Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Artyom
I should have felt it the moment I stepped out of the car, that sharp shift in the air that tells you something is wrong before you even understand why, but I only register it when I see her standing there in the pale morning light with her brother at her side and a bag at their feet that doesn’t belong in this place.
For a moment everything inside me pulls tight because it looks like she’s leaving.
She’s leaving me.
Kira freezes the second our eyes meet, her breath catching in a way that would be imperceptible to anyone else, but I know her body too well by now, I know the way her shoulders tense when she’s scared, the way her fingers curl slightly when she’s hiding something, and I know immediately that whatever I walked into is not what it seems, even if every angle of the scene is designed to look like betrayal.
Vladimir stands beside me with his hands clasped behind his back, the picture of calm satisfaction, and Boris lingers a little to the right with that slow, smug breath he takes when he thinks he just won the game.
They wanted me to see this, to step into this moment without warning, to feel the hit before I could prepare for it, and the part of me that grew up under Vladimir’s hand knows exactly how calculated this is.
But the rest of me, the part that belongs entirely to her, that only sees Kira’s wide, startled, hurting eyes, knows instantly that something here is off.
I take one step forward, keeping my voice even because explosions can come later. “Kira.”
She swallows, and the sound carries in the quiet morning, too small, too careful. “Artyom, this isn’t—”
“Is it true?” I ask, because I need to hear her say it, not because I believe what I’m seeing but because the money in her hand and the tension in her spine are forcing me into a place I never wanted to stand with her. “Were you leaving?”
Her head shakes before the words come, her breath uneven. “No. This is—this isn’t what it looks like.”
It hits somewhere low in my chest, because I can tell she means it, but everything around us is built to make me doubt her, and that is exactly why they brought me here this early, exactly why they let me see the bag, the money, the brother, the timing—every detail chosen to cut deep.
Kira shakes her head again, the movement small and rattled, and I watch her hands tighten around the envelope like she doesn’t know where to put it.
I step closer, slow enough that Lucas tenses but not enough to hide how much control it takes, and when I speak my voice comes out calm even though calm is the last thing I feel. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She opens her mouth and nothing comes out the first time. Her throat works once, a small swallow, and then—“It’s not what they think.”
Behind me, Vladimir hums, a small, derisive sound he doesn’t even bother to disguise, and I don’t have to turn to know he’s smiling.
I don’t look away from her. “Are you leaving?”
“No,” she says immediately, and her voice cracks on the word, her entire body leaning into that denial as if she’s holding on to something with her whole weight. “I wasn’t leaving you.”
The bag is still on the ground beside her brother’s foot, the top half unzipped, something dark inside catching the weak dawn light, and for a second the wrong picture forms in my mind, the one my father wants me to see—her packing while I slept, her slipping out before sunrise, her choosing to run rather than speak to me after what we shared last night.
It cuts deeper than any blade I’ve taken.
I force myself to breathe, to hear the tremor in her voice, to see the raw honesty in her eyes,. But the question is still lodged under my ribs, needing to be asked.
“What’s the money for?”
Lucas steps forward before she can speak, lifting his chin in a way that makes me want to break it. “She’s helping me, all right? She’s my sister. She owes me that much—”
“She owes you nothing,” I say, not raising my voice because I don’t need to. “And you don’t speak for her.”
He goes quiet, but there’s a flicker of something in his eyes—fear, guilt, desperation—I can’t place it yet.
Behind me, Vladimir finally speaks, his tone smooth and cold and threaded with that satisfaction he tries to hide but never manages. “There it is. The truth laid out without us having to say a word.”
I turn my head just enough to look at him, and he meets my stare with the easy calm of a man who thinks he’s already won. “You bring her into our world and expect loyalty,” he says. “But the first chance she gets, she prepares to run—and takes your money with her.”
The last part snaps something in me.
“That money,” I say slowly, “is not mine.”
A flicker of annoyance crosses his face, but he covers it quickly. “How are you so sure?”
“I am,” I answer, and my voice is so steady it makes something in him tighten.
I look back at Kira, and her eyes widen slightly, like she can’t believe I’m not already choosing violence, and maybe she expected me to be angrier, louder, but the truth is the only thing I’m angry at is the possibility that she thought she had to hide this from me, not the act itself.
So I ask her one more time, soft but firm. “Did you plan to leave me?”
Her eyes shine with hurt, and she steps toward me, small but certain. “No. Artyom, no. I wasn’t running from you. I just wanted to help my brother, I swear.”
I believe her, and Vladimir knows it.
He exhales through his nose, annoyed that the scene he choreographed isn’t unfolding the way he wanted, and he gives Boris a small nod, subtle but deliberate, and that is the moment everything turns.
I realize they have been behind this all along.
It is all too clear now. In Sicily they tried to get rid of her, twice.
And when that didn’t work out as planned, they decided to involve Lucas to take her away with him.
That also did not work during their last meeting, so they choreographed this one to make me think she was lying to me.
Before I can react, Boris grabs Kira from behind, one arm locking around her waist, the other shoving a gun to the side of her head, the barrel pressing into her temple so hard she gasps. The envelope slips from her hand and scatters across the gravel.
I move. But Boris drags her back two steps, his eyes wild and triumphant, and the gun digs deeper into her skin as he hisses, “Not another move, boy. Not unless you want her dead.”
My hands go slack at my sides, not out of surrender but because one wrong twitch could cost her life, and for a moment all I hear is her breathing, fast and shaky, the sound of her boots scraping on the gravel as she struggles against his hold.
Behind me, Vladimir watches with that same rigid calm he always uses when someone else does his dirty work.
Lucas steps forward quickly, hands up. “Wait, this isn’t what we talked about—”
“Shut up,” Boris snarls, jerking Kira tighter, making her cry out softly. “You were supposed to take her and disappear.”
Lucas insists, his voice shaking. “I just needed money. I didn’t ask for—”
“No one cares what you asked for,” Boris spits.
Kira’s eyes snap to her brother, wide and betrayed, and something twists in my chest because even now she wants to protect him.
Boris raises his voice, speaking to me but keeping her tight against him.
“If you want her to live, you’ll let her go.
You’ll let her leave with her brother, far away from here.
And you’ll forget whatever fantasy you had of marrying this girl.
You’ll take Irina and keep the alliances your father worked for. ”
My jaw clenches, and the taste of blood fills my mouth because I’m biting down so hard I can feel something in my teeth strain. I force myself to breathe, one long inhale through my nose, because rage won’t get her out of his grip, only calculation will.
“Is this you,” I say, turning my head toward my father, “or is this Boris?”
Then I turn back to Boris.
“Let her go,” I say, keeping my tone steady, every muscle in my body ready to break the world. “You put a gun to her head and this ends only one way.”
Boris laughs, breath hot against her hair. “You’re not in control here.”
“No?” I tilt my head. “Then shoot her.”
Kira stiffens in his grip, her breath stalling, Lucas letting out a strangled sound, and Vladimir shifts slightly behind me, not comfortable with how quickly I went there.
“Go on,” I say quietly. “Pull the trigger. See what happens before the bullet even leaves the gun.”
Boris’s hand shakes once. He tightens his grip instead, ready to drag her away, but that one shake is all I needed, the smallest crack in his certainty, and Kira feels it too because she stops struggling for one second, her body going still as if she trusts me to read the moment correctly.
I move, slamming my foot into the gravel, pushing forward, forcing Boris’s arm higher, despite the pain my wounds cause, using his own grip on her as leverage to twist his wrist until the gun shifts just out of alignment, and then I bring my elbow down hard on his forearm, the crack so loud it echoes off the stone path.
He screams as the gun fires once into the dirt.
Kira drops, rolling out of his grip, and I catch her by the jacket before she hits the ground, pulling her behind me as Boris stumbles back, clutching his ruined arm.
I don’t give him time to recover. I slam my knee into his stomach, catch the gun before it hits the ground, and twist his wrist back until the bone snaps clean. He collapses.
His scream stops abruptly when his head hits the bench. Vladimir finally steps back, realizing that this is not the moment to push further.
I point the gun at him without hesitation. “You meddle again,” I say, my voice steady and low, “and I end your life before you can finish the sentence. I don’t care, I really don’t”
Kira gasps behind me, her hand grabbing my arm, her voice breaking. “Artyom—no. Don’t. Please. He’s your father.”
“He stopped being anything to me the moment he did this to you,” I say, not taking my eyes off Vladimir.
Something in his face tightens—pride, resentment, maybe even a flicker of fear—but he lifts his hands slowly and nods at the unconscious heap that was Boris.
“We’re done here,” he says and signals some of his men.
He turns and walks away, cold and quiet, Boris dragged behind him.
Which leaves Lucas. The gun is still in my hand when I turn to him, slow and deliberate, and he takes a step back immediately, his hands shaking, his breath coming out in broken bursts.
Kira grabs my wrist. “Artyom.”
I don’t look at her. “He was part of this.”
“No,” Lucas says quickly. “I didn’t know they were planning to kill her—I swear, Kira, I didn’t—”
“Yet, you agreed to work with them and take her away, didn’t you,” I cut in.
He pales. “Please—just listen—”
“I’m done listening.”
He takes another step back, panic in his eyes, and I lift the gun.
Kira moves in front of him, standing there with her shoulders straight and her breath steady even though her hands are shaking.
“I’ll handle this,” she says.
It stops me cold. She turns to Lucas, and her voice—soft, cracked, breaking but still steady—is unlike anything I’ve ever heard from her.
“I have carried you long enough,” she says quietly. “I have begged, and worked, and sacrificed, and tried to save you from everything, even from yourself. But this… this is where it ends.”
Lucas shakes his head, tears already in his eyes. “Kira—please—don’t—”
“I can’t believe you went behind my back, Lucas. You are not my family anymore,” she whispers. “If you want to live, you disappear. Right now. And you never come back.”
He stares at her like she just ripped the world out from under him, and for once he understands she means it. For once, he believes her. He nods, broken and frantic, grabs the bag, and runs.
I lower the gun.
Kira’s breath shudders out of her, her knees almost giving, and I catch her before she falls. I hold her against my chest, her heartbeat wild against my ribs, and even though the world around us is still shaking from what just happened, one thing settles inside me with absolute clarity—
She chose me. And I will burn the world before I let anyone take her again.