27. Ruslan
27
RUSLAN
I walk a step behind Aurora and to her right, keeping myself positioned between her and Tamara. The baby shower chatter fades behind us as we make our way toward my office.
Aurora's hand brushes against mine, silently reassuring me that she's okay.
I can't help but notice how her other hand is shielding her belly protectively. Her natural instinct to protect our children mirrors my own to protect her.
"Could you at least pretend not to despise me, Ruslan Vitalyevich?" Tamara's voice breaks the silence.
But for the first time in my life, I don't hear her familiar breathy tone designed to make men lean closer.
I don't take the bait. "I can't forget what you've done, Tamara."
Aurora squeezes my hand, as if reminding me that now's not the time to bring up grievances.
I push open the heavy oak door to my office and step aside, letting Aurora enter first while keeping Tamara in my line of sight.
Once we're all inside, I close the door with a soft click.
"What's so urgent that you decided to meet us in person?"
I don't bother with pleasantries. With Tamara, it's best to cut straight to the point.
She takes a seat without waiting for an invitation and immediately starts speaking.
"There's a man that Uncle Semyon has partnered with. A police officer from Kansas City."
"Kristofer," Aurora whispers, the name barely audible. Her hand finds mine and squeezes so tight her nails dig into my palm.
"Yes, Kristofer..." Tamara continues, her eyes flicking to Aurora. "He scares me in ways that no man has ever scared me."
The temperature in the room seems to drop. Aurora's breathing has become shallow, and I know exactly who Tamara is describing.
"But my uncle believes him to be useful," Tamara says. "A high-ranking police officer who can provide protection and information as far out as Kansas City. But the man isn't right."
She leans forward, lowering her voice further. "He pretends to serve Semyon's interests, but I can tell that he's loyal to no one but himself. Whatever he wants, he'll burn everything to get it."
I know what he wants.
Aurora.
"My uncle doesn't believe me," Tamara continues. "He thinks that Kristofer can be controlled. But some monsters can't be controlled."
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask, my voice ice cold as I stare at her.
Tamara's perfect mask slips for just a moment. "Because I'm scared for my daughters."
Something inside me snaps.
"Your daughters?" I slam my palm against the desk. "The same daughters you were willing to sacrifice when your uncle's men attacked this mansion with the help of the Traids?"
Tamara's eyes widen, genuine shock crossing her face. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play innocent," I spit. "Gregor told me everything. How you helped orchestrate Lev's death. How you stood by while they murdered your own son. How you let Kristofer access our security systems knowing your daughters were here when the Triads attacked."
Tamara rises to her feet, her perfectly manicured hand trembling. "You think I would let my children die? My flesh and blood?"
"You let Mikhail die," I say, each word a knife. "Your own son."
"That's not?—"
"You got into Mikayla's phone," I continue, letting the rage I've been containing pour out. "You used your own daughter to spy on us, knowing the consequences. You were willing to sacrifice everything and everyone for what? For your uncle? For your obsession with me?"
Aurora's hand finds mine, a silent anchor in the storm of my fury.
"Mikhail was..." Tamara's voice breaks. For once, the tremor seems genuine. "I never wanted?—"
"You never wanted what? To be caught? To face the consequences of your actions?" I step closer to her. "And now you come here, pretending to care about your daughters' safety? Where was that concern when you helped plan an attack on this house, knowing they were inside?"
Tamara's perfect face crumples, tears cutting through her makeup. "Is that what you truly believe of me? That I am so hateful?"
"Aren't you?"
"For Lev..." Her voice shakes. "Yes."
My blood boils at her admission, but before I can speak, she raises her hand.
"But my children?" Her voice hardens. "You have no right to accuse me of my son's murder! I carried Mikhail in my womb for nine months, Ruslan. I felt him take form, whispered to him in my belly at night after Lev was done with me. I watched him grow from a tiny little thing to the man that he was."
Tears flow freely down her face now, smearing her makeup.
"I loved my son, as I love all my children. How dare you accuse me of this?"
"Then why did you never show any interest in his desire to leave the bratva for a life in acting?"
Tamara's hands ball into fists. "Because Lev forbade me from doting on Mikhail! He said I was making him weak, turning him soft. Every time I showed affection toward my son, he would hurt me for it."
Her words hit me like a physical blow. Once again, I'm reminded that the Lev I knew and adored was not the Lev that the rest of the world saw. That the Lev I grew up with never appeared once to his wife and children.
"On the day that Mikhail died," I continue, remembering her strange calmness that day. "Why did you not react when I told you?"
"Because," she answers, voice hoarse. "I was forced to sit there and listen in when the killer told my uncle over the phone that my baby boy was dead."
I swallow hard, trying to process this when Aurora's hand slides into mine.
I stare at Tamara, trying to separate truth from deception in her eyes. Something about her story doesn't add up.
Or maybe I don't want it to add up because it's easier to hate her than to understand her.
"Tell me your side of the story," I say, keeping my voice even. "All of it."
Tamara's perfect posture slumps and she looks like she's trying to make herself look small in an attempt to not attract attention. For a moment, I wonder if this was how she was with Lev behind closed doors.
When he became the monster keeping her captive.
"Gregor struck a deal with my uncle weeks before Lev died," she begins, her voice hollow. "I wanted Lev gone, I won't deny that. After nineteen years of hell with him, I wanted freedom."
Aurora tenses beside me, but I keep my focus on Tamara.
"The morning it was supposed to happen, my uncle sat me down. He told me that the plan had changed." Her voice cracks. "That it wouldn't just be Lev. That Mikhail had to die too."
My blood turns to ice.
"I screamed at him. I begged him." Tears spill down her cheeks. "I told him this wasn't part of the original deal, that Mikhail should be allowed to live, that he had no right to take my son from me like this. But you know my uncle. He wouldn't budge."
She wraps her arms around herself, shivering despite the warmth of the day.
"When I threatened to warn you and to stop it somehow..." She swallows hard. "He forced me back into a chair and pressed a gun to the back of my head, and made me listen ."
Aurora gasps softly beside me.
"And when the murder was done, he whispered in my ear that if I dare interfere with his plans, he'll make me watch as Mikayla is married off as soon as he can. That he'll make Sofia and Stella wards of the Triads."
The horror of that threat is overwhelming. To place two young girls in the hands of the Triads.
"And then, only then, will he kill me," Tamara continues. "As punishment for undermining my father nineteen years ago. As punishment for negotiating with Vitaly when that peace was never mine to negotiate."
I stand frozen, unable to process the raw pain in Tamara's voice.
For years, I've built her up as this calculating monster in my mind, the woman who handed Leslie to my father on a silver platter, the woman obsessed with me, and the woman willing to sacrifice everything around her.
I never once saw her as a mother who loves her children.
Someone with the same fierce drive to protect Mikayla, Stella, and Sofia.
Could I have been wrong about her involvement in this? Was I ready to condemn her to death for a crime that she didn't commit?
On Gregor's words?
The thought makes my stomach turn.
"I may have done many things you despise me for, Ruslan," Tamara continues, her voice breaking. "But don't you ever think for a moment that I don't love my children. They are everything to me."
I'm still searching for words when Aurora steps forward.
"I believe you," she says softly to Tamara. "About loving your children."
I glance at my wife, surprised by her intervention.
Tamara wipes at her tears, smearing her makeup further.
"Thank you, and I'm sorry." She turns to look directly at Aurora. "For playing my role in exposing you."
"But how did you know?" she asks Tamara quietly. "How did you discover I was Jamie Fields?"
Tamara wipes at her smeared mascara with trembling fingers. She looks between us, seeming to gauge how much to reveal.
"A few days after Sienna Voss made her first post on Instagram about you and Ruslan at Nikoforov," Tamara begins, "Kristofer came to Los Angeles."
The name echoes in the air like poison. I feel Aurora's grip tighten on my hand.
"He was frighteningly efficient," Tamara continues. "Within days, he'd figured out that the entire Los Angeles underworld was looking into Aurora's background. He somehow pieced together who all the major players were—who controlled what territory, who had access to what information."
I do some quick math and realize that would've been the same week after I had ordered Artyom to look into Aurora.
My stomach drops.
I clench my jaw, hating that I might've played a part in this monster getting so close to Aurora. Hating that I might've inadvertently helped Kristofer find her.
"He came to my uncle directly," Tamara says. "Offered his services and said he could help expand my uncle's operations far into the Midwest. In exchange, he wanted help finding Jamie Fields."
Aurora's breathing accelerates beside me. I pull her closer, wishing I could shield her from these words, from this reality.
"My uncle accepted," Tamara continues. "Kristofer helped reveal who Aurora really was. He had photos, records... things only someone obsessed would have collected for years."
I can feel Aurora trembling against me, and what little control I had over my hatred for Kristofer slips away entirely.
"My uncle thought he could use Kristofer," Tamara says, her voice dropping. "But the moment Kristofer found out where Jamie Fields was..." She shakes her head. "I saw a look in his eyes that reminded me of my father at his worst. That's when I realized Kristofer was using Semyon, not the other way around."
"But that's not all of it," Aurora says, her voice steadier than I expected. "Sienna Voss told me you threatened her. She said that you would kill her if she didn't post that photo with my real name on Instagram."
Tamara doesn't flinch at the accusation. Her eyes drift to the floor as she nods.
"Yes." Her voice is barely audible. "I did do that."
My muscles tense at her confession. I want to lash out, to make her feel a fraction of the pain Aurora suffered because of that post, but Aurora's steady presence beside me holds me back.
"Why?" Aurora asks, the single word cutting through the silence.
Tamara looks up, her eyes hollow. "Because my uncle and Kristofer made an arrangement." She takes a shuddering breath. "He was going to betroth Mikayla to Kristofer once she inherited the Dragunov bratva."
The words hit me like a physical blow. My fifteen-year-old niece, with her serious eyes and love of books.
Given to that monster.
"My daughter," Tamara continues, her voice breaking. "Was going to be traded like cattle to that psychopath. I couldn't allow that, not after what I lived through under Lev."
My stomach turns at the thought.
"I went to Kristofer privately," Tamara says, her hands trembling. "Begged him to reconsider. Asked if there was anything—anything at all—I could do to prevent this."
Aurora's breathing has gone shallow beside me. I squeeze her hand gently, grounding her.
"He said he wanted Jamie Fields, not some fifteen-year-old child." Tamara's shoulders slump as if carrying an unbearable weight. "If I could deliver Jamie to him, he would gladly reject his betrothal to Mikayla."
I close my eyes, fury and understanding warring within me. A mother willing to sacrifice a stranger to save her child.
It's despicable, yet horrifyingly understandable.
"I agreed," Tamara whispers. "I thought I could save my daughter from him."
"And exposed Aurora in the process," I say, my voice tight with anger. "You delivered her to a monster."
"I did, but I didn't think Kristofer would reveal my duplicity to my uncle." Tamara's voice cracks. "And when he did, my uncle decided that the safest path forward was to simply kill everyone in this mansion. Because if everyone is dead, then the most valuable part of the Dragunov bratva will go to Aurora, who would be with Kristofer."
The pieces click into place. Semyon's brutal efficiency. The coordinated attack. The timing of it all.
"He said it was neater this way." Tamara's voice is now barely a whisper as tears fall hot and fast from her eyes. "But more importantly, it meant that he would still get to do what he wanted: make me watch helplessly as I lose every single one of my children."
I sit stunned, my mind reeling as I try to process everything Tamara has revealed. Her words hang in the air between us, raw and terrible. The woman I've hated for decades suddenly appearing more complex, more human than I've ever allowed myself to see.
Aurora breaks the heavy silence. "Do you need our protection, Tamara?" Her voice is gentle but firm.
Tamara shakes her head, a mirthless smile playing on her ruined makeup. "I don't matter. My daughters do." She straightens her spine with newfound resolve. "The only way to truly protect them is if my uncle and Kristofer are dead."
"We want the same thing," I say, my voice rough with emotion. "What can you do to help?"
Tamara reaches into her purse and pulls out her phone. "I've installed the same backdoor software onto my uncle's security system." She extends it toward me. "I came to deliver this to you personally."
I take the phone from her, our fingers brushing for the briefest moment and I can't help feel how cold her skin is.
"This will allow you to attack him at his home," she explains. "You'll have complete access to his security feeds, door locks, everything."
"Why would you do this?" I ask, suspicious despite myself.
"Because I've accepted that I'm not getting out of this alive," she says with startling clarity.
She stands and smooths her skirt with practiced elegance. "And now, I must go back there."
"What?" Aurora gasps, rising to her feet. "Why would you go back?"
"My uncle expects me back in time for dinner," Tamara says with that same sad smile. "And dinner would be a good time to attack, Ruslan Vitalyevich."
"Tamara—" I start, but she cuts me off.
"Thank you," she says, looking between us. "For giving me the chance to see my daughters one last time. To hold them. To tell them I love them." Her voice catches. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to spend a few more minutes with them. Before it's too late."
I nod, unable to deny her this request. The woman who once handed Leslie to my father is now walking willingly toward her own execution, all to save her children.
"Of course," Aurora says softly before I can. "Take all the time you need."