Chapter Twenty-Five
Osip
Give me a gap, pizda.
Just give me a fucking gap and I’ll end you!
But the bastard isn’t moving, and I’m screwed. All the years of honed violence, and here I stand, at the mercy of this motherfucker and that single blade.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK!
“So sad,” Stanley sneers, his grip tightening on the knife handle. “A reunion of star-crossed lovers. Too bad it’s going to be short-lived.”
The blade shifts against Ilona’s throat, and another drop of blood wells up, ruby-bright against her pale skin.
My hands clench into fists so tight my knuckles crack like gunshots in the silence.
I’ve killed men for less than this. I’ve ended lives for looking at me wrong, for speaking out of turn, for breathing the wrong way in my presence.
But now, when it matters most, I’m fucking helpless.
“My life for hers,” I say abruptly, the words falling from my lips without hesitation, without thought, without fear. “Let her go and take me.”
Stanley’s laugh is guttural, bordering on insanity, the sound of a man who’s crossed lines that can never be uncrossed. “Give me one reason why that’s a good deal! Why would I accept that when I could get rid of her AND you.” His eyes glitter with malicious triumph. “Just like I did with Galina.”
The world stops.
He what???
The room around us seems to spin as the blood drains from my face, reality reshaping itself around this one devastating revelation.
Pizda!
So he’s the one behind Galina’s death.
Stanley Morrison. I fucking knew it. Not a robbery gone wrong. Not a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He killed Galina. Stanley murdered the mother of my child in cold blood, just to hurt me. Just to watch me bleed.
The revelation hits me like a sledgehammer, driving all the air from my lungs.
Every sleepless night I spent wondering, every theory I’d chased down dark alleys, every dead-end lead that left me bleeding frustration— and it was him all along.
My old business partner. The man I’d worked alongside for years.
Someone I used to call a friend. The snake who smiled to my face while planning my destruction.
How long had he been planning it? How many times had we sat across from each other, discussing operations, dividing profits, while he was already orchestrating Galina’s murder?
How many times had I looked into his eyes and seen nothing but his usual greed when there should have been the cold calculation of a killer?
The blood pounds in my ears like war drums. My vision tunnels until all I can see is Stanley’s face, that smug expression of satisfaction that tells me he’s been waiting for this moment. Waiting to see my world crumble. Waiting to watch the knowledge destroy me from the inside out.
Galina.
Her face flashes through my mind— those soft brown eyes, the way she’d smile so gently then rest her hands on her swollen belly. My son growing inside her, safe and warm… until Morrison decided to play God with their lives.
She’d trusted people. That was always Galina’s weakness and her greatest strength. She saw good in everyone, believed in second chances, gave people the benefit of the doubt even when they didn’t deserve it. It’s what made her beautiful. It’s what got her killed.
The memory hits me like a physical blow: the last time I saw her alive, standing in the doorway of our apartment, telling me to be careful. The way she’d pressed her hand to her stomach and said our baby was restless that day, kicking like he wanted to meet his father.
I should have stayed home.
I should have been there.
But I wasn’t. I was… I was here. With Ilona. While Stanley was ending her life. The guilt is a living thing inside my chest, clawing at my ribs, tearing at the scar tissue I thought had healed over that wound.
“You fucking monster,” I breathe, the words hard to hear over the roaring in my ears.
The rage that hits me is volcanic, the kind of fury that could level cities and salt the earth behind them.
It surges through my veins like molten metal, burning away fear, burning away rational thought, burning away everything except the single, consuming need to destroy the man who took the mother of my child from this world.
But even through the red haze of killing rage, I see Ilona’s expression visibly change. Her eyes go wide with shock, then narrow with understanding. Then, her gaze meets mine with determination that sends my heart surging.
It’s like we silently agree that Stanley has to go.
I immediately know she wants to do something and I know it’s risky. I can see it in her eyes, in the subtle tension that enters her body despite the knife at her throat. She’s going to try to fight back, putting her own life at risk. All Stanley needs to do is swing the knife and Ilona’s done for.
Shit.
I don’t know how to stop whatever Ilona is planning without letting Stanley know.
I deepen my gaze into hers, hoping she understands that I want her to stop doing whatever she’s planning to do. My eyes try to communicate everything I can’t say aloud: Wait. Let me handle this. Don’t risk yourself for me.
But she’s not listening. I can see it in the way her muscles coil beneath her skin, in the way her breathing changes from shallow panic to controlled preparation. This woman— my woman— has never been one to wait for rescue. She’s a fighter, and she’s going to fight.
Stanley continues his monologue, drunk on his own power, reveling in the pain he’s causing.
“Oh, you should have seen her face when she realized what was happening. Sweet little Galina, so trusting, so naive. She actually thought I was there to help her.” His voice drops to a whisper, intimate and obscene.
“She kept saying your name right up until the end, you know. ‘Osip will come for me. Osip will save me.’ But where were you, Osip? Hm? Where were you when she needed you most?”
Each word is a knife twist, designed to maximize damage. And it’s working.
“I killed them both,” Stanley continues, savoring every syllable like fine wine. “Your precious little bastard, growing inside her belly. I made sure to take care of both of them. Two birds, one stone. Efficient, don’t you think?”
But that’s not right.
Slava survived. My son lived through that nightmare, lived through Stanley’s attempts to murder him in the womb. The paramedics saved him, pulled him from his mother’s dying body and gave him a chance at life that this piece of human garbage tried to steal.
But Stanley doesn’t know that. And I’m sure as hell not going to tell him.
“You’re a dead man,” I breathe, the words carrying the weight of absolute certainty. “You’re fucking dead, Morrison. I’m going to rip your heart out with my bare hands.”
“Am I?” He shifts the knife, pressing it deeper into Ilona’s throat. More blood flows, a crimson river against her skin. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re the one who’s fucked. She dies first, then you. Just like I planned.”
Ilona mouths: “Now.”
Blyad!
Everything happens at once.
Despite the grim situation she’s in, despite the knife at her throat and Stanley’s arm around her waist, Ilona musters up her courage and drives her elbow back into Stanley’s solar plexus with every ounce of strength she possesses.
The impact is solid, meaty, the sound of bone connecting with soft tissue.
Stanley doubles over with a grunt of pain and surprise, his grip on the knife loosening for just a heartbeat.
But a heartbeat is all I need.
I don’t hesitate. Stanley is clearly caught off guard and I’m lurching forward, flying through the air the moment Ilona makes her move. This woman. My woman. The amount of courage she has amazes me, even as terror for her safety nearly stops my heart.
The distance between us evaporates in milliseconds.
I crash into Stanley with the force of a freight train, my shoulder connecting with his chest and driving him backward.
The knife flies from his hand, bouncing across the floor and spinning into the shadows.
We hit the ground hard, Stanley’s back slamming against the unforgiving surface with a sound like a sack of meat hitting pavement.
And before he can react, before he can reach for another weapon or call for help or even draw breath to scream, I wrap my hands around his throat and use every ounce of strength I possess to snap his neck in one swift, brutal move.
It happens faster than thought, faster than regret, faster than mercy. The sound is exactly what I expect— like a dry twig snapping underfoot on a winter morning. Sharp, final, irrevocable.
There’s a moment of devastating silence, and then a slow, gurgling rattle as he releases a final breath. His lifeless corpse goes still beneath me, his eyes wide and staring at nothing, mouth agape in permanent surprise.
The man who killed Galina, who terrorized Ilona, who threatened to destroy everything I care about— reduced to nothing more than cooling flesh in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
I roll off his body and look up to find Ilona staring down at her ex’s lifeless form, her body rigid with shock. Blood still trickles from the shallow cut on her throat, but she’s alive. She’s breathing. She’s safe.
“Ilona,” I choke out as I shove myself to my feet and move toward her. “Are you okay?” I reach out a hand, desperate to close the distance between us. Desperate to reassure myself that she’s okay.
“Osip.” Her eyes are wide. “Oh… Oh, my God.” Her breath is coming in short, sharp gasps. “Oh, my God, Osip!”
Then, as if her strings have been cut, she passes out.