Chapter 64 Petyr
PETYR
When I step out of the car. Lev’s blood is still fresh on my hands.
If I turn, I’ll see his lifeless body slumped in the driver’s seat. But I don’t do that. Right now, I can’t afford the distraction.
I catch a glimpse of Mikhael in the shadows. As expected, he’s already here, waiting with a handful of our men.
His eyes flick once to the car, then back to me. If he’s wondering why Lev isn’t walking beside me, or why I’m wiping my hands clean on my handkerchief, he doesn’t ask.
Good cousin. He knows when silence is worth more than words.
A subtle nod passes between us. Speaking would be dangerous right now. We have no idea who might hear. One wrong word, and it all may come crashing down.
But that simple nod is all it takes. Mikhael turns, melts back into the darkness, and so do the men with him. They know their job: hunt the hunters. Make them rue the day they picked the wrong side.
Anatoli’s men are here, somewhere, lying in wait, thinking they can ambush me. They don’t realize they’re the ones being ambushed.
I walk forward alone. Every step echoes against the metal and water around me. My hand rests lightly on the gun at my hip, but my eyes are fixed ahead.
I don’t have to walk long before I find him.
Anatoli stands near the edge of the dock, flanked by two bodyguards, the glow of his cigarette a bright spot in the dark. I catch a glimpse of his military haircut, the jagged scar across his face. He looks too at ease. Too fucking certain. He thinks Lev delivered me blind.
He flashes me a grin, pleased as punch to see me. “Petyr Gubarev. As I live and breathe.”
Not for long.
As if on cue, the shadows ripple with muffled movement, but Anatoli doesn’t catch it. He doesn’t think he has to be on his guard, so he’s not.
But my men already have him surrounded. They close in one by one and quietly take his troops out of commission. A hiss of a blade here, the soft thud of a body dragged out of sight there. Silent, fast, efficient. Mikhael’s best handiwork.
I keep moving. Grit and glass crunch under my feet, until there’s nothing between Anatoli and me but the night air and the lingering scent of Lev’s blood on my hands.
He smirks and drops the cigarette to the ground. “I was wondering if you’d actually have the balls to come,” he taunts as he crushes the stump under his heel.
I don’t answer right away. Behind him, another body drops soundlessly into the night. He still hasn’t noticed.
“You called,” I reply flatly. “Couldn’t sit at home watching TV without knowing what you wanted.”
“Wise choice.” His Cheshire grin is vicious. “Curiosity would have killed you.”
He thinks he’s being funny. Like he knows something I don’t, but will soon enough. He has no idea I’m ten steps ahead of him.
But then his gaze flicks past me, scans the shadows, and his grin falters when he doesn’t see the other man he expected tonight: Lev.
His mouth twists. “Where’s your guard dog?”
I stop a few feet away from him. My grip on the gun is steady, my finger already on the trigger.
“I put him down,” I say. “I have no use for mutts who bite the hand that feeds them.”
Anatoli’s eyes flicker as the meaning sinks in.
It takes only a fraction of a second for his whole face to change. His smirk is gone now. His nostrils are flaring; his hand is twitching towards his jacket.
But like I said, I’m ten steps ahead.
My jaw clenches. My shoulders roll back. In that fraction of a second, I lift my own gun.
Then I pull the trigger. Once, twice. The shots crack through the night. Both of Anatoli’s guards jolt. Red blooms across their chests, and they crash to the ground.
Anatoli’s eyes go wide. I never noticed this before, but he has the same eyes as Sima. The same dark shade, the same cut. Only, they look much crueler on him.
He jerks for his gun, but I’m already moving. I fire again. The round punches through his knee.
He crumples with a ragged roar and clutches at his leg. His weapon slips from his grasp and clatters to the ground.
I don’t stop there.
Another bullet tears into his shoulder, knocks him sideways. He howls and writhes into the dirt. Blood is already soaking through his clothes.
He stretches one hand towards the fallen gun. I step forward fast and kick it all the way into the water, then slam my heel into his palm. The crack of broken bones echoes through the night.
“FUCK!” he screams. “Help! Someone—”
My other boot comes down hard on his chest. He gasps. His ribs buckle under my weight as he claws uselessly at my leg.
“There’s no one to help,” I say, cold and final. “My men already took out yours. It’s over, mudak. You lose.”
“Like fuck it is!” But one glance around the docks makes it clear: he’s alone. Whoever he brought along isn’t there anymore.
I bring the barrel up, steady between his eyes. My finger tightens, but I don’t fire. Not yet.
“Care to guess what I’m going to do next?” My foot grinds hard into his ruined, bloodstained chest. “I’m going to wipe out the Danilo name. Starting with you.”
“You—” he gasps, coughs halfway through. “You ain’t gonna do shit. I have two brothers and a father who’s still kicking. You kill me here, they’re going to hunt you for the rest of your miserable life.”
“Am I supposed to be scared?” My heel grins harder. Anatoli lets out a bloodcurdling scream as one of his ribs gives out under the pressure. “Look at me. Do I look fucking scared to you?”
He must see it in my eyes: I’m not lying.
“Then you’re as dumb as they say,” he mutters, but I can see the fear etched across his face. There’s no hiding it now. He knows he’s going to die.
But psychotic little bastards like Anatoli Danilo don’t fear death as they should. Their last thought is always for payback. Even now, he’s thinking how he can stick it to me with his last breath.
Think again, motherfucker.
“Let your brothers come,” I whisper. “I’ll kill them first. I’ll enjoy hearing them scream.”
“You fucking bast—”
“Then I’ll get to your father. Kill him last. Let him know he’s left no legacy in this world, that his bloodline ends with him.” I press the mouth of the gun into his forehead, hard. “Every last trace of the Danilo name will die by my hand.”
“You wouldn’t—” he groans. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?” I snarl back. “You took my family from me. Now, I’ll burn yours to ash.”
Anatoli’s face twists, blood slick on his lips.
Then he lets out a hoarse, broken laugh.
Unhinged—just like him. “I’d like to see you try.
We’re the Danilos. We don’t break easy like you Gubarev fucks.
” He spits a glob of blood on the ground.
“Did I ever tell you how your father screamed when we got him? Did Dimitri? Oh, wait. That’s right—he can’t. His brain is vegetable soup.”
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
“Should’ve been you in that car,” he wheezes, still laughing his crazy laugh. “Your brother was smarter. He wouldn’t have done this. Wouldn’t have been this fucking dumb—blyat’!”
Crack. Another rib breaks under my heel.
“You wanna talk siblings?” I can already taste the ugliness of the words that are about to leave my mouth. But I’m seeing red, and right now, restraint isn’t even in the fucking picture. “Tell me, how was your sister looking the last time you saw her? Wouldn’t you say she was glowing?”
His eyes widen. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.” I lean closer. “She’s carrying my heir, Anatoli. She’s pregnant by me.”
Fury flashes on his face. “Liar.”
“I don’t need to lie. She’s mine now. In every way. I fucked her until she begged, filled her up until she swelled with my child.” I bark out a cruel, nasty laugh. “Tell me, how does that feel? To have the last hope of your bloodline polluted by me?”
“I’ll kill you.” He’s foaming now, but he can thrash all he wants. He’s not getting out from under me. “I’ll kill you, you fucking bitch!”
It twists my stomach to talk about Sima like this. Like she’s a thing, a piece in a game. She hasn’t been that for a long time now.
But Anatoli doesn’t know that. And letting him die in peace is not my style. Not after everything he’s taken from me.
His eyes burn with hatred, but beneath it, I finally see it. That flicker of bone-deep dread that tells me he believes me.
“Goodbye, you piece of shit.”
I pull the trigger. The shot blows half his skull clean off and jerks what’s left of his head back into the gravel.
Blood sprays, he twitches once, and then he’s still, his body slack under my heel.
For a moment, I just stand there and stare down at the corpse of the man who took everything from me.
Then I step back, wipe the barrel against my sleeve, and turn towards the shadows.
Mikhael steps out of them, my men at his side. “It’s done?”
“It’s done.” I tip Anatoli’s blown face right-side up with my shoe. “Leave the body here. Let his people find him. They’ll see what happens when they cross us.”
Mikhael draws closer. His hands are bloody, but his face is steady. For the first time since I rose to power, he bows his head all the way down to me. “Yes, pakhan.”
For a moment, our eyes meet. There’s something new in his: a rekindled fire, a brighter loyalty.
All this time, I’ve been worrying about which way he might turn if this succession struggle kept dragging on.
But tonight, push came to shove, and Mikhael stood with me.
Backed me up. Proved himself in every way.
Come to think of it, he looks like an entirely different person.
He’s standing straighter, eyes clear, fixed on me like he finally sees me again.
Like he respects me. All the hesitation, the tension between us these past weeks—it breaks here, at Anatoli’s grave.
Mikh chose his side, and for the first time since this mess began, I’m glad to call him my cousin.
I clap him on the shoulder once, then turn to the men.
“It’s open season on the Danilo Bratva,” I announce.
“No hesitation. We strike fast, strike hard, and leave no survivors. Tonight, we are Vikings. And we’re going to burn those motherfuckers until there’s not a single Danilo left to tell the tale. ”
It’s sinking into their bones now: Anatoli Danilo is dead.
I can see the realization change them from the inside out. Mikhael’s loyalty wasn’t the only one in play. Plenty of people didn’t think I had it in me to lead them. Most of them were just waiting to see where the chips would fall.
But now, the chips have fallen—right in my fucking lap.
The look on their faces tells me whatever doubts they might’ve had just died with Anatoli. This fight cemented me. I’m their pakhan, and they will follow me through death.
I turn back to Anatoli. Two men are stringing him up from the rafters now. I don’t stop them. For a long moment, I just stare.
And then the truth hits me like a punch to the gut: Sima warned me. She told me what he was planning. If I hadn’t listened, I’d be the one bleeding out on this dock.
She saved me.
And I didn’t even want to fucking hear it.
I still don’t know whether she’s been in contact with her family or not. But I know one thing: I need to apologize to her.
I need to make this right.