Chapter Thirty-Eight
Alekse i
The room feels hollow, like a chest cavity with the heart torn out.
Nothing has changed except the absence of breath from the figure on the bed. My father’s body remains, an empty vessel that once housed the beast of my childhood. Now it’s just meat, beginning its return to dust.
Konets.
The end.
Death has a finality no other human experience matches. The absolute ending of possibility. The complete closing of doors. Whatever my father might have become— whatever reconciliation might have grown from the seed of forgiveness planted moments ago— those possibilities died with his final breath.
I feel nothing. Detached, watching myself from a distance. This numbness is an old friend— the same emotional shutdown that protected me during childhood beatings, during Bratva executions, during moments when feeling would get me killed.
The smell of death thickens in the room— bodily fluids, the last warmth leaving flesh, something indefinable that animals recognize instinctively. My mouth tastes metallic.
Diana weeps beside me, face buried in hands that tremble. Unlike me, she allows herself to feel this moment’s complexity. I place a hand on her shoulder, feeling the fine silk of her blouse, the heat of her skin beneath, offering what comfort I can while my mind shifts to practical concerns.
“Come, sestrenka ,” I say, voice low. “I’ll handle the details. You need rest.”
She nods without looking up, allowing me to guide her toward the door. At the threshold, I glance back once at the corpse that was my father. In death, his face appears peaceful— an expression I never saw during his life. The door closes with a soft click that feels more significant than it should.
Chto za khuynya.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
My father’s death feels distant, like news about a stranger. Yet thoughts of my living family immediately flood in— Stella, Polina, Bobik, my mother. They are what matters now. They are my present and future, while Rodion Tarasov belongs firmly to the past.
I should tell my mother. The thought surfaces briefly before I push it aside. That conversation can wait until tomorrow. She deserves one more night of peace before confronting whatever emotions Father’s death will trigger.
Instead, I find myself drawn toward the Left Wing, where Stella and Polina should be. After the heaviness of the deathbed vigil, I need to see my daughter’s innocent face, to feel Stella’s steady presence grounding me in what truly matters.
But her room is empty, the bed neatly made, sheets pulled tight with hospital corners, no sign of recent occupation. A quick check of the nursery reveals the same— Polina’s crib untouched since morning, her toys arranged in perfect order.
A tendril of unease curls through my detachment.
The back of my neck prickles. I pull out my phone, checking the updated tracking app I installed after Stella’s abduction.
Each family member carries a device— Stella’s phone, Polina’s monitoring bracelet, the GPS unit on Bobik’s wheelchair.
All three signals pulse from the same location— the far northeastern corner of the estate, deep in the forest.
Stranno.
The app shows they’ve been motionless for several minutes. Why would they be standing for so long in such a dense part of the forest? A sense of dread unfurls in my gut, cold and heavy as lead. Probably just displaced emotion from watching my father die. But I can’t shake it.
Nayti ikh.
Find them.
I don’t bother changing out of the suit I wore for my father’s final moments.
The fabric feels suddenly restrictive across my shoulders, the tie a noose around my neck.
I loosen it with one finger as I head directly to the garage, selecting the motorcycle for its ability to navigate the narrow forest paths.
Within minutes, I’m accelerating past the manicured gardens into the wilder terrain beyond.
The forest grows thicker as I follow the path, branches creating a canopy that filters the late afternoon sunlight into dappled patterns across the ground.
The motorcycle’s engine roars unnaturally loud in the quiet, disturbing birds that scatter from nearby trees with angry calls.
According to the tracking app, my family is less than half a kilometer ahead, in a small clearing I vaguely remember from property surveys.
Chto oni tam delayut?
What the fuck are they doing out there?
Stella takes walks with the children and my mother almost every morning, but never this deep into the woods. The unease that began as a tendril now grows into something more substantial, a creeping dread that accelerates my pulse, sends adrenaline coursing through my veins.
The gunshot shatters the forest silence like thunder on a clear afternoon.
My body reacts before my mind processes— hands tightening on the throttle, motorcycle lurching forward with increased speed. In that moment, my numbness vanishes, replaced by a single thought: my family is in danger.
Blyad, blyad, BLYAD!
I navigate the winding path recklessly, branches whipping past my face, leaving stinging welts, tires skidding on patches of loose earth.
The tracking app shows I’m nearly upon them, just around the next bend.
My hand instinctively reaches inside my jacket, confirming the presence of my sidearm, the metal cool and reassuring against my palm.
The clearing appears suddenly— a small, sunlit space surrounded by ancient oaks. I brake hard, the motorcycle sliding sideways, dirt spraying as I take in the scene before me with the rapid assessment born from years of walking into potentially hostile situations.
My mother stands at the edge of the clearing, Polina clutched protectively against her chest. The baby’s face is red from crying, though I can’t hear her over the adrenaline buzz in my ears.
Bobik sits in his wheelchair beside them, eyes wide with shock or fear, knuckles white where he grips the armrests.
All three appear physically unharmed, which allows my focus to shift to the clearing’s center.
There, on the ground, lie two women locked in what appears to be either an embrace or a struggle— Stella and… Sofia Novikova?
Chto za khernya?
Sofia’s body convulses with what looks like uncontrollable tremors, while Stella holds her firmly, one hand pressing down on her shoulder, the other gripping her wrist. There’s blood on their clothes.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demand, killing the motorcycle’s engine and striding toward them like a madman. Grass and leaves crunch under my shoes, the sound abnormally loud in the clearing’s tension.
No one answers immediately. My mother makes a small gesture that seems to urge caution, her eyes wide with something that might be fear. Bobik remains frozen in his chair. Stella doesn’t look up from Sofia, whose shaking has intensified, teeth chattering audibly now.
Eto pizdets!
Seeing Sofia with Stella makes no sense— these women hate each other. Yet there they are, locked together on the forest floor like survivors of some shared catastrophe. Sofia, daughter of the man I recently killed. Sofia, who threatened my family. Sofia, who once believed she would be my wife.
My hand is grasping the grip of my Glock without thinking, but I don’t draw the weapon, not with Bobik and Mama standing just a few feet away.
“Stella,” I say, my voice dropping to a dangerous register as I move closer. “Speak to me.”
She finally looks up, her face streaked with what might be tears or sweat or both.
Her eyes are wide, her hair a wild tangle around her cheeks.
Blood smears her jawline. The sight sends a jolt through me— a memory of her previous abduction, of seeing her in that hospital bed after her last run-in with this fucking bitch.
I realize that my hand has tightened around my weapon, almost clearing it free of the shoulder holster.
If she’s hurt her again…
But right now, Stella seems to be dominating Sofia, holding her steady, rather than trying to defend herself. I force myself to remain calm. To assess things.
“Aleksei,” she says quietly, her voice steady despite the insanity of the situation. “I’ll explain everything later. Right now, we need to get her help.”
I stare at the picture before me— my woman holding the daughter of my enemy, not with force but with care.
A discarded weapon lies several feet away in the grass, the smell of gunpowder still hanging in the air.
Sofia’s breathing comes in shallow gasps, her designer outfit now ruined with dirt and blood, her perfectly styled hair in disarray.
Chert voz’mi!
I do the only thing I can do right now. I step in, and I help.