Chapter 8
EIGHT
Dmitry
By the time I’m done with Callista Vale, even hell will be too good for me.
The sky is still dark when I slip out of her sorority house. The streets are empty, painted silver by the streetlights. My pulse is steady, but everything inside me feels like it’s been scraped raw.
I should feel guilty. I should feel something.
Instead, all I can think about is how it felt to hold her afterward. How, for the first time in years, I fell asleep without a pill or a bottle.
It was a mistake.
A beautiful, ruinous mistake.
I didn’t use protection. The thought gnaws at me now. What if she gets pregnant?
What would I do? What would we do?
The image flashes in my head before I can stop it: Callista with a hand on her stomach, her soft, uncertain smile. The idea shouldn’t warm me, but it does, and that scares me more than anything.
I force the thought away as I pull into the driveway of the Antonov mansion. The security lights blink awake, splashing the stone facade in pale gold. It’s almost four in the morning. Everyone should be asleep.
But there’s light in the kitchen.
I step inside quietly, expecting Aleksei, but it’s Lena standing at the counter, tying her robe tighter around her waist. Her hair is loose, tumbling over her shoulders, her face still flushed from sleep. There’s a plate of cookies cooling beside her and a half-empty mug of tea.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks, smiling when she sees me.
“Something like that.”
“I fed the baby an hour ago,” she says, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “He’s out cold now, but it made me hungry, so I came down for a snack. You want one?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’d love that.”
She turns to reach for a plate on the top shelf and can’t quite get it. I move before I can think, stepping behind her, taking it down easily. She laughs softly.
“You’re always so quiet,” she says. “You and Aleksei both. You sneak up on people.”
“It’s a family trait,” I reply.
Her smile lingers, tired but kind. There’s something grounding about Lena. She’s warmth in a house full of ghosts. I don’t know how she does it, living among killers and kings and still managing to look like light.
“Is Aleksei asleep?” I ask.
Her smile falters. “No. He’s in Moscow. Something urgent came up. Leo sent him.”
Before I can answer, a low voice cuts in from behind us.
“Speaking of Leo,” it says, smooth and heavy, “mind if I join this midnight feast?”
Lena stiffens. Her hands go still on the counter.
“Of course not,” she says politely, without looking at him.
Leo steps into the light, jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled, as if he hasn’t aged a day since I saw him last night. But the lines around his eyes tell a different story. His presence fills the room in a way that makes the air feel smaller.
He nods to me. “Dmitry.”
“Leo.”
Lena turns away to busy herself with the food.
The silence between them hums with history.
I know enough to understand why she tenses up around him.
Lena is two years older than me. She was once a Griffin Society member.
Leo sent her on a mission so dangerous she almost didn’t come back.
He never wanted her with Aleksei. Thought she was too ordinary. Too American. Plus, she was an orphan.
And now here she is, married to Aleksei Antonov, mother of his children. Proof that Leo doesn’t always get what he wants.
I wonder, uneasily, if he’ll feel the same about Callista. Callista is American, too, and though she’s from a rich family, her family is dysfunctional.
Leo takes a seat at the table. Lena sets a bowl of reheated pasta between us, the kind she makes when she’s tired but still wants to feed someone.
I thank her and she smiles back at me.
“Thank you, Lena,” Leo says.
She nods without meeting his eyes and turns back to the counter.
I sit down across from him, the chair creaking in the quiet. “How’s the laundromat situation?”
He exhales through his nose, rubbing his temple. “Handled. We removed the clerk. Things should settle, but the feds are sniffing around. It’ll be tense for a while.”
I nod. “I can adjust the routes if needed. Push more through the florist and the car wash.”
He studies me for a long second, then leans back. “Aleksei told me what you’re doing at the college. Recruiting smart ones. Future money launderers for the organization.”
“We’ll have to see if they can perform well with training,” I said. “This is still just an experiment. But I can’t keep handling the finances forever, especially since the men you have helping me are dinosaurs who can’t even use a computer.”
“They’re loyal men. Loyalty matters more in this business than brains,” Leo reminds, tapping the edge of his glass.
He poured himself a glass of whiskey when I wasn’t even looking.
He drinks more nowadays. Maybe because he has more headaches to deal with.
Besides, I know he doesn’t like being in America as much as he likes being in Russia.
“If we want to survive the next generation, we need people who understand systems,” I say. “Banks. Digital transfers. Hidden ledgers.”
Leo’s eyes gleam faintly. “You’re thinking ahead. That’s what I like about you.”
The words hit harder than they should. Praise from Leo isn’t rare for me.
He has always appreciated my brains, wanted me to take an important role in the family business.
But his words sit warm in my chest for a moment, unexpected.
It’s like being patted on the back by the father I never had, the father who died when I was young.
Leo has raised us all, even though he was only twenty-five when we lost our parents to a car crash. Nikolai and I were babies. Aleksei and Mikhail were grown-up, but not exactly mature men. Leo turned us all into assets, into proper bratva men.
The weird thing is, I remember Mikhail telling me that Leo argued with our father when he was young about leaving the family. He didn’t want to be a part of the bratva.
He lifts his glass from the table, swirling what’s left of his drink. “I was thinking the other day,” he says slowly. “If I were to retire early, who would I hand this empire to?”
I raise a brow. “You’d never retire early. You live for this. You don’t even have hobbies. Or a wife. You’d only micromanage the next pakhan with all the free time on your hands.”
He chuckles, low and humorless. “You’re right. I don’t.”
“Then why bring it up?”
He doesn’t answer.
Lena comes over with three plates, breaking the silence. “So,” she says, placing one in front of him, “who would you pass it to?”
Leo’s expression stays unreadable.
I take a bite of the pasta. It’s good. Simple, warm, real.
When I look up again, Leo’s gaze is on me. There’s something almost fatherly in it, something that feels like a weight being placed on my shoulders.
“You,” he says.
The word hits like a bullet. I freeze, fork halfway to my mouth.
Lena looks between us, startled.
Leo doesn’t blink. “You’ve got the mind for it. The control. The patience. You see the long game. You remind me of me, before the world got noisy.”
I can’t speak. For once, all the numbers, all the calculations in my head, go silent.
Lena’s hand trembles slightly as she sets down the last glass. The baby monitor crackles faintly in the background.
Leo finishes his drink, his voice calm, certain. “One day, Dmitry, this will all be yours.”
The words hang in the air, heavier than the silence that follows.
Me. The next pakhan.
I set my fork down, staring at Leo. “You’re joking.”
His eyes stay steady. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“I’d never be good at that role,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m too young.”
“You’re twenty-one,” he replies evenly. “I was only a few years older when I took over.”
“That’s different.”
“Not really.” His tone is calm, matter-of-fact. “You’re strategic, you think ten steps ahead. You don’t make emotional decisions. You calculate what you have to gain from every deal, every alliance. That’s what makes a leader.”
A bitter laugh slips out of me. I don’t make emotional decisions? Every decision I’ve made with Callista has been deeply emotional. “I’m just a numbers nerd.”
Leo’s expression doesn’t shift, but there’s something sharp in his eyes, almost fond, almost proud.
“That’s what you think. You don’t see what I see.
You don’t lose your temper. You don’t waste energy proving yourself.
I was much more emotional and less mature at your age.
You build systems that last. One day, you’ll realize that control isn’t about violence; it’s about precision. ”
I stare down at my plate. The steam from the food fogs my thoughts.
If he knew what I just did, if he knew I spent the night in a college girl’s bed, careless, reckless, without protection, he’d take back every word.
That wasn’t precision. That was chaos. Lust. Need.
A man like Leo would never forgive that kind of weakness.
“I don’t think anyone would listen to me,” I say finally. “Being praised by you makes our brothers feel like they were praised by our father. You’re a patriarch, but I’m just a boy. If I ever tried to give them an order, even Nikolai would roll his eyes and tell me to shut up.”
Leo leans back in his chair. “Respect isn’t inherited. It’s earned. You’ll earn it the same way I did. By acting when others hesitate, by doing what has to be done.”
He tilts his head, watching me. “The next pakhan doesn’t have to be my clone, Dmitry. Our father was brutal. I learned from him. You’ll learn from me.”
Lena, who’s been silent until now, sets down her glass. “I see what Leo means,” she says softly. “You’re sharp. Collected. But you’re still in college. You deserve a few more years before carrying that kind of weight.”
Leo smiles faintly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “The world doesn’t wait until you’re ready.”
The three of us fall quiet. The only sound is the faint hum of the refrigerator and the baby monitor crackling in the background.
Lena cuts a small piece of bread, her hands delicate but steady. She looks at Leo with something that’s half respect, half resentment. He looks back with the same. The tension between them has softened over the years, but it’s still there—an old wound that never quite healed.
I take another bite of food, the taste dulled by thought.
Leo’s faith in me should make me feel invincible.
Instead, it feels like a chain around my neck.
I want to be the man he sees, the strategist, the heir apparent, the quiet power behind the numbers. But part of me knows I’m already slipping.
Because right now, all I can think about is Callista Vale. The softness of her breathing as she slept against me. The warmth that seeped through my skin when I held her. The way she made my pulse stutter and my logic falter.
I’ve spent years building walls to keep feelings out. But I’m not the same anymore. Something changed last night.
Leo’s still talking, something about expansion, new fronts, allies in Las Vegas. I nod when I’m supposed to, but my mind is elsewhere.
I wonder if I’m already letting him down. If the empire he’s building for me will crumble because of a woman who makes me act irrationally.
Lena slides a small plate toward me, breaking my spiral. “Eat,” she says softly. “Whatever your brother’s planning, you’ll need your strength.”
I meet her eyes and nod.
Leo rises first, glass in hand. “Get some sleep,” he says, and turns toward the hall.
When the sound of his footsteps fades, Lena gives me a small, almost knowing smile. “You’re thinking too much again.”
“Always,” I murmur.
As she clears the plates, I sit there in the kitchen, surrounded by the smell of food and faint echoes of family, wondering what kind of man I’m becoming.
Am I the heir Leo wants, or the sinner Callista is slowly creating?