Chapter Fifteen
Nikolai knew he should return to the party downstairs, even though he was sure to meet just the whispers of the end. He would still be able to put in a last word with the head of the five leading families, as he had planned to from the beginning of the party. But instead, he was standing in the dark in Lisa's room, the only light coming from the moon outside.
Contentment spread through her face as Lisa pulled the comforters tightly over her, settling back into the soft sounds of her breath. She looked at peace, even after everything Nikolai had done. Taking her to his secret room had been a spontaneous decision, even though he hadn't thought she was ready for it. A huge part of him had thought that it would have been enough to get her running in the opposite direction, so that explained how shocked he was when she stayed there and did exactly as he had asked her. For a minute, he was scared that he would be the one unable to run in the opposite direction.
Because… why on earth was he standing there, thinking about how fucking hot and attractive she looked even in her sleep? He could feel his dick rear his head again as Lisa kicked the comforter off, her naked thighs out in the open, tempting Nikolai. He rocked his heels on the ground where he stood, telling himself to stay put. Getting her up to satisfy his raging cock wasn't the best of options right now.
But Nikolai knew it was more than that. He didn't get angry when other men flirted or fucked his women, just like when he found Melody with another man in his kitchen. The most he did was to end the agreement they had going because he couldn't fuck anyone who was fucking another man on the side. Only he had that power, because even though he made sure they got tested every three months, he could never be so sure.
But with Lisa… it was different. He couldn't even bear to imagine anyone else laying a hand on her without him seeing red. Left to handle things on his own terms, he would make sure they never saw the light of the day, starting with Volkov. He should be grateful that he didn't do more than graze her skin with his fingers tonight; if not, the next thing he would have been grazing after that was the box he would be buried in.
And Nikolai meant every bit of it.
Lisa stirred again, and Nikolai chuckled as she threw one hand over her head, almost hitting her face in the process.
She was feisty even in her sleep.
Nikolai's eyes caught a glint in the night light suddenly, and he bent forward to investigate. His eyes roamed Lisa's body, looking for what had shone in the light until he realized it was just a watch. He had noticed that she had always had it on since the first day he met her, even though it looked really old and battered.
Was there a story behind it?
Curious, Nikolai took her hands gingerly in his, turning her wrist over to look at the strap.
That was when he saw it.
On the brown leather strap, close to the buckle, was the faint engraving of a Perun God, with stones by his feet. Something about it just didn't sit right with him. The engraving was too exact as if passing a message to anyone who came in contact with it.
Nikolai was almost sure he had seen it somewhere before, and there was this gnawing scratching at his brain again. It felt like he was forgetting something really important.
Both Lisa and the party shifted to the back of his mind; Nikolai went into his office like a crazed man with intent. Even though he had no clue what he was looking for, Nikolai always kept a record of everything he did in the Bratva, so he just started with that. Something had to catch his eyes along the way. He would know what he was looking for the moment he saw it.
Opened ledgers and files filled his table, turning it messy, yet he had seen nothing yet. Fear held Nikolai as he persisted in his task, and he kept on hoping that everything was just him overreacting. But deep down, Nikolai knew that wasn't the case. That engraving had spurred something in him, impactful enough to have gotten him worried. He remembered how Lisa looked so familiar when he first met her. What if his head was right? Dmitri had been insisting that Lisa was here for a reason, and for the first time since he voiced that out, Nikolai was beginning to think that his best friend was right. What if someone had sent her?
Nikolai found the first ledger he had kept after the death of his parents and flipped its black cover open. The images from the reports were brutal, and his childish scrawling cast his mind back to when it all happened. And just like that, it clicked.
When Nikolai turned sixteen, he was at that stage where he could rebel against the stronghold his father had on him. The late Davydov was a tough and ruthless man, and didn’t change his attitude even with his only child. Nikolai thought his father hated him and that there was a possibility that the man wasn't even his biological father. They were supposed to go on that trip together, but out of spite and stubbornness, Nikolai had decided to stay back. That plagued him for years after their death because if he had been there with them, maybe he would have died as well rather than being left all alone, struggling with the ropes of leading the Bratva - something his father had been trying to teach him but Nikolai had thought it was just all part of his wickedness.
Nikolai knew his father had been making moves to take over from Kuznetsov, and the other four members of the leading families knew how close he was to making that happen. And that included the Petrovas - the only ones who were vocally against it, not hiding their distaste over Davydov being their new head. Nikolai had overheard his father talking to his mother one night about how the Boss of the Petrov family had openly declared that the late Davydov would only become their leader over his dead body, and Nikolai's father thought that was exactly what would happen. It didn't make sense to Nikolai at the time because he used to spend time with the Petrovas when he was younger. Although the memories were vague now, he still remembered laughing in a wide expanse of land along with other kids.
When his parents died suddenly in that accident, Nikolai's world came crashing down. Those days were the darkest in his life when laughter perpetually ceased from his lips, and he lost the desire to do any other thing that avenged the death of his parents. His matron tried reaching out as much as she could, but there was little that could be done for a sixteen-year-old boy who, for some reason, blamed himself for his father's death. Maybe if he had been serious about his training, then he might have been aware of the attack and would have done something to prevent it from happening.
Nikolai was deprived of the opportunity to know if that was possible, and in a blind rage, he carefully mapped out how to eliminate the Boss of the Petrov family. He studied how they worked from the intel he placed in their midst, and got everything he needed to know about their operations. Nikolai executed his plan so brilliantly that his father would have been so pleased, but that thought only got him angrier, so much that everyone in his path at the mansion fled when he approached.
He didn't just want the Petrova family to suffer his pain; he wanted them to be forced to go extinct, to run away from everything they hold dear to, including being one of the five leadership families in New York. So, Nikolai struck on a sunny afternoon, when every member of the family was out in the pool, enjoying the weather. The horror in their eyes as he fired the first bullet brought a smile to his face - the first smile since the death of his parents - and then, he turned into a maniac as he hunted the Boss, who was being shielded by his men. Every one of them dropped to their deaths before his eyes, and before long, the Boss was standing alone, pleading for his life.
"I've got a family that needs me," his shaky voice sounded inaudible in the middle of all the shootings and gunpowder in the air. "Don't do this, Nikolai. Remember, you always saw me as your second dad."
"You should have thought about that before you fucking killed my first one." Nikolai didn't even recognize his voice as he yelled in anger. He wanted this man to die slowly, for his limbs to be shredded piece by piece until there was nothing left until he wished for death. But Nikolai didn't have the resources for that yet.
Aiming for his heart, Nikolai pulled the trigger, and Petrov fell to the ground, twitching like the coward and weakling he was. Nikolai's father had always talked about his first kill and how proud it had made him feel.
But for Nikolai, the lust for more bloodshed ran through his bones, and he realized that killing their Boss didn't even bring the closure he felt it would. His father was still dead. Nothing had changed.
Nothing would ever change, but at least he had eliminated the Petrova family from the five leading families. That was when Nikolai made the decision to replace his father there and worked his ass out towards it.
Returning to the present, a thought struck Nikolai and he returned to the newspaper clippings inside the ledger. There, in black and white, was a reported news about the kidnap of the only daughter of the Petrova family, her chocolate and caramel balayage framing that face he would recognize anywhere in the world.
Lisa was the daughter of the Boss he killed nine years ago.
Her real name was Yelizaveta or Elizabeth Petrova.
Nikolai slumped into the backrest of his office chair as the weight of his discovery came crashing on him. This was the reason why she had looked so familiar to him. He had probably seen her countless times before his parents' death. She had already been kidnapped before Nikolai launched his attack on her family, but even then, she would have been too young to do anything about it.
Nikolai didn't think Lisa - no! Yelizaveta - remembered anything about her childhood, because Nikolai was very observant, and it would have been incredibly hard to keep it away from him. But then again, Nikolai didn't want to act too sure about that until he had enough evidence.
Now, Nikolai had to know if Lisa remembered anything at all from her childhood or if Dmitri was right and the only reason she’d appeared in his life was to seek revenge. If Nikolai's best friend was right, Lisa was going to regret the night she walked into his moving vehicle, because he would make her life a living hell.
Every member of the Petrova family was his enemies, as far as the Davydov name was concerned. And now, Lisa had entered that list.