34. Daniil
34
DANIIL
“ H old still,” I snap, grabbing Zasha’s arm when he leans away from where I’m working. He makes a noise of complaint, but it’s so low that it could be a noise of pain.
“Sorry,” Zasha murmurs. “It wasn’t as sore when the cold was numbing it.”
“Probably because you were under water for so long that half your nerves went and gave up.” Another swift stitch and the bullet hole in his arm pulls closed. It’s messy, but we don’t have time to make things look nice. I cover the wound with tape while we talk.
“Fuck,” Zasha whimpers when I press on the wound. A few rivulets of blood roll down his bicep, leaving a glistening trail over bruised flesh.
“Don’t be such a baby.”
Zasha repeats the phrase back to me in Russian, adding an obviously mocking inflection to the words. I cover the wound with gauze and tape it down, then toss two painkillers into his waiting palm.
“Take those and then we’ll go save Fyodor.” Sweeping the medical supplies off the kitchen counter, I open the trash and toss them inside. Only, something strange nestled in the garbage catches my eye and I freeze.
“How the hell are we going to get Fyodor to believe us?” Zasha continues oblivious. “We’ve already seen that he’s not in the right mindset—and I don’t blame him at all but if we’re not careful, he’ll kill us. And then Vladimir will kill him when there’s no one left to protect him. The strongest family in the Bratva will crumble and all the smaller families will end up fodder in a?—”
Zasha falls silent when I press my discovery into his open palm.
A pregnancy test.
It’s positive.
“Pregnant,” Zasha murmurs slowly. His eyes widen, and his fingers close over the test. Our gazes connect.
“Naomi?”
“Who else,” I snort. “Fuck. Fuck . This is all so fucked.” Naomi is pregnant. She’s the only person in the house that could be, and I don’t think Vladimir would go this far trying to break Fyodor’s heart. This is too gentle of a blow to be a trick or part of any plan. It must be legit.
“What…what does this mean?” Zasha looks just as lost as I feel, although that could be from the blow to the head and the near-death experience in the pool. I take the test back and shove it into my back pocket.
“We’ll have to deal with this after. One thing at a time or we’ll lose everyone. Hurry up and get dressed.”
“Right.” Zasha spurs into action and he leaves the counter, dressing himself quickly in the dry clothes I found in the hamper when we entered the kitchen. He scoops his long hair back into a ponytail and secures it with a band while my mind runs in circles, trying to work out how the pregnancy fits.
Why didn’t she tell anyone? Is that why she went to the pharmacy yesterday? How could I have been so blind?
“Is it true,” Zasha begins, deftly buttoning his shirt. “Fyodor loves Naomi?”
I met his gaze. “Yes. I know it for a fact.”
“How?”
“Because I do too. And I know Fyodor. I’ve known him long enough that I know when someone’s gotten under his skin.”
“Fuck.” Zasha shakes his head and picks up his pistol. “Me three. Never thought I’d be sharing my love with my two enemies.”
“We’re still enemies?” I lift a brow. “I’ll put you back in that pool if so.”
“You know what I mean.” Zasha rolls his eyes. “Does this make us fools, or will it help us?”
“Depends if we can get through to Fyodor or not,” I mutter, sliding the safety back on my gun. “And I think I know exactly how to reach him.”
The plan to rescue Fyodor wasn’t intricate by any means. In fact, we chose the simple approach of locating where he was on the security cameras and then headed there, killing anyone who got in our way. All we had to do was get Fyodor to listen to me, and if that was successful, the second part of the plan—getting Vladimir to confess—would go easier.
With several of Vladimir’s men dead at my feet, I kick open the door to the study and stride inside with Zasha at my back. Fyodor is near the window, and he jumps at our intrusion while Vladimir sits at the desk as if he is once again, head of the family.
“What is the meaning of this?” Vladimir barks.
My heart aches the moment Fyodor’s eyes lock onto mine. He’s heartbroken, and the distress of his daughter’s condition is overruling any other logical thought in his mind. I can tell at just a glance. And I understand. Which is why I’m hoping he will listen to me.
The lone guard by the fireplace surges forward, weapon raised but I’m faster. I shoot him between the eyes and he crumples down dead on the Persian rug. Blood pools around his body when I step over him and face Fyodor. In the reflection of the glass cabinet to the left of Fyodor, I glimpse Zasha kneeling over the man I just killed, but it’s unclear what he’s doing.
I refuse to take my eyes off Fyodor to check.
“You son of a bitch,” Vladimir snarls. “I knew from the moment I saw you that you were nothing but a feral beast but if you are this incapable of taking orders and following the will of your— you !”
His wrinkled eyes widen when he finally clocks Zasha standing behind me and his gaze turns wicked.
“You see, Fio? One snake in your home has poisoned all the others. You dare to stand there and tell me Daniil is the most loyal out of all your men. See how the traitor still lives!”
I lift my gun and aim it at Vladimir, my gaze still on Fyodor.
Fury passes across his face like a shadow and he steps forward, angling himself between me and his father.
“Don’t you dare,” Fyodor growls. “Don’t you dare come in here and threaten my fa?—”
“Fyodor, listen to me!” I yell as loud as I dare, cutting him off. “You’re angry at the wrong people. I know you’re in pain. I know you’re hurting. Believe me, I know. But your father turning up here like this isn’t some kind of incredible change of heart to save you. All of this, it’s all him!”
Vladimir’s old teeth clack together in his indignation.
“I mean, sure. Maybe not Naomi but that’s a special case for…later, but everything else is him. Don’t you see? Please, Fyodor. You know me. I need you to trust me, okay? All of this shit is your father’s doing!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” There’s still fury in his eyes, and he still guards his father with his own body, but the question is what I need. The slightest hint of doubt.
“All this time, I couldn’t remember who was trying to kill me or even why,” Zasha says, moving around me. “Any theories I came up with just didn’t make sense because I’m a small fry compared to someone like you. Despite my best efforts.”
“You lie,” Vladimir hisses.
“No I don’t,” Zasha snaps back. “For the first time, I remember everything. It was Ivan, and your father, that kidnapped me. Tortured me. Tried to kill me. What they didn’t count on was that I would escape, so they talked about their plan for a hostile takeover right in front of me.”
“A hostile takeover of this family,” I add, keeping my gun trained on Vladimir. “He wants you dead, Fyodor. He wants you dead because you ousted him and he can’t let go. And Ivan, well, we all know Ivan wants you dead because the scumbag is so power-hungry he doesn’t care who gets devoured.”
“They lie,” Vladimir sneers. “It’s all a lie because Zasha is a coward and can’t die with honor.”
“If you do not believe us,” Zasha says calmly. “Then believe this.” He tosses something up into the air toward Fyodor. For a moment, I don’t think he’ll catch it from how stoic he has been since we entered, then suddenly his arm darts up and he catches the small object as it glints in the air.
He breaks eye contact with me and stares down at the item, then he very slowly turns to his father.
“If they are lying,” he says, and his voice is more strained than ever. “Then why the hell are your men wearing Ivan’s pin?”
A pin? My brows pull together. The Bratva haven’t used pins like that to identify loyalty in so long, but given how stuck Ivan is in the past, it makes sense. I send a look to Zasha— good catch.
“You are forgetting,” Vladimir says angrily, shoving Fyodor’s hand away. “It was Zasha’s men that tried to kill you and put your daughter—my granddaughter — in the hospital! That pin is likely planted and you know it!”
My grip tightens around the gun. Of course he pulls the family card again. He’s going right for Fyodor’s open wound and using it against him.
“I have been thinking about that, too,” Zasha remarks. “I know my men. If they did believe that I was dead or in harm's way because of Fyodor, then a drive-by is not our style. It’s rather old-fashioned, actually, would you not agree?”
As Zasha speaks, Vladimir’s hand disappears under the desk.
“I would not be surprised if those men belonged to Ivan or to you yourself, Vladimir, because I know my men. While yes, they would come for me if they could, they are covert. They would not risk killing innocents just to save me. You and your pal Ivan are so stuck in the past that you cannot think beyond your archaic ways.”
I don’t trust it. Fearing Vladimir is about to pull a gun on Zasha, I surge forward and dive across the desk. Pulling his arm free from where it is hidden, where I expect to see a gun, I find a mobile phone clutched in his claw—his personal one, judging by the larger buttons.
“What the hell are you playing at?” Snatching the device from him, Vladimir tries to protest but his words fall on deaf ears.
Plan B is the last message sent to an unsaved number.
“What’s ‘plan B’?” I turn the phone toward Fyodor. “What the hell have you done?”
“You are a fool,” Vladimir sneers up at me. “You have no idea?—”
His words end abruptly when Fyodor’s fist slams into his face. He grabs his father by the collar and hauls him out of his wheelchair, shaking him violently.
“Enough!” Fyodor roars. “Enough with the games, enough with the lies! Tell me the truth, for once in your miserable life, tell me the goddamn truth!”
My instinct tells me to pull Fyodor back before he does something he might regret, but the moment Vladimir laughs, I resist.
No one is more deserving of Fyodor’s wrath.
A second punch collides with Vladimir’s jaw. Teeth and blood spray to the side and still, he laughs like a maniac. It’s not until Fyodor’s punches him three more times that the laughter stops. Fyodor dumps him back in his wheelchair, panting heavily.
“Tell me the truth, right now, or I swear to God I will just kill you here and now.”
Vladimir wheezes like the last puffs of an old air bag and grins a bloody smile.
“Fine,” he croaks, air whistling out of him with each word. “If you insist—yes, Ivan has been making moves for months, soaking up power wherever he can reach it. The countless smaller families he’s absorbed should have caught your attention, my boy, but you were too blind.”
“I’m not your boy .” Fyodor seethes.
“Until…you.” He points one haggard finger at Zasha. “Your little family remained so stubborn even after you killed your own father.”
Wait … Zasha killed his own Pakhan?
Fyodor and I turn to him, wearing our surprise openly. Zasha merely looks tired.
“You killed your father?” I ask. “Oleg Chernykh, Pakhan. You killed him?”
“Yes,” Zasha answers honestly and a flicker of pain ignites in his eyes like a candle. “He was abusing my mother in secret. When I finally witnessed it, I took it into my own hands and killed him.”
Understandable.
Fyodor and I nod.
“And yet your own mother could not forgive you, could she?” Vladimir wheezes. “She took her own life to get away from you .”
“You don’t know anything about her,” Zasha spits.
My God. Suddenly I’m seeing Zasha in a new light. Before, he was the irritating son taking over from his father and a thorn in our side as he tried to make a name for himself. Now I see that he was simply trying to keep his family together.
“You should have given up,” Vladimir continues. Then he pauses and coughs violently into his palm. Blood spots his skin, but there’s no sympathy for him—not from me.
“You should have let Ivan absorb your family, but no, you had to be all noble and try to keep your family name afloat. So yes, Ivan decided to kill you. He wanted to make you an example to any other smaller family that tried to stand in his way. We set up a deal to trick you and then, once we had your men, I was to take care of you.”
His beady eyes snap to Fyodor. His face is swelling from the blows to the point that his left eye is almost closed over, but the hatred shines through as clear as day.
“You. My useless son with no ambition or sense. Once you were dead, Ivan would marry Dariya and join both families. You may think us old but even now you all follow older traditions like that and no one would question. It was the perfect plan until that rat escaped. We had no idea where you crawled off to.”
Zasha lets out an unamused snort. “How did you find out?”
“A woman. A Yenin.” Vladimir coughs again, and this time blood stains his lips. “She crept out of the woodwork with a deal for Ivan. She would give us your location in exchange for wiping out the Dunayevskys. Little did she know she was making a deal where she had nothing to gain. As soon as we agreed, she gave Zasha up.”
A woman. From Vladimir’s earlier story by the pool, there’s only one person that could be. My heart sinks like a rock and the pistol grip becomes engraved on my palm.
“Naomi’s mother,” I grind out.
“Yes,” Vladimir wheezes. “She gave up her daughter too. Told Ivan everything about the plan.”
“And all along,” I spit. “She had no idea she was dealing with you, a Dunayevsky.”
“Nope—”
Suddenly, Fyodor starts to laugh. It’s a humorless sound, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. He tosses the pin onto the desk and takes a step back from his father, laughing continuously.
Zasha and I share a look of confusion. Has he finally snapped?
He laughs that dry, hollow noise for a few minutes, then wipes at his eyes. “You did all that work, made all these plans and hold so much stake in the old laws, but you’re missing one very fucking funny detail.”
All attention is on Fyodor and Vladimir no longer holds the confident look he once had.
“Dariya isn’t even my daughter.”
Zasha and Vladimir’s mouths fall open in shock.
“What?!” Vladimir screeches.
“She isn’t my daughter. Biologically. And in the event that I died, my most trusted guard has strict instructions to get her as far away from this estate as possible.”
Fyodor’s heavy, sad eyes lock onto me for a few seconds, then he looks at his father.
“My will states the truth for everyone, so if anyone did try to marry her then they would not gain control of this family. I saved her from the last family you ordered me to murder.” Fyodor laughs loudly, a chilling sound with the hollowness attached. “You would do all of this, and then have my will read, and everyone would have learned that she isn’t even mine. Ivan would have no one to marry for control.”
His laughter turns a touch maniacal and I worry he’s lost the last tether holding him to sanity. I can’t blame him. Dariya lies in critical condition at the hospital, likely due to his father who has been scheming with his enemy to kill him. On top of that, he’s lost Naomi.
“Fyodor—” I start to speak as Vladimir seethes by the desk, but his phone buzzes to life in my hand. Glancing down, one message blinks onto the screen.
“Got her,” I read out. “Got who?”
Vladimir winces and coughs, and as a pink sunrise stretches across the sky behind him, he looks deathly pale.
“I knew you wouldn’t kill her,” he gasps haggardly.
Oh no .
“Naomi?” Fyodor’s head snaps up and his voice is strong. “She’s still…?”
“I couldn’t,” I reply, glancing at him.
“I knew you couldn’t,” Vladimir hisses. “You claim you love her. And I know you, Fio. Your rat daughter might now be yours but you love her all the same. Just like you love that whore. Now, Ivan has both.”
My blood runs cold. Crimson leaks steadily from the corner of Vladimir’s mouth as he leans back in his chair.
“This, my boy, is where you lose. There’s always a backup plan because I know you. Your weaknesses are always on display.”
Fyodor lashes out hard and fast, slamming his fist into the side of his father’s face. Vladimir sags to the side, draping over his wheelchair as he falls unconscious.
“I…I don’t give a fuck about Naomi right now,” Fyodor seethes. “But I am not letting them get their hands on my daughter.” He surges to life and strides around the desk, I catch his elbow and lower my gun.
“Fyodor.”
“What?” he snaps, his face an inch from mine. “What could possibly be more important?!”
With a gentle touch, I press the pregnancy test into Fyodor’s hand.
His face falls.
“No … no way.”