Chapter 23 Alina
ALINA
The words hang in the air like poison, seeping into my lungs, choking me.
Your sister is already dead, Alina. I killed her this morning when you refused to come home.
No.
No, no, no.
The factory floor tilts beneath my feet. My vision narrows to a single point—my father's face. That cold, satisfied smile. Those eyes that hold no remorse, no grief, no humanity.
"You're lying." My voice sounds distant, like it's coming from someone else. "You're lying to manipulate me. Katya is alive. She has to be alive."
Viktor takes a step closer, and I see the truth written in every line of his face. The certainty. The pride in what he's done.
"She cried for you at the end," he says, his tone conversational, like he's discussing the weather. "Called your name. Begged me to stop. But you weren't there to save her, were you? You were too busy playing house with Morozov."
Something inside me shatters, but I don’t have time to recognize it as Dimitri’s voice comes through in my earpiece, telling me to get down.
I drop to my hands and knees an instant before bullets start zinging through the warehouse.
My gaze, however, is glued to my father. Or, rather, his retreating back.
I don't remember moving. Don't remember the decision to attack.
One moment, I'm crouching, frozen, and the next, I'm racing after him.
He ducks into a hallway and I follow, skidding to a stop when I see him standing.
Facing me. My hands are curled into claws, a scream tearing from my throat that doesn't sound human.
My nails rake across his face, drawing blood. He stumbles backward, shock flashing across his features. I'm on him, hitting, scratching, trying to hurt him the way he's hurt me. Trying to make him feel even a fraction of the agony that's consuming me.
"You killed her!" The words come out in a shriek, almost louder than the shouts, screams, and bullets in the warehouse. "Your own daughter! She was only sixteen!"
Strong hands grab my arms, yanking me backward. Viktor's men. Two of them, maybe three. I fight like a wild animal, kicking and thrashing, but they're too strong. They drag me away from my father while he touches his bleeding face, his expression transforming from shock to cold fury.
"Restrain her," he orders, his voice sharp.
They force me to my knees on the concrete floor, their grips bruising on my arms. I'm still screaming, still fighting, but it's useless. Tears stream down my face, hot and bitter.
Viktor straightens his jacket, dabbing at the scratches on his cheek with a handkerchief. When he looks at me again, there's nothing in his eyes but contempt.
"This is exactly why I had to do it," he says. "Katya was weak. Soft. The Popov family has no room for weakness, Alina. I tried to teach you that, tried to make you strong, but you never learned."
"She was your daughter." My voice breaks on the words. "How could you? How could you kill your own child?"
"Because she was a liability." He crouches in front of me, and I can smell his expensive cologne mixed with the copper scent of his blood.
"Just like you've become. I gave you everything.
A good marriage, a position of power, a future.
And you threw it away for what? For Dimitri Morozov? For some misguided notion of love?"
I spit in his face.
He backhands me so hard my head snaps to the side. Pain explodes across my cheek, and I taste blood. The men holding me tighten their grip, but I don't care. I welcome the pain. It's better than the emptiness threatening to swallow me whole.
"You're going to die today, Alina," Viktor says, standing and wiping my spit from his face.
"But not quickly. Not mercifully. I'm going to make it look like Morozov did it.
Like he tortured you, killed you, disposed of your body.
The other families will be so outraged, so horrified, that they'll unite against him.
They'll tear the Morozov empire apart piece by piece. "
He starts pacing, warming to his subject, ignoring the chaos and fight to the death going on in the main warehouse, and I see the madness in his eyes, the ambition that's consumed everything human in him.
"With Dimitri destroyed, I'll step in as the voice of reason. The grieving father seeking justice. The families will look to me for leadership, and I'll give it to them. I'll rebuild the Bratva network under my control. Stronger. More unified. More powerful than ever before."
I barely hear him. All I can think about is Katya. My baby sister. Her dark hair and brown eyes. The way she'd curl up next to me on the couch and show me her sketches. Her dreams of Paris and Rome and all the places she wanted to see.
Dead.
Because of him.
Because of me.
If I hadn't married Dimitri, if I hadn't defied my father, would Katya still be alive? The thought is a knife twisting in my gut.
"I should have killed you both years ago," Viktor continues, his voice distant now. "But your mother begged me to spare you. Said daughters were useful for alliances. I should have known better. Women are nothing but weakness and sentiment."
Through my grief, through the fog of pain and rage, I hear something. A voice. Faint, transmitted through the tiny earpiece Dimitri's tech specialist fitted me with.
Dimitri's voice.
"Alina." His tone is urgent, controlled. "I know what you just heard. I know what you're feeling. But I need you to focus. Can you do that for me?"
I don't respond, can't respond without alerting Viktor. But I force myself to breathe, to listen.
Viktor is still talking, outlining his plans, his voice filled with sick satisfaction. The men holding me have relaxed slightly, confident I'm subdued. They're wrong.
I think about the panic button pendant around my neck. About Dimitri racing to find me. About the promise he made. You're mine, and I protect what's mine.
I think about Katya, and the rage that's been simmering beneath my grief suddenly ignites into an inferno.
My father killed my sister. He's planning to kill me. He's going to use our deaths to destroy my husband.
Not if I can help it.
"Any last words?" Viktor asks, pulling a gun from inside his jacket. The same gun he probably used to kill Katya. "Any final pleas for mercy?"
I lift my head and meet his eyes. "Yes. Go to hell."
His finger moves toward the trigger.
Suddenly, gunfire erupts from every direction. Dimitri's men pour through the shattered windows like avenging angels, their weapons raised, their movements precise and coordinated.
Viktor's men scatter, some returning fire, others diving for cover. The two who were holding me release their grip and reach for their weapons. I roll away, scrambling behind a stack of old crates stacked against the hallway wall as bullets tear through the air above me.
Through the chaos, I see Dimitri.
He comes through the main entrance like death incarnate, his face a mask of cold fury. The eight-pointed star tattoo on his chest is visible through his partially unbuttoned tactical vest. He's firing with deadly accuracy, taking down Viktor's men with controlled, efficient shots.
Our eyes meet across the factory floor, and even in the middle of this hell, I feel it. That connection. That bond that's been forged through fire and blood and impossible choices.
He's here. He came for me.
But Viktor is moving. While his men provide covering fire, while the factory becomes a war zone, my father is running toward a back exit, slipping away like the coward he is.
No.
Not this time.
Dimitri is fighting his way toward me, but he's blocked by three of Viktor's men. Alexei is somewhere to my left, coordinating the assault. The factory is filled with smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder.
And Viktor is getting away.
I think about Katya. About her smile, her dreams, her life stolen by the man who was supposed to protect her. I think about all the years of manipulation, of being treated like property, of watching my father sacrifice everything and everyone for power.
I make my choice. I spot a fallen gun and grab it.
I break from cover and run toward the back exit, keeping low, using the smoke and chaos as cover. Behind me, I hear Dimitri shout my name, but I don't stop. Can't stop.
Viktor is almost to the door when I catch up to him. He hears my footsteps and spins, his gun coming up, but I'm faster. I fire once, hitting him in the shoulder. He stumbles backward, his weapon clattering to the floor.
"Alina." His voice is strained with pain. "Don't be stupid. You're not a killer."
I advance on him, the gun steady in my hands. "Wanna bet?"
He's backed against the wall now, blood spreading across his expensive shirt. The same shirt he probably wore when he killed Katya.
"She loved you," I say, my voice breaking. "Despite everything, despite how you treated us, Katya still loved you. And you killed her."
"I did what was necessary." Even now, even bleeding and cornered, he's defiant. "For the family. For our legacy."
"You destroyed our family." Tears stream down my face, but my hands don't shake. “There is no family anymore. There's just you and your ambition and the bodies you've left behind."
Behind me, the gunfire is dying down. Dimitri's men are winning. I can hear footsteps approaching, voices calling out in Russian.
Viktor's eyes dart past me, looking for escape, for salvation. There is none.
"Alina, please." For the first time, I hear fear in his voice. "I'm your father. You can't do this."
"You stopped being my father the moment you sold me to Sergei. You stopped being human the moment you killed Katya."
I raise the gun, pointing it at his chest. At his heart. The same place where Sergei took the bullets that killed him.
"Alina." Dimitri's voice is close now. "Wait."