Chapter 25 Ivan
IVAN
The driver sped through the streets of the city. Horns blared. Sirens sounded in the distance. It was the usual chaos of New York City in the morning rush-hour traffic. But none of it mattered. I held on to the hope that we’d retrace our path to the school in time.
Emil swayed with the jerky and fast turns the driver completed. Off the phone now, he faced me with a somber expression. “Three masked men broke in. The school is in lock-down and their own security force and personnel are trying to move the children.”
“Has Lev been spotted?” I gripped the armrest, hating this surge of adrenaline that nearly sickened me. I’d been in war. In fights and scrimmages. In takedowns and executions. Our world was rife with violence, but I’d never felt this deep sense of dread like this.
I would fight for all my brothers. All my cousins. All the soldiers and guards who’d swear to serve the Dubinin name. But this was my son. My flesh and blood and heir. The product of love Raisa and I found and shared.
I couldn’t lose him.
“He’s with his class. That call was from Marcus. He and the other two guards placed in or near the school are on top of it. They’ve called for backup.”
I nodded, barely registering my reaction.
Autopilot guided me now. This charged need to get out and fight and kill wasn’t anything new.
This preparatory feeling came with every fight I entered.
But it was heightened now. My hand was already on my gun.
Seeing Emil just as tense on this hasty ride revved me up and primed me to move faster, to be sharper and more alert.
As soon as we reached the school and I could get my hands on one of the fuckers who'd dared to target my son, I would be ready to punch harder.
To kick harder. And to slaughter and slay with no mercy at all.
I couldn’t fail Lev.
We’d only just learned about each other.
I valued every second of time spent with him.
Each small thing that he did was one more treasure to cherish.
Already, I was head over heels, loving my son with all my heart and looking forward to raising him to be a fine young man.
This was the completion, the sense of family I’d been wishing for all this time.
Now that I had it within my grasp, and I knew that he was starting to trust me, I just could not stomach the possibility of failing him.
Raisa had come back to me for this. I couldn’t think about her return being a sign that she loved me too, despite all the time we were apart. Right now, I had to keep it in the forefront of my mind that she had spent her every last penny on running to me and my family for security.
She was depending on me for protection. She was looking at me to keep Lev safe from any enemies as we investigated the Riveras attacking her in France.
I couldn’t fail her. I couldn’t fail them.
My family was all that mattered and as a father now, I was a rabid beast by the time the car stopped at the school. Red tinged my vision. My heart hammered steadily and rapidly, pushing me to move like a lethal machine and eliminate anyone who threatened my son.
“Go. To the east.” One of the Dubinin guards was there at the drive. Within the tall gated walls of the facility, he orchestrated the response. Another SUV of Dubinin men arrived, and with those four men, Emil and I rushed into the building.
Security guards swarmed the place, no doubt the school and tutoring program’s attempt at private security for the elite students here.
We vetted this place for Misha. We vetted it again for Lev to come here. I hadn’t dropped my son off at some random, insecure location. I’d done my best and taken all steps to make sure he would be fine with these tutors and other students.
And still, someone tried to threaten him.
Who?
Who fucking dares to hurt him?
To take my son?
Questions lurked in the back of my mind as I charged inside the school. Guessing who I was looking for wouldn’t change anything. It didn’t matter to me if the Riveras repeated their mistake, if this was Konstantin’s doing from the grave, or if it was another enemy altogether.
They were dead for even thinking about hurting my son.
The lights were out. Doors were closed. Corridors remained empty, save for the security members and my Dubinin comrades rushing inside. The eerie lack of noise made me tenser. I needed some clues. Anything. Something had to direct us where to go and find the stealthy men who’d invaded the school.
Emil took the lead. He was more versed and practiced in guerilla ops like this, relying on silence and creeping around undetected. There wasn’t anyone else I’d rather have in this situation. But ultimately, it was me who reacted first.
One single pop of gunfire came from the room to my right. I’d just passed the door, straining to listen for which way to go. A thud followed.
Signaling for Emil, I doubled back a single step and kicked the wooden panel. Once, twice. Nothing gave. Whimpers sounded inside the room.
“Fuck it.” I lifted my gun and fired at the lock panel until the metal pieces fell.
We rushed inside. My heart was lodged in my throat, and my chest was too tight.
Dread coursed through my veins, but it sharpened into the need to fight as the scene was revealed.
A small group of students hunched down in the corner, cowering.
But my son stood tall. Heaving deep breaths and staring at me with wide-open eyes of shock and fear, he poised the fire extinguisher over his head, ready to bring it back down on the head of the masked man rising from the floor.
Emil rushed toward him, shielding him and the others as I lifted my arm. I aimed and fired without an inkling of mercy.
If the children weren’t here, if my son couldn’t be at risk of witnessing the full extent of my wrath, I would’ve tortured this fucker and killed him slowly until he begged for salvation in any grisly form it could come.
“Daddy!”
As soon as I shot the masked man dead, Lev cried out. He cried out for me, calling me the one thing that would forever instill me with potent pride.
Daddy.
That was damn right.
I was his father. Only I could claim that title.
Emil let him go, still alert as more men rushed into the room.
He watched over us as I held my arms out and caught Lev.
He collided with me, smacking his small body against mine.
Wrapping my arms around him and holding him tightly, I thanked any god that was listening that he was alive. He was alive and unharmed.
Releasing him as I crouched, I scanned him for any sign of an injury. He was fine. He was unharmed, trembling and still sporting that look of shock, but otherwise, he was fine.
I clutched him to me again after that inventory, knowing my cousin and the others were still on and hunting for the men who’d scared my boy and the others.
That gunshot had taken the life of the man who must have been the tutor or teacher, and I pivoted, blocking Lev’s direct view of the man.
“I was so scared,” he admitted into my suit jacket where he burrowed his face.
“You were so brave,” I amended.
He’d stood up and fought back. He hadn’t cowered. He was resourceful to fight back.
I’d never needed a sign to know he was actually my child. But if I’d wanted reassurance, this was more than enough proof.
Like father, like son.
He wasn’t afraid to fight.
Like mother, like son.
I hadn’t forgotten that Raisa killed two Rivera men to flee.
“Sighting on the roof,” Emil reported, relying on the text he’d received.
I nodded once. “Go.” I stood, keeping my hand on Lev’s shoulder as I steered him to my cousin. “Take him home. Raisa has to be afraid of this news. Go take him home and I’ll handle this.”
“But Daddy—” Lev dug his heels in, giving me a fearful expression.
“Be brave, Lev. Go be with your mother. She’ll be worried sick until she sees you.”
“But she loves you too. I know she does. She wants you safe too.”
This boy was perceptive, and I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t missed how Raisa acted toward me. She did love me. We all knew it, but I had to hear it from her lips to trust in that phenomenon.
“I will be. Go with Emil. And I’ll meet you at home.”
Lev broke away to hug me one last time. Then, flanked by Emil and the other Dubinin soldiers, they covered him and removed him from the building. Other students were taken out to safety as well. They weren’t my concern, though.
The other men on the roof that the Dubinin guards had cornered were my objective.
Recalling the fear on my son’s face, I hurried to the top level of the school and strode toward the masked men. Or formerly masked men. A Dubinin soldier glared at them as they kept them under gunpoint. He held two masks. Instead, they wore red cuts and swollen contusions.
Down on their knees, they glowered at me as I approached.
“Who sent you?”
The one on the left sneered as he moved quickly. Stooping to grab another gun from a holster at his ankle, he reacted swiftly at my question.
I raised my gun and killed him with one clean shot between his eyes.
“Talk. Now.” I shifted my arm to aim the gun at the other man.
“Fuck you.”
I gestured for the closest man to beat him.
It would’ve been my divine pleasure to take out my anger on him and force the answers out of him physically, but time wasn’t on my side.
I told my son I would meet him and his mother at home, and I would.
I intended to get answers, right the fuck now, and go check on them both as soon as possible.
Blood dripped from the man’s pulpy face once the soldier was through with one round of beating him.
“Who sent you?” I repeated.
He spat out blood a couple of times and cleared his throat. “I was hired by one of your own.” He spat again, struggling to breathe without wheezing severely. “One of you Dubinin motherfuckers.”
A mole? It happened. But dammit, I was careful. I trusted my family. Luka did too. Regardless of his personal opinions about Raisa being a Petrov, he would never tolerate a mole or rat in the family. Ever.
“He didn’t tell me his name,” the thug said. “I don’t have any identification about him. All I know is that he doesn’t want a Petrov-Dubinin alliance or heir to skew the lines of power.”
I growled, more furious than before.
“He and another aren’t happy about the changes. They want the Dubinin power to stay within the family.”
And that was something that was already being challenged and shifted with Luka taking Gabriella, a nobody and not a Mafia princess, as his wife. He’d married an “outsider” and this issue was already being dealt with.
I shook my head and raised my gun to kill him.
“Clean this up,” I ordered without emotion as I turned to leave.
Knowing that more trouble awaited me from within the organization, I strode to the stairs to hurry home. I needed to check on Lev. On Raisa. But once I was through with seeing that they were okay, I was speaking with my uncle.
Right before I’d set out to find this goddamn mole and end this threat.
I endured too much missed time with my future to tolerate anything standing in the way of peace now.