting answers. And since Sima won’t give them to me, I’ll get them from her pet assassin. Even if I have to peel him like a goddamn orange, I’ll get everything.
Then we’ll see who’s lying.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Anatoli wants to kill you. He has Lev under his thumb. That’s what I came to tell you. That’s why I came clean.”
“What—what happened to your brother?”
I hate that she managed to sound genuine then. As if she ever gave a rat’s ass about my brother’s wellbeing.
For a moment, I almost believed her.
The way she swore she had nothing to do with the attack on Dimitri—it sounded real. Too real.
What’s worse, part of me still wants to believe her.
That’s exactly why she’s so dangerous.
My father’s voice rolls over me. He always warned me about people. Said I didn’t have the brains to tell truth from lie, so I shouldn’t bother trying.
I didn’t appreciate the insinuation back then. But clearly, he was right.
I let the cold part of me take over. The pakhan, not the idiot man who got tricked by the fox in his bed.
I swore I’d lead this Bratva and protect my brother’s legacy, and that’s what I’m going to do.
Dimitri comes first, always. And if I let myself be deceived again by Sima’s acting, there’s no telling what will happen to him.
His life is worth more than my weakness. Whatever I may feel when I look at her—it doesn’t fucking matter. If she’s guilty, then I’ll drag the truth out.
And if she’s innocent?
“She’s not.” I speak those words out loud. Convince myself whatever way I have to.
It’s not impossible. That Sima was telling the truth and this is all a big misunderstanding. Someone else may be pulling the strings, though God knows it’s not Lev.
But I can’t risk my brother’s life on a maybe. I won’t. I need to keep my focus razor-sharp. No more distractions.
Finally, the city thins out. Street lights fade behind me. Warehouses rise in the dark, windows black, roofs jagged against the sky.
I suck in a breath through my nose, let it out slow, then slam the car door behind my back and walk inside. To get my answers, one way or another.
But the second I step in, I know something’s wrong. I can smell it—literally. The air is thick with the stink of copper and gunpowder, and someone is barking orders in a panic.
That someone, I realize, is Mikhael.
“Clean it fast,” he snaps at his recruits. “We don’t want the cops sniffing around this. Or worse, fucking Anatoli.”
His men fall silent, and that’s when he realizes I’ve arrived.
“Petyr,” he says. Not “cuz,” not some mocking version of “pakhan.” Just my name, like when we were kids.
That’s what tells me it must be bad.
The rest of the scene doesn’t make much more sense. Ivan is crouching by a folding chair, whispering hushed words of comfort to someone whose shoulders are shaking. Whoever it is, they’re crying.
I turn the corner, and I see her.
Kira.
Her chair sits near the far wall. Her hands are limp in her lap, eyes blank and streaming with tears. She looks like a doll someone dropped and forgot to pick up.
“Kira, look at me,” Ivan says gently, kneeling in front of her. “Just breathe, alright?”
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even fucking blink.
I whirl back to Mikhael. “What the fuck happened here?”
He hesitates. Shifts on his feet. “See for yourself,” he says eventually, and steps away from the corpse on the floor.
That’s when I see who it is.
No.
The assassin I tackled in Dimitri’s hospital room is sprawled on the concrete, a blackened hole punched straight through his brain. His glassy eyes are staring up at the ceiling. Blood pools under his head and seeps through the cracks in the floor.
The roar in my head spikes.
I came here to break this bastard myself. I needed to rip out the truth from him piece by piece.
Instead, here I am, staring at his corpse, the information still locked behind his dead eyes.
I was too late.
I’m furious. Whoever pulled that trigger just cost me more than they can imagine.
And judging by the scene before my eyes, I think I know who that is.
I walk to the culprit. Stand in front of them with a calm I don’t feel.
Then I speak.
“Did you do this?”
The culprit doesn’t speak. But eventually, their head dips once, a quiet admission of guilt.
“I’m sorry,” Kira whispers eventually, her voice broken. Her eyes drift to the gun by her feet. “I had to.”