Chapter 27
NIKOLAI
The rain is coming down like God decided to crack the sky open and drown whoever was stupid enough to be driving in it. Past midnight, the storm turning the windshield into a blur. Wipers on full and still doing nothing. My knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Soaked in sweat, but cold.
Not from the rain.
From what I'm about to do.
I'm about to kill the only father figure I've ever known.
Lightning splits the sky like a warning. Stop. Think.
But I've thought and thought and thought, and with every passing minute, Gayle is tightening her grip on Elle.
No backup. No plan. Just one goal.
I'm going to kill my uncle.
The thought plays on loop like a broken track.
I have to. There's no other way. Gayle made it clear.
Viktor's head. That's the price. And now I know what Elle was trying to tell me, why she laid out candles and put on that dress and looked at me like she was holding something precious and terrifying.
She's pregnant. I didn't see it. Too busy running around putting out fires I thought mattered.
I can't picture her without my chest twisting. The way she looked when they threw her to the floor. How she couldn't meet my eyes. Like she thought I'd never come for her.
But I'm here.
The gates to Viktor's estate swing open before I slow down. Still trusting me. Still happy to see me.
The guards nod, recognizing my car. They don't see the madness through the rain-streaked glass.
I park. Take the gun from under the seat. Heavy. Loaded. Safety off.
My hand shakes. I've killed people. Burned bridges. Lied through my teeth. But this is different.
Elle's face flashes in my head. The baby I haven't met. I'd die for them. I'd kill for them.
Even if it breaks me.
Viktor opens the door himself. Casual. Like we're about to share a pizza.
"You're dripping on my floor," he says mildly.
"Sorry about that." My voice sounds foreign. Hollow. Distant.
He looks down. Sees my trembling hands. The gun. He's known me since I was a kid with scraped knees and too much anger. He can read me like a primer.
"What's happened?" he asks, stepping aside.
That's when I raise the gun to his head.
He freezes. Not scared. Confused. That calmness pisses me off. Makes me want to scream.
“Nikolai.”
"Don't." My voice comes out wrong. Scraped down to the bone. "Don't talk me down. Don't be reasonable."
“Nikolai.” I hear the calm. He’s not afraid of me. He doesn’t think I’ll pull the trigger.
I know I will.
"I'm sorry." My voice is tight, dry. "You need to come with me."
"You pointing that thing at me for show, or are you serious? Because if you are, do it fast. My men are watching."
"I don't want to do this. But I don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice." He says it like he's reading a fortune cookie. "Put the gun down."
"She has Elle." It rips out of me. "Gayle. She took her. Threw her in front of me like garbage. Told me I can get her back if I bring your corpse to her doorstep."
Viktor's face tightens.
"She wants you dead. And if I don't do it, she sells Elle to Egor." I swallow. "And the baby. My baby."
That's the first time I say it out loud. It feels like swallowing glass. My hand lowers an inch. And then right back up. My baby. My wife. Mine.
Viktor stares at me.
I stare back at him. The man who raised me when there was no one left. Who showed up at my shithole apartment with Pasha's first real crib and never once made me feel like a failure for needing it.
The gun shakes.
"I made peace with it. For her."
"I know." Another step. Close enough now that the gun is almost at his chest. "That's the most terrifying thing you've ever told me. And I've watched you do terrible things."
"I'd have lived with it."
He nods in understanding and then gestures with his hand.
"Sit down." He walks into the living room like we're about to have tea. "You're soaked and shaking like a junkie. Sit before you pass out and accidentally shoot me."
I don't sit. I follow him in, gun still aimed, still wild, pacing like a caged animal. I can't calm down. I'm seconds from doing something I can't undo.
Viktor lowers himself into his armchair.
"Tell me everything."
I do. All of it. The shopping trip. Gayle's call. The ultimatum. The sound of Elle's knees hitting marble. The gun at her head.
I don't cry. But it feels close.
When I finish, Viktor nods slowly. Then he looks me in the eye.
"You were really going to shoot me?"
He doesn't sound offended. Just hurt. And hearing that, seeing the love in his face, it nearly cracks me in two. Shame fills my chest like drowning.
"I would've done it," I mutter. "I would've lived with it."
"If you'd pulled that trigger, you wouldn't have lived at all." His voice is steady. "My men would've killed you before my body hit the floor. And then what? Elle dies. Baby dies. Gayle wins. Is that the story you want?"
I clench my jaw.
"I didn't know what else to do."
"You come to me." His voice sharpens. "You come to your family. You don't try to be the solution. You ask for help."
I lower the gun. My hands fall to my sides.
"She's my wife. She's mine to protect."
"And she's carrying your child. That means you don't get to play lone wolf anymore. You don't get to be reckless. Killing me isn't brave. It's stupid."
He stands. Walks toward me. Slow and careful, like approaching a wild dog.
He places a hand on my shoulder.
"I loved your aunt more than anything in this world. If someone had tried to take her from me, I'd have razed the planet. So I get it. But I also know how to win a war. And it's not by charging in half-blind."
I drop into the nearest chair. The adrenaline crashes and all that's left is guilt, shame, and a whole lot of fear.
Viktor pours two drinks. Hands me one. I don't want it. I take it anyway.
"Tell me what you need. Learn to ask for help, Nikolai. We're family. Gayle's a bitch. Don't let her come between us."
I look up. All I see is wisdom and forgiveness.
"You're a far better man than I am," I whisper.
Viktor is quiet for a long moment. He refills his glass but doesn't drink. Something shifts in his face. Something older than anger.
"Before we plan this," he says, "there's something you need to know."
I look up.
"Gayle Donovan is not Elle's mother."
The room goes silent. Even the air stops moving.
"What?"
"I've had questions about Gayle for years.
Things that never added up. The way she controlled Elle.
The obsession with keeping her hidden. No photographs.
No history. When my people started digging into Natalia's Italian connections, the trail didn't stop at the Capellis. It went further back. To Gayle."
He leans forward, voice dropping.
"Elle's real father was Stephan Donskoy. Gayle's own brother. Bratva. Donskoy family, out of Saint Petersburg. He had a wife. A daughter."
My hands shake. "Had."
"Gayle killed them both. Stephan and his wife. Took the child. Moved to America. Raised her as her own to control the inheritance and the U.S. operations. She's been running the con for twenty-six years."
"How did you not know?" The question scrapes out of me before I can stop it. Viktor, who knows everything. Who misses nothing.
His jaw tightens. The look on his face tells me this is the part that costs him.
"Because Gayle Donovan doesn't exist. Her real name was Galina Donskaya — Stephan's younger sister.
After the murders, she disappeared. Erased herself completely: new name, new face, new papers.
By the time she surfaced in New York as an American businesswoman, there was nothing left to connect her to the Donskoys.
I did business with her for years and never once saw it.
" He pauses. "That's how good she was. And that's how badly I failed your wife. "
Every piece of the puzzle I couldn't name. The way Gayle controlled Elle like property. The obsession with keeping her locked away. The refusal to show a single family photo. It all slots into place with a sickening click.
"She murdered Elle's parents," I say. The words taste like ash. "And Elle doesn't know."
"No," Viktor says quietly. "She doesn't."
Something inside me turns to iron. Not just rage. Certainty. The kind that doesn't bend, doesn't break, and doesn't give a fuck about the cost.
Viktor downs his drink. "Tell me what you need."
"Ten of your best men. Better than anyone I've got. I want her out safe. And I want Gayle cornered before she sees it coming."
He nods once. "Done."
No hesitation. No conditions. He just shows me he's got my back, the way he always has, even when I don't deserve it.
"I don't know how to thank you," I say quietly.
He pats my shoulder. "You don't have to. Just bring your wife and baby home."
I stand. My legs are unsteady but my head is clearer than it's been in hours.
"I'm going to get them back."
He nods. "Damn right you are."