Chapter 63 Petyr
PETYR
The docks are quiet at this hour.,
Lev is driving, his hands steady on the wheel, but I can see the tension in the tight set of his jaw. His eyes won’t meet mine. His posture is rigid, spine drawn straight, muscles clenched enough to snap. Too goddamn controlled.
The sight grates on me. It’s unlike him. I’ve known the man for a decade. Long enough to recognize when he’s hiding something.
Or so I fucking thought.
Doubt chews at the back of my skull. About Lev, but also about Sima. The two of them won’t stop circling each other in my thoughts, and it makes me restless.
Lev’s shifty act could mean nothing. He could be worried about his own fucking business, or even just about the meeting.
But if he’s really compromised, that means Sima wasn’t lying to me. She told me the truth about Anatoli’s plans and Lev’s involvement in them.
Which means she might have been telling the truth about all of it.
She swore she knew nothing about Dimitri’s attack. That she had no idea what I was talking about. She said she hasn’t been in contact with her family since the day she ran, except for her chance meeting with two of her brothers.
I treated her like a liar, but the truth is, I don’t know. All I have are my suspicions and the odd timing of the attempt on my brother’s life.
But if she really had nothing to do with it…
I don’t want to think about the implications of that possibility. The things I said to her are still fresh in my mind. The look on her face, too, when I told her I’d known all along who she was. I played the villain just so she wouldn’t have the satisfaction of thinking she’d won.
But if she never betrayed me, then she was never playing a part at all.
I shove those doubts as deep as they’ll go. I did what I had to; I’m in the right. Protecting Dimitri takes precedence, always.
If there’s even the slightest chance Sima might be in league with her family, then I have to act accordingly.
For my brother’s sake.
But that certainly slips with every second that ticks by.
Finally, Lev pulls into a spot at the far end of the docs. He kills the engine and turns to me.
“This is where Anatoli wants to meet,” he says, like he’s practiced the words a thousand times. “Neutral ground.”
I lean back in my seat for a long moment, eyes fixed on the dark water. Then I turn to face him. “Tell me again how exactly Anatoli’s man reached you.”
Lev blinks. The glow from the dash lights up his face just enough for me to see it drain. “What do you mean?”
“We aren’t on speaking terms with the Danilo men. If one really had approached you, you would have shot first, asked questions later. That’s our policy.” I level him with my gaze. “Cut the bullshit, Lev. I’m not in the mood for more lies.”
“I’m not—”
“How long have you been working for Anatoli?”
His mouth opens, shuts. He grips the wheel tighter. “It’s not like that.”
“Then tell me what it’s like. Because, from where I’m standing, Anatoli suddenly trusts you enough to send you his messenger, and you trusted him enough to let him talk. That means you rolled on me.”
Lev swallows hard. “You’ve got it wrong.”
“Is that right?” I lean closer. “You can’t even fucking look at me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair is that you’ve been compromised for God knows how long, and you didn’t even have the courtesy of betraying me to my face.” My tone sharpens. “That’s right. I know.”
“You don’t underst—”
“I know, Lev.”
For once, he doesn’t bother denying it.
Good. I’ve had enough of being insulted tonight.
“You’ve been feeding the Danilos intel.” Even in the dim light, I can see his face pale as I speak. “Maybe scraps, maybe more. But you’ve been in bed with them. I want to know how far back it goes.”
Lev’s lips press into a thin line. Finally, he lets out a bitter laugh, but that too dies fast. “Fuck. You don’t make it easy, do you?”
“You’ve known me for a decade. You should know I never make it easy.”
“Right,” he mutters with a half-smile. “Shouldn’t have forgotten that.”
He shifts in the driver’s seat. His fingers drum against the wheel, faster with every second. But his gaze stays locked on the black water ahead.
“I never set out to betray you, Petyr. Never. I just… Got in over my head.”
His words reek of excuses. I swallow the urge to vomit. “Over your head with what?”
“Gambling.” He sounds ashamed as he says it. “Cards, dice, whatever I could get my hands on. Every time, I thought I could win it all back. But…” he trails off.
“But you didn’t.”
He nods once. “By the time I realized how deep I was, I was drowning.”
I settle back, jaw locked. Lev, of all people, turned on me for fucking money. If anyone had told me this, I would have put their head on a spike.
But someone did tell you, that ugly part of me whispers. Sima did.
And how did you repay her?
I shake off that thought hard. Right now, I can’t afford to get distracted. I need to focus on what matters.
“How much?”
Lev’s lips twitch downwards. “Half a mil. Not impossible to pay back, but the people I got into bed with weren’t keen on waiting. If I didn’t pay up, they’d have sold me for parts.”
My fists curl on my thighs. A half-million—that’s nothing to me. Men like us make ten times that with a single delivery.
But if Lev was deep into debt already and kept overspending, then even that sum could become a problem.
He could have come to me. Why didn’t he just fucking come to me?
“Anatoli found out,” he continues. “Paid it all off. Said all he needed in return was a name.”
“A name,” I echo.
“Yes. Just one. One of our weapons suppliers.”
Fucking figures. So that’s who sold out our shipment to the Italians. He told the Danilos where to intercept it, how to grab it and disappear.
I’ve been looking for a leak, but all along, the rat was right by my fucking side.
“I thought that would be the end of it.” Lev sounds more panicked now, less in control. “One piece of intel, and I’d walk away clean. Figured it wouldn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. No real harm done.”
Except for the driver I killed, I think angrily.
“But then Anatoli came back. Again and again. Every time, he wanted something more. If I didn’t give him what he asked, he was going to tell you what I’d done.
” Lev’s tone turns pleading. “I was trapped, Petyr. The more I gave him, the deeper he dragged me. I couldn’t go back anymore. I just couldn’t.”
I study him in the dash light. His cheeks are pale, his voice raw, but I can’t tell if it’s guilt or fear that has him by the throat. Maybe both.
“By the time I realized how much trouble I was in, it was already too late.” He looks at me, finally, eyes hollow and desperate. “You have to believe me. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“Any of what?”
“Everything.”
The word settles heavily between us. Somehow, Lev’s confession does nothing to soothe the hammering in my ears. Instead, it feeds it, until it’s all I can do not to break him where he sits.
“Most of it was small things,” he adds. “Ways to get his people set up here. Where the cops turn a blind eye, which businesses to lean on, names that wouldn’t be missed if they disappeared. But then he asked for a location.”
“A location?”
He drags a hand down his face. “Anatoli… He asked where your father was going to be. On a certain day.”
The implication sinks slowly, then fast. “You told him where my father would be the day he died.”
Lev flinches hard. “I didn’t know what he was planning. I swear it, Petyr. I thought—”
“You thought what?” I snap. “That Anatoli wanted to send him flowers? Write him a polite fucking letter?!” My hands slam on the dash. “Why the fuck would Anatoli Danilo want to know where my father was, if not to goddamn kill him?!”
Lev’s eyes squeeze shut. I can read the pain on his face, but right now, I don’t fucking care. “I didn’t think—”
“No, you didn’t. You only thought of yourself.”
“That’s not—”
“You were supposed to be with them that day!” I roar. “With my father and Dimitri. You were supposed to watch their backs, protect them. Instead, you handed Anatoli the bullet he needed, and you left them wide fucking open!”
His face crumples. “I had no idea he’d go that far. I swear it, Petyr.”
“Well, you fucking should have,” I snarl. “Because now, my father is dead. My brother’s in a coma. And all of it is on you.”
“I—”
“You put them in Anatoli’s crosshairs. You lit the fuse. It’s you, Lev. You killed them.”
The car is heavy with silence. I realize that, for the first time, I admitted something out loud that I never wanted to: that Dimitri might be dead. He might never wake up.
My chest heaves. Rage and betrayal claw at me until my vision blurs red around the edges.
Lev can’t meet my eyes. Fucking coward. He just sits there, broken, waiting for my judgment. As if his confession could ever buy him mercy.
But it can’t.
Because he wasn’t just some soldier on the fringe. He was family. Lev was supposed to guard Dimitri’s back when I couldn’t.
And instead, he sold him out.
I should have seen it. I squeeze my fists against my thighs, feel the sting of my nails digging into my palms.
All those nights I told myself I was watching every man, I was lying to myself. Because I missed the one closest to me. The rot had been spreading under my nose for months, and I was too arrogant to see it.
And then I blamed her for everything.
Sima.
I looked her in the eye, heard her swear to me that she had nothing to do with Dimitri’s attack in the hospital, and convinced myself she was a siren singing lies into my ears. Thought she was a traitor. That I was letting her distract me.
But she wasn’t even in the picture when the worst betrayal happened. The day my brother and father got ambushed, Sima was out there planning weddings. She was living her life, unaware of the chaos that was plaguing mine.
Instead, it was Lev. It was all Lev.
Sima never cost me a goddamn thing.
I force calm into my voice. Even though I don’t fucking feel it. “Let’s just get this meeting over with,” I tell him. My tone is flat, gives nothing away. “Anatoli’s waiting. We’ll sort out the rest later.”
Lev nods with relief. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you, Petyr.”
He reaches for the handle, then turns his back to me to step out of the car.
That’s when I move.
The blade flashes in the dim light. Only for a second. Too short for Lev to notice.
Before he can even make a sound, I drag it clean across his throat.
His breath catches in a wet choke. His hands rush upwards, claw at the wound as blood pours down on his chest.
“Shh.” I hold him there, my arms braced across the seat, and watch the life drain from the man I once called my best friend. “We’re even now.”
My stomach twists with nausea, but I still don’t let go. This is what a pakhan must do. My duty.
His eyes find mine for a second, wide, pleading. I know when I see it that I’ll carry that look with me for the rest of my life.
Then they glaze over. Lev’s body slumps, dead weight against the seat.
Only then do I let him go.
Pain spreads through my insides. It’s sharper than I expected. Killing him—it felt like cutting out a piece of myself.
But that piece was rotten. If I didn’t carve it out of me, it would have poisoned everything. Everyone.
And I won’t lose anyone else.
I wipe the blade on his shirt, slide it back into its sheath, and force myself to breathe through it. Steady. Calm. Empty.
This is the cost of betrayal. The price of admission to become a true pakhan.
And I’ll pay it, no matter how much it destroys me.