Chapter 54 Stefan
STEFAN
The key turns in the lock. The door swings open.
And Iakov freezes on the threshold.
His eyes go to Arielle first. She’s sitting on the couch, hands folded in her lap, face pale but composed. Then his gaze shifts to me. To the gun in my hand.
“What the fuck is this?” he asks carefully.
I don’t move. “Close the door.”
“Stefan—”
“Close. The. Door.”
He does. Slowly. His eyes never leave mine. “If you hurt her—”
“I’m not going to hurt her. Not if you give me what I want.”
“Which is?”
“My mother has Olivia. I need to know where she’s keeping her.”
Iakov’s jaw tightens. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit,” I spit. “That’s fucking bullshit.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Natalia doesn’t tell me everything. She never has.”
I extend the gun towards Arielle. She flinches when the barrel touches the back of her head. I don’t do it hard, just enough for her to feel it. More importantly, for Iakov to feel it.
The fear. The danger.
Iakov goes rigid. “Don’t.”
“Then help me.”
“I told you, I don’t know where the fuck she is!”
Arielle speaks up, her voice hoarse and high-pitched but calm. “He’s not going to kill me.”
I look down at her. “You sure about that?” I ask.
“Yes.” She swallows hard. “You’re not a killer. Not like this.”
“I’ve killed plenty of people, Arielle.”
“Not innocent ones.”
She’s dead fucking wrong. I’ve killed innocent people. Mikayla Vladislav was innocent. Or at least, she was—before my mother twisted her into something else.
But Arielle doesn’t know that.
“Iakov,” she whispers, still not looking at him, “help him.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Iakov takes a half-step forward. I press the gun harder against Arielle’s skull and he stops in his tracks. “He’s got a gun to your head and you want me to help him?”
“What would you do if someone abducted me?” Arielle asks.
Iakov’s face goes through about a hundred different emotions in the span of three seconds. Rage. Fear. Frustration. Resignation.
“I’d do the same,” he admits quietly.
“Exactly. Because you love me. And Stefan loves Olivia.” She finally turns her head to look at me. “Don’t you?”
I don’t answer. The gun is still in my hand, still pressed against her skull. But my finger isn’t on the trigger anymore.
“You do,” Arielle continues. “I can see it. You’re desperate. You’re terrified. You love her and you’ll do anything to get her back.”
“Arielle—”
“The two of you are more alike than either of you knows,” she says, cutting Iakov off. “And babe, he should know. It’s about time you tell him the truth.”
Iakov goes very still. “Arielle.”
“Tell him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is.”
I lower the gun. Not because I trust Iakov, but because I’m confused as hell. “What truth?”
Iakov doesn’t answer or show any sign that he’s heard me. He just stands there, staring at Arielle like she’s just suggested he set himself on fire.
“Iakov,” I snarl, “what the fuck is she talking about?”
He closes his eyes. Takes a breath. Then opens them again and looks at me. “Wait here.”
He disappears down the hall. I hear footsteps, thumping, drawers opening and closing. Then he comes back down holding a piece of paper. He hands it to me without a word.
I take it. It’s old and yellowed around the edges. The print is faded but still legible. It’s a birth certificate.
Name: Iakov Vasilyevich Safonov.
Mother: Natalia Safonova.
Father: Vasily Safonov.
I read it again. Then again.
No. That… that can’t be right.
“My mother had another baby?” I croak. “No. I would have known.”
Iakov shrugs. “You were young when I was born. And soon after, they handed me over to Mikhail to raise as his own. We left for Russia together.”
It’s real. This is real.
Iakov Zakharov is my brother.
“Why?” I ask as my head spins. “Why would they give you up?”
“Because your father made them.”
I look up sharply. “What?”
“Matvey found out about the affair. He found out Natalia was pregnant. He could have killed her. Could have killed Vasily, too. But instead, he forced them to give me up. To pretend I didn’t exist.”
I think about my father’s journal. The passages I read. She lost her child because of me. How can I ever expect her to forgive me for that?
He wasn’t talking about me. He was talking about Iakov.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
“Yeah.”
“So Mikhail adopted and raised you.”
Iakov nods. “He was a good father. Better than Vasily ever would have been, that’s for damn sure. He wanted me to have a normal life, to be free of all this bullshit. But Vasily and Natalia kept pushing. They wanted me to take over the Bratva.”
I run a hand through my hair. This is all too fucking much.
“Don’t worry,” Iakov says when he sees me thinking. “I have no interest in the Bratva. You’re welcome to it.”
“You just want to see me in jail.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Arielle cuts in. “Not really.”
Iakov looks at her. “Arielle—”
“You don’t,” she insists. “You don’t actually want him to suffer. You just want justice for your father.”
“My father killed himself because of him,” seethes Iakov, fists clenching up at his sides until the whites of his knuckles show through the skin.
“Your father killed himself because he was sick, depressed, and unhappy,” Arielle reminds him gently. “That’s not Stefan’s fault.”
“Of course it fucking is! Stefan exiled him. He destroyed his reputation. He—”
“He was protecting his birthright. Just like Mikhail would have done if someone tried to take it from him. Or from you.”
Iakov’s jaw clenches. He doesn’t have a response to that.
Arielle stands, completely unconcerned by my gun, and walks over to him. She takes his hands in hers. “Let it go, baby. Please. For me.”
He looks down at her. At her face. At the love and concern written all over it.
Then he looks at me.
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll help you. But not for your sake. For hers.”
Arielle smiles. “That’s all I ask.”
I holster the gun. It no longer seems necessary. With one piece of paper, all the lines have been erased. The world as I knew it has been wiped clean and it’s up to us now to decide how it will look for the future.
“Where is Olivia?” I ask.
“I don’t know for certain,” he warns. “But I have an idea.” He clears his throat. “There’s a farmhouse about an hour north of here. It’s one of Natalia’s safe houses. She mentioned it once, years ago. Said it was remote. Off the grid.”
“You think she’d take Olivia there?”
“If she wanted to keep her hidden? Yes.”
I pull out my phone and call Taras. “I have a lead,” I say when he answers. “Farmhouse north of the city. Iakov’s going to text you the address. Meet us there.”
I hang up and look at Iakov. “You’re coming with me,” I tell him.
He sighs. He’s standing in the middle of the room, Arielle beside him. He looks... tired. Like he’s been carrying a weight for too long and is finally ready to set it down.
“If you hurt her,” he says quietly with a jerk of his head toward his woman, “I will kill you. Brother or not.”
“I’m not going to hurt her. Now, let’s go.”
He follows me to the car and we both get in.
It’s stranger than fiction to have Iakov fucking Zakharov seated next to me as we go to rescue a woman who might’ve betrayed me to my own goddamn mother.
My hands are quivering on the wheel as truth after truth surges through me, upending everything I once thought I knew.
Iakov is my brother. My mother gave him up because my father forced her to.
And now, she’s taken the woman I love because I tried to kill her.
This is all so fucked up. But I don’t have time to process it. I don’t have time to feel anything.
All I have time for is getting Olivia back.
I floor the accelerator and tear out of the parking lot. The city blurs past. My mind is blank except for one thought.
Hold on, Olivia.
I’m coming.