Chapter 33
MATVEI
Isit, not in the cold silence of the office I usually occupy, but in the soft stillness of the nighttime nursery.
The air smells faintly of powder and warm milk, a scent utterly foreign before yet is now warm and familiar.
I watch the twins, my son and daughter, asleep in their matching cribs, as I have often done since their birth four months before.
Their chests rise and fall in perfect, tiny rhythm.
This is the new architecture of my life, the empire I risked everything to protect.
The blood that stained my hands when I ended Samson's twisted life has long been washed away, but the memory is a permanent, corrosive discoloration beneath the skin. It’s the cost of entry to this room, the toll I paid to keep these two safe, to keep Sonya whole.
I look at my hand—the one that held the gun, the one that pulled the trigger and ended my own brother’s life—and I feel nothing but a stark finality. He made his choice. He chose the rot.
Since his death, I’ve had my most trusted people picking apart the mess Samson left behind.
We’ve traced the payments, the coded messages, the shifts in territorial aggression.
We followed the tendrils of Samson's ambition that lead not just to a power grab, but to treason.
The betrayal was deeper than fraternal jealousy; it was a strategic, calculated act of sabotage against the Volkov Bratva.
The answer that came back was a cold spike of recognition: the Abramovich Bratva.
It wasn’t just a simple alliance; it was a complete co-opting.
Samson had been playing a long game, preparing to deliver the entire Volkov operation—our legitimate fronts, our cash flow, and our territories—to the Abramovich family on a silver platter.
They had promised him the full title and a seat at the table once I was out of the way.
Samson, in his psychopathy and lifelong hatred, believed killing me would not only satisfy his rage but solidify his claim as a mafia don, a perverse echo of the old-world succession laws my father kept from him.
Genevieve Mancini was a loose end I tied up with less ceremony than a discarded receipt.
She wasn't worth the cost of a bullet. Weeks after her arrest, she wooed a guard and somehow escaped.
My people found her trying to flee to Mexico with forged papers and Samson's emergency cash fund. She’s now locked away somewhere in the frozen North in a facility that requires no signature for entry and offers no signature for release.
She will live the rest of her life in silent, forgotten isolation, the ultimate punishment for a narcissist: being rendered utterly invisible.
The Mancini family has been notified—their disgrace is complete, their influence now a smear in the dirt. They are neutralized.
But the Abramovich heads—Dmitri and his son, Roman—are still breathing, still scheming, still operating under the assumption that Samson's failure was merely a setback, not a death blow to their plot.
They believe the Volkov Bratva is now vulnerable, distracted by internal conflict.
They think they can swoop in, claim the spoils, and rewrite the narrative.
They are wrong.
I rise from the nursery rocking chair. Every detail of the room has been calibrated for silence and protection. Sonya, asleep in our bed, murmurs sleepily as I kiss her softly, then head downstairs.
It is time to leave our sanctuary and perform the last necessary surgery for my organization. For our future.
Downstairs, Evgeny waits for me by the steel-backed front door. His face is a road map of concern, but his posture is all business.
“Everything is in place,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “Dmitri and Roman are at the old warehouse down on South Walcott. They believe they’re meeting with our neutral peace broker to discuss a temporary truce. They are alone, save for two drivers.”
I nod. “Good. The other families?”
“The Kalnikovs have publicly sworn fidelity. The Stepanovs are withdrawing from the city, consolidating their operations in Miami. They know better than to challenge stability. Your swift action against Samson proved that the strength of the center still holds. The rest will fall in line once the Abramovich are taken care of.”
This is the key. The real challenge is not the criminal enterprise, but the obstacle to legitimacy.
For years, I’ve been guiding the Volkov Bratva toward a future where our assets are diversified across real estate, tech ventures, and green energy.
In this future, my children will never have to worry about a midnight knock.
However, that future requires undisputed and unquestioned stability.
The Abramovich family, with their old-world vendettas and reckless, violent methods, represents the past I’m trying to bury.
They’re too volatile, too visible, and their ties to Samson make them a perpetual point of weakness.
If they live, they talk. If they live, they plot revenge.
If they live, the city remains a contested zone, and my business cannot fully transition into the light.
We slip into the armored sedan.
“How long?” I ask Evgeny.
“Thirty minutes, allowing for traffic.”
I close my eyes and review the facts one last time.
Samson, dead by my hand, a traitor. Genevieve, permanently silenced.
The Volkov internal structure has been purged save for the remaining loyal.
The surrounding families are either subservient or in retreat.
All that remains is the head of the serpent.
I must sever it now, cleanly and completely, so the body of the Volkov organization can heal and mutate into something new.
The warehouse is dark when we pull up, save for the lights on in the main area where Dmitri and Roman Abramovich wait, two silhouettes in the gloom. Their drivers stand about twenty feet away, hands visible, wary.
Dmitri, a man whose face is a road map of bad decisions and old scars, manages a false, greasy smile. “Matvei. Thank you for agreeing to this. A sensible man knows when to talk peace.”
His son, Roman, is younger and sharper, his eyes darting constantly, the eyes of a predator always looking for a way to gain the upper hand. He looks at me with pure, undiluted dislike, a man who sees my current distress as an opportunity.
I stroll toward them, the tap of the soles of my shoes loud in the silent warehouse.
“There is no peace to discuss, Dmitri,” I state, my voice calm with a lack of inflection.
Dmitri’s smile falters as Roman tenses, his hand moving slightly toward his jacket pocket.
“Samson was a fool,” I continue. “He thought I would mourn him instead of cleaning up his mess.”
Dmitri tries to bluff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Samson was your brother. It’s a tragedy—”
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” I cut him off, the air temperature dropping ten degrees.
“I know about the payments. I know about the coded communication from your cell to his private burner. I am aware of the promise of the Volkov territories. You were going to try to legitimize your claim through my death.”
Roman’s eyes flash with fear, realizing I know everything.
He starts to move, but he’s too slow. Before he can clear his weapon, Evgeny unleashes two shots, silenced and accurate, dropping the two drivers instantly.
The sound of the bodies hitting the floor is flat, swallowed by the shadows and the emptiness of the warehouse.
Dmitri freezes, his face pale and slack. He’s an animal caught in a trap, realizing too late that the hunter is already inside the cage.
“You tried to use the oldest trick in the book, Dmitri.” I wander a few steps closer and look down at him, a man I have tolerated for years because he was useful, but now he’s simply an obstruction.
“You tried to replace my family with your own ambition, and you failed. You backed the wrong horse. You signed your own death warrant when you allied yourself with Samson.”
“Matvei, please,” Dmitri pleads, his voice thin and pathetic. “I had to try, didn’t I? That’s what we do. That’s our game. That’s our world. You can’t hold it against me.”
I feel no pity, because pity is a weakness I cannot afford, not when the lives of my children and Sonya, the continuation of my empire, depend on this absolute finality. I reach into my coat and pull out the weapon I favor, the one I will put away for good once this is done.
“The spoils are not for dividing, Dmitri,” I tell him.
“The Volkov Bratva is done with division. We’re done with the underground.
You and Roman represent the last of the old rot that holds us to the shadows.
As long as you breathe, the old scores are still pending, and the path to the future remains closed. ”
I raise the weapon. Roman, finally understanding there is no escape, lunges toward me with a guttural cry in an attempt to save his son. I shoot him first. The bullet takes him high in the chest, and he collapses without a sound, a puppet whose strings have been suddenly cut.
Dmitri screams, a high-pitched sound of terror and grief that echoes off the warehouse walls. I turn the gun on him and look him straight in the eyes, seeing the realization of a wasted, criminal life in the last instant before he closes them.
“This is for the future,” I whisper.
I pull the trigger once. Clean. Final.
The silenced gunshot is soft in the vast space, yet it is the loudest statement I have ever made.
I stand there, the weapon heavy in my hand, looking at the two fallen figures. The last two heads of the Abramovich Bratva. The final, necessary sacrifice for the new empire. The smell of gun smoke mingles with the warehouse, a brutal cleansing agent.
“It’s done,” I say to Evgeny, holstering the weapon.
“Clean the mess. Make sure the message is unmistakable—they died fighting each other over a botched deal. Let the rest of the families assume the Abramovich empire is now up for grabs. They will descend on the scraps and destroy themselves. The Volkov Bratva is officially out of that game.”
As we drive away, the fog seems to lift, the lights of the city appearing sharper, cleaner.
The threat is gone. The Volkov Bratva is now an uncontested power.
The other minor families will fall in line, not through force, but through economic necessity.
They have no choice but to operate within the lines I have drawn, lines that lead away from the violence and toward the vast, protected wealth of the legal world.
I am now free to sign contracts, to shake hands with politicians, to build.
I open my phone and look at the last photo Sonya sent me: the twins, together in one crib, smiling toothless smiles up at the camera. I did this for them. I killed my brother, I neutralized his psychopathic accomplice, and I destroyed the last enemy standing in the way of a new, secure dynasty.
I arrive home just before dawn. I take off my coat and remove the gun from its holster, storing it away far back in my cache of weapons. I wash my face until the cold water stings.
I am Matvei Volkov, King of the Chicago Bratva, and now, a new kind of father. I walk back up to the nursery. The twins are stirring, hungry.
I lift my son, holding his small, warm, squirming body against my shoulder. His life, my daughter’s life, Sonya’s life… those are the only lives that matter now.
The ghosts of Samson and the Abramovich family are just collateral damage, dust motes settling in the wake of the necessary bloodshed.
As the city begins to wake, when the twins are fed and back in their cribs, I seek the warmth of my bed. Sonya is still asleep, and I kiss her precious face once, twice, until her eyes flutter open and she smiles sleepily up at me.
“Where were you?” she asks, yawning.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I answer, which is the truth, even if it’s not the whole truth. From the way her mouth quirks, Sonya knows it, too, but she doesn’t ask. And even if she wanted to, I cut off any further conversation with a kiss that swiftly ignites the fire always simmering between us.
The rhythm between us is as simple as it is explosive. I know her body and she knows mine, every spot that makes her cry out, shiver, and arch her back, every move that has me entirely at her mercy.
Our bodies, hearts, and souls entwine in a way I never thought was possible, in a way I never thought I’d experience.
I worship Sonya with my body and my words, with my kisses and my attention.
I make sure she knows just how much she means to me, just how much she has changed my life, just how desperately I need her.
Afterward, when Sonya is lying in my arms, I reach over and take the ring box from my bedside table drawer.
I ask the woman who is the love of my life, the unexpected force of nature who has owned my heart since the moment I stood behind her in line to board the plane, to be my wife.
She has healed me on the deepest level, given me the life I always strove for but never believed I deserved.
There is a great deal of squealing, kissing, and laughter, and even a few tears. Sonya says yes, beaming as I slide the ring onto her finger.
As the sun rises over the city, I finally feel everything slip into place. My city is secured for my bloodline. The path is clean. My family is safe. The knot is tied.
And I am finally free.