Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
SIRE
“Father.”
The word in Russian bleeds from my lips before I can stop it, because he’s not my father.
No, he’s the Devil sitting on a cemetery bench. Deep shadows cloaked his presence, but I felt his chill in the air. The stench of evil. I knew he was here.
“Krasivaya zhena,” he jeers.
“Speak of my wife,” I vow, “and I’ll cut out your tongue.”
When I was six, I heard my father speak the exact words regarding my mother. He made me watch him cut out a man’s admiring tongue before gouging out his eyes, too.
All for stating the obvious: beautiful wife.
As is Wren.
She grabs my T-shirt, letting me know she’s there. But she’s not safe. Not with him seated before us.
A smile tugs his wicked lips, easily slipping into English. “It seems I have taught you well.”
I smirk, “And it seems you’re dying soon. Well deserved.”
His amusement evaporates. “I die; you die. You know the rules, Sergei.”
“Indeed, I do. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; so says God. But kidney for kidney? Get on your fucking knees for it.”
I’ve dreamt of this moment for decades. Fearing the abused child in my heart would quake. The scars on my chest would burn. The nightmares I had would reclaim my mind.
But now … I have no fear, only fury. I’m a grown man, guarding my wife, our future, our family.
With his arctic eyes, raven hair, chiseled face, and snarling full lips, my father’s beauty was one of his many lethal weapons. Viciously, he seduced with it, leaving the slain behind.
But Age humbles all, and Time laughs at powerful men. No one can survive them.
Dappled dusky light threatens to find his face, revealing the grey pallor of his skin. The life draining from his veins. His once towering form, crumbling.
“I kneel for no one.” Still, he boasts, “Not death. Not your God. And not my son. I have someone you want.”
“Give me my nephew and I’ll give you what you need.”
I have no patience for his games. Not when an innocent child is involved.
“Or maybe…” He drums his inked, ringed fingers over his bespoke, ash pants. “I will wait for your child, my true heir.”
“Touch our child and you’re dead.” Wren steps out from behind me. “One drop at a time, motherfucker, I will poison you and that bitch who took Axel’s son.”
I squeeze her hand, so goddamn in love with my Iron Angel.
Wren’s wearing the demure, white Chanel minidress my mother gave her. Her long, dark curls, an aura. A crown. She’s a queen. My queen.
My father can see it.
“My dear daughter,” he chides, “you know not to whom you speak.”
“Someone who needs food and water,” Wren flatly gloats. “We all do; even if it’s deadly.”
His glare slithers to mine. “You need to tame her.”
My God, he believes that shit. That any living woman can be truly conquered. No, she’s just waiting for your pathetic ass to die.
I sneer, “Like you tried to tame my mother? Foolish man, women will only take so much before they take everything from you. On that note: my brothers send their Die and go to hell regards, too.”
Slowly glancing right, then left, he draws my attention to who I already knew lurked behind the trees and monuments: armed soldiers in black suits.
We’re surrounded.
There’s no escape.
“Doctors will prepare you to give me what you owe,” he demands. “In exchange, Aleksi may meet his son. Once.”
I bark a laugh. “Imminent death has made you demented, old man. Too many people in Moscow hate you and love us. They remember what you did: to my mother, my brothers, and me, and they’ll whisper it to Lev.
I’ll make sure of it. He’ll grow up like us, hating you, until he comes home to his father and uncles—forever. ”
He scoffs, “Lev will never leave his mother.”
“A cold mother who took him from a loving father?” My nostrils flare. “I never had a good father, but if I had, nothing but death could keep me from him.”
His lip curls. “I can arrange that.”
“Like I can arrange yours, too, as I did Viktor’s. Mutual destruction. Is that what you want, Ruslan?” I spit his name. “Your entire bloodline, dead, including you?”
Something human flits across his dead eyes. Worry? Care? It can’t be. That’s not the demon who raised me.
So what is it?
What does he want?
Sheremetev!
That’s it. The intel we got from The Six about his enemy. The one on our shores. The one he keeps sending me to destroy.
“No, you don’t want mutual destruction.” The ground shifts. There is an escape. I have the upper hand. “You want victory. Pride. Power. You want Valentin Sheremetev. That’s why you’ve been sending me notes. So I can seek and destroy his operations here.”
“So you can seek and rescue,” he snarls, nodding toward Wren. “You should be thankful.”
At the mention of her past, Wren squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back. We’re okay. I got you.
“Since when do you give a damn about human suffering?” I condemn, “You cause it.”
There it is again.
Pain ghosting his eyes.
If I didn’t know him so well, his DNA corrupting my body, I’d miss it.
I’d miss his faltering compassion.
I press, “Sheremetev controls the East Coast. Trafficking women and girls, and why do you care? And don’t tell me it’s for the money.
You have plenty, and you wouldn’t risk your operations to be caught by U.S.
authorities, so why do you give a shit?” I trap his bitter stare, reading his reaction.
“Is your heart finally beating as your kidneys die? Do you finally care about someone other than yourself?”
Bullseye.
He winces.
I’m onto something.
“Your kidney for my grandson,” he bargains coldly. “You may have him six months a year, while you and your brothers continue to work for me.”
Work to rescue sex trafficking victims? We already do it, so what’s the catch? There has to be one.
Wren’s hand twists in mine. She senses it too. This is the end of the lie about Axel’s son, but the beginning of something else.
Of what?
“My brothers and I work for our queen,” I smirk at the irony. “If you want our help, you need to look her in the eye and beg for her permission.”
I don’t know what my father really wants, but I want to give my mother this: a chance to stand before her throne, surrounded by her loyal sons, and spit in his face.
Shockingly, he doesn’t protest.
Ruslan gestures to his right, to the stocky man looming in the shadows. “I will leave Yakov here. He is my new Sovietnik. He will oversee your tests and preparation before you fly to Moscow for the surgery. And when I have recovered, I will return with my grandson and meet with my wife.”
“She’s not your wife,” my bark is instant. “You forced her to marry you.”
“Yeah, Nadine hates you,” Wren chimes in. “And Cuntya? That’s your wife’s name, right? You married Axel’s second-hand pussy? Oh, she’s gonna be ill as a hornet to know another woman still lives rent-free in your mind.”
Ruslan clenches his teeth at Wren. “If you weren’t my daughter, you’d be dead for speaking to me that way.”
Wren mocks, “Yeah, well, I’m not your daughter. I’m Dolly and Nadine’s, so I’ll speak however I want, and you can kiss my country ass about it.”
How does she do it? Every. Damn. Time.
My angel swoops in with her bravery, butterflies, and filterless mouth, and my heart swells, my lips fighting a smile.
“Yakov stays.” I take control. “I’ll pick my doctors and communicate through him, and when I’m ready, I’ll fly to Moscow for the surgery and return home with my nephew in my arms.”
Wren insists, “And I’ll go with him.”
“No!” Oddly, we bark in unison.
Why? Why does my father not want Wren in Moscow?
For me, it’s obvious. I don’t trust him. He may have motives, and we have leverage, but the Devil is a capricious soul. If he ever had one.
I turn to Wren. “You’ll stay here, safe, with the other kings. And if anything happens to me. If our deal is broken...”
Holding my wife’s hand, I aim my glare at my father. The scars on my chest, burning. The child in my heart, guarding his mother and little brothers. The man I am today, vowing, “You’ll start a war for me.”