Chapter 10 Mikhail
MIKHAIL
The cemetery is quiet at dawn, the kind of silence that feels sacred and suffocating all at once.
I stand before Nicole’s grave, my hands shoved deep in my coat pockets, my breath forming clouds in the cold October air.
The marble headstone is simple, elegant, exactly what she would have wanted.
Nicole Artyomov
Beloved Sister
Forever Young, Forever Missed
I couldn’t bring myself to add the dates, a brutal reminder that she only got sixteen years on this Earth.
Sixteen years before those animals destroyed her.
Before I failed her.
I crouch down and brush fallen leaves from the base of the headstone.
My fingers trace her name, and the familiar guilt crashes over me like a wave.
Six months.
It’s been six months since I found her in that bathtub, the water red with her blood, her wrists slashed.
The note she left is burned into my memory.
I’m sorry, Misha. I can’t live with what they did to me. I can’t live with this thing growing inside me. Please forgive me.
I close my eyes, but that only makes the memories sharper.
I’m in my office when Elena bursts through the door, her face concerned. “Mr. Artyomov. It’s Nicole. She’s been in the bath too long and won’t answer.”
I take the stairs three at a time, my heart already knowing what my mind refuses to accept. The bathroom door is locked. I break it down with my shoulder, and the sight that greets me will haunt me until my dying day.
My baby sister, my Nicole, floating in crimson water. Her blonde hair spreads around her head like a halo. Her school uniform is still on, soaked through and stained. Her eyes are open, staring at the ceiling with an expression of such profound sadness that it steals my breath.
I pull her from the water, screaming her name, trying to find a pulse that isn’t there. Her skin is already cold. I was downstairs the entire time, working on my fucking ledgers while she bled out alone.
The paramedics arrive. They try to revive her, but it’s too late. It’s been too late since the moment she picked up that razor blade.
Later, the medical examiner confirms she was twelve weeks pregnant.
Twelve weeks carrying the child of one of her rapists.
The autopsy report lists the cause of death as exsanguination from self-inflicted wounds, but I know the truth.
Those men killed her as surely as if they’d put a gun to her head.
I open my eyes and stare at the grave. “I’m sorry, moya malen’kaya,” I whisper in Russian. My little one. “I should have been there. I should have protected you.”
The wind picks up, rustling through the trees that surround the cemetery.
I stand and turn away from the grave, unable to look at it any longer. But I can’t escape the memories.
They follow me everywhere.
Three months before her death, I come home to find the house in chaos. Windows are broken. Furniture is overturned. My men are unconscious or dead.
I find her in her bedroom, curled in the corner, her school uniform torn, blood on her thighs. She’s not crying. She’s not making any sound at all. She just stares at the wall with empty eyes.
“Nicole.” I drop to my knees beside her, reaching for her, but she flinches away from my touch.
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please don’t touch me.”
My heart shatters. “Who did this? Tell me who did this, and I’ll kill them. I’ll make them suffer.”
She finally looks at me, and the devastation in her blue eyes nearly destroys me. “They said…they said you owed them money. They were looking for a safe. When they couldn’t find it, they…” Her voice breaks. “They took turns, Misha. All four of them.”
Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt floods through me. “Did you see their faces?”
She nods slowly then shakes her head. “All I remember is one of them had a scorpion tattoo on his neck.”
A scorpion tattoo. I know exactly who that is. Vincent Moretti, a mid-level enforcer for a rival family. I’ve never owed him a damn thing. This was a message, a power play disguised as debt collection.
“I’m going to find them,” I promise her, pulling her into my arms despite her resistance. She’s shaking so hard I can feel it in my bones. “I’m going to find every single one of them, and I’m going to make them pay for what they did to you.”
“It won’t change anything,” she whispers against my chest. “It won’t make me clean again.”
“You are clean. You’re innocent. This wasn’t your fault.”
But she doesn’t believe me. I can see it in her eyes. The shame has already taken root, poisoning her from the inside out.
I kept my promise. It took me some time, but I found all four of them. Vincent Moretti and his three accomplices. I made their deaths slow and agonizing, but it didn’t bring Nicole back. Nothing could bring her back.
Then I found out about Vincent’s daughter. Sophia. Twenty-two years old, innocent, with her whole life ahead of her. The perfect target for my revenge.
I turn back to Nicole’s grave, my jaw clenched. “I got them, moya malen’kaya. I got all four of the bastards who hurt you. And I got Vincent’s daughter too. She’s paying for his sins now, just like you paid for mine.”
The words taste bitter on my tongue. Because the truth is, Sophia isn’t like her father. She’s nothing like him.
She’s smart, brave, defiant in a way that reminds me of Nicole before those animals broke her.
When I look into Sophia’s blue eyes, I don’t see Vincent Moretti.
I see a young woman who’s terrified and alone, trapped in a nightmare she didn’t create.
Just like Nicole was.
The realization hits me like a physical blow.
I’m doing to Sophia exactly what those men did to my sister.
I’m punishing her for crimes she didn’t commit.
I’m destroying her innocence to satisfy my need for vengeance.
I’m becoming the monster I swore to destroy.
“What would you think of me now?” I ask Nicole’s headstone. “Would you be proud that I’m making an innocent woman suffer? Would you want this?”
The wind is my only answer, cold and unforgiving.
I think about the other night, about the way Sophia looked at me when I found her in the tunnels.
The panic attack that seized her, the way she clung to me like I was her salvation instead of her tormentor.
The way she felt in my arms afterward, soft and warm and trusting despite everything I’ve done to her.
I think about the marks I left on her neck, the bruises on her hips from my fingers.
Evidence of my possession, my claim.
But also evidence of my cruelty.
Nicole would hate what I’ve become.
She was always the gentle one, the one who believed in second chances and redemption.
She used to lecture me about how quick I was to choose violence, about how I needed to find better ways to solve problems than with my fists or my gun.
“You’re better than this, Misha,” she’d say, her blue eyes serious. “You’re smart and strong, and you could do so much good if you’d just let go of all this anger.”
But I didn’t let go of the anger. I fed it. I nurtured it. And when she died, it consumed me completely.
I pull out my phone and scroll to the photos I took of Vincent’s execution.
I’ve looked at them a hundred times, searching for satisfaction, for closure.
But all I feel is empty.
Killing Vincent didn’t bring Nicole back.
Torturing Sophia won’t bring my sister back either.
Nothing will. She’s gone, and no amount of revenge will change that.
So why can’t I let Sophia go?
The answer comes to me with uncomfortable clarity: because she makes me feel something other than rage and guilt.
When I’m with her, when I’m inside her, when she’s sleeping in my arms, I feel almost human again.
Almost like the man I was before Nicole died.
And that terrifies me more than any enemy ever could.
I crouch down again and place my hand flat against the cold marble. “I don’t know what to do, moya malen’kaya. I don’t know how to let go of this hate. It’s all I have left of you.”
A crow caws somewhere in the trees, harsh and mocking.
I stand and turn to leave, needing to get back to the mansion, back to Sophia.
I need to see her, to make sure she’s safe, even though I’m the greatest threat to her safety.
That’s when I see them.
Black roses.
A dozen of them, arranged in a perfect bouquet at back side of the tombstone.
My blood turns to ice.
Black roses are a message in our world. A promise of death. A declaration of war.
I scan the cemetery, my hand moving to the Glock at my hip.
The grounds are empty, but I can feel eyes on me. Whoever left these roses is watching, waiting to see my reaction.
I pick up the bouquet carefully, searching for a card or note.
There’s nothing.
Just twelve perfect black roses, their petals soft as velvet, their thorns sharp enough to draw blood.
Adrian Morello.
It has to be.
He’s the only one bold enough to desecrate my sister’s grave, to use her memory as a weapon against me.
The attack at the docks, the threatening note about Sophia, and now this.
He’s declaring war, and he’s making it personal.
I pull out my phone and call Marco. He answers on the first ring. “Boss?”
“Double the guards at the mansion. Triple them. No one gets in or out without my explicit approval.”
“What happened?”
“Adrian Morello just made another move.” I stare at the black roses, rage building in my chest. “And he’s going to regret it.”
I end the call and look back at Nicole’s grave one last time. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I failed you then, and I’m sorry for what I’m about to do now. But I can’t let him threaten Sophia. I can’t lose someone else I…”
I can’t finish the sentence, can’t admit what Sophia is becoming to me.
I turn and walk toward my car, the black roses clutched in my fist.
Their thorns bite into my palm, drawing blood, but I don’t loosen my grip.
The pain is grounding, focusing.
Adrian wants war?
He’ll get war.
But this time, I’m not just fighting for revenge.
I’m fighting to protect the woman who’s somehow become more important to me than vengeance itself.