Chapter 26 Aleksandr
ALEKSANDR
“Ready, brother?” Dmitri paused with his hand on the handle of the door, giving me one last chance to back out.
Sixteen years ago, I’d walked away from the bratva to build a coaching career, a legitimate life, with respect earned through sweat and winning hockey games rather than murder and blood. I’d thought I was refusing to let Conrad Jackson’s attack determine the course of my life.
What a fucking joke. I’d allowed that attack to control my entire life since then, and now, I was about to take a sledgehammer to it for his daughter. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
“Dmitri—” My voice came out rough. “I’m an asshole.”
He cocked his head and sat back in his seat, his knee knocking mine. “I’m sorry you’re back.”
Hurt, I flinched.
“A part of me hoped you’d found happiness.
I don’t regret this, but—” It was so unlike the Dmitri I’d known, to choose his words with care.
I’d known him as a brash and confident man, sure he could bend the world before him.
“You deserved to get out,” he continued softly.
“And while I will never regret anything that brought you back into my life, I’m sorry I played a part in bringing you back to the bratva. You deserve better.”
He’d forced my decision sixteen years ago with an ultimatum, made sure I couldn’t come back halfway. Then, I’d hated him for it. Now, I understood. He’d been trying to save me.
He reached over to ruffle my hair, teasing me like sixteen years hadn’t passed. “Last chance to turn back.”
“She’s worth it,” I said quietly. Worth my principles. Worth everything.
Dmitri yanked my head back. “That doesn’t sound like revenge, brother.”
“It’s not.”
“Good.” He released me, relief crossing his face for a moment before his expression turned bored and unreadable again. “Then let’s go damn your soul.”
Nikolai answered the door himself. He’d aged. I’d seen him at social events over the last sixteen years but had avoided him as carefully as I did my cousin. The silver in his hair was more pronounced now, the lines around his eyes deeper.
“Sasha,” Nikolai said, pulling me into an embrace. Shocked, I cautiously slid my arms up his back and returned the gesture.
He pulled back, gripping my shoulders, holding me still while he examined me.
I did the same, taking in the silver hair, the piercing blue eyes, and the tattoos on his face that told the story of his imprisonment and rise through Russian organized syndicates until he’d taken over the Yorkfield bratva.
I wondered what he saw. I wasn’t ethnically Russian, didn’t have the blonde hair and blue eyes his daughter had, that Dmitri had. Instead, my Kazakh roots showed—black hair, hooded brown eyes, and skin that tanned deeply in the summer months.
Whatever he found in my eyes satisfied him, because he nodded, clapped me on the back, then stepped away. “I never thought it’d be a girl who would bring you back to us,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
My eyes cut to Dmitri. How much had he shared?
“Please, join me for a drink,” Nikolai offered, leading us into a spacious kitchen. I’d expected this to be a business meeting, surrounded by Nikolai’s top lieutenants to take the oath that would swear me back into the brotherhood, and the Pakhan’s informality threw me off.
He removed a bottle of vodka from the freezer then poured three shots. “To brothers.”
“To brothers,” Dmitri and I echoed then downed the vodka.
Nikolai immediately poured three more. “There is no clean way to do this,” he said, looking me in the eye. “You walked away from your brothers and never looked back. And now, you want something.”
Dmitri inhaled, as if to speak, but stopped at the Pakhan’s sharp look.
“You refused to join the bratva sixteen years ago because you thought you were better than us. You let the man who hurt you live rather than give up anything to kill him.”
My hands curled under the table.
Dmitri inhaled again, and Nikolai held up his hand. “You are only here because you are my second. You will not speak one word until I have finished negotiating with Coach Novikov.” He turned back to me. “I don’t want you in the bratva.”
Dmitri took a sharp breath, opening his mouth to speak.
“Enough,” Nikolai snapped. “Dmitri, out.”
My cousin gave me a long, considering look, his fists clenched at his sides, then strode out of the kitchen, leaving me to face the Pakhan alone.
“I don’t want you in the bratva, but I do want to remove Jed Carter’s influence over sports betting in the United States.”
“That makes two of us,” I answered, meeting his ice blue eyes.
“Don’t lie to me. You want him to leave your pet alone, and you want him to leave your team alone, and if he did those two things, you wouldn’t care if he lived or died, da?”
It’d been a long time since someone had held a mirror up to my motivations. “Da.”
“How badly do you want it?” he asked.
“I’ll do anything,” I promised.
“Would you kill for her?”
“Anything.”
“Tell me about Carter’s operation. Everything you know.”
I took a breath, arranging the pieces I’d been turning over in my head. “Carter’s been running an illegal sports betting network for at least five years. He’s not just taking bets—he’s fixing games by blackmailing players and bribing officials.”
“And what does that have to do with your girl?”
I ignored the warmth in my chest at the Pakhan’s recognition of Eva’s place in my life.
“He’s blackmailing her to spy on my team.
She feeds him information about players, strategies, and injuries.
I believe he uses that intelligence to adjust bets and guarantee his wins.
He shared our plays with another team, and it almost destroyed us. ”
“The girl gave your plays to him?” Nikolai raised an eyebrow, and I reminded myself he had no reason to trust Eva, no reason to believe her like I did.
She could still be lying to me, could be playing a deeper game than I could have imagined, but she hadn’t faked her fury, she hadn’t faked her submission, and that had to be enough for me.
“He’s holding her father’s life over her head.”
“Conrad Jackson,” Nikolai mused, and my eyes narrowed. How much of this did he already know? “The man whose life you saved when you refused to join the bratva.” After a pause, he went on, stoic and to the point. “And what do you need from me?”
“First, protection for Eva and her father. Carter won’t hesitate to kill them both if he thinks she’s turned on him. And then make sure he doesn’t escape when this all comes falling down on him.”
“And what makes you think I’d risk my organization for your girl?”
"Because Carter’s been eating into bratva interests for years,” I said. “His operation competes directly with your sports betting network. If he’s gone, then there’s no one to compete with you in Yorkfield.”
“No one but the Irish,” he mused. “But I could cut a deal with Declan Flannigan, I think.” The Pakhan cracked a smile, his eyes softening for a moment.
“I’m getting old and sentimental, it seems. Dmitri’s like a son to me, and there isn’t a day in the last sixteen years he hasn’t regretted pushing you away. ”
Remorse settled deep in my bones. I should have taken his calls.
“Here is what I will offer you,” Nikolai said, interrupting my cycle of self-recrimination.
“I will allow Dmitri to use bratva contacts when he is seeking information for you. When you deliver Carter to me on a silver platter, I will dispose of him in a way that doesn’t implicate you. And in return, you will take the oath.”
“That’s not enough,” I said. “I need—”
Nikolai laughed, not cruelly. “You were barely a foot soldier when you left to play for the NHL, and when you were given an opportunity to come back, you refused. You may not have my men until you earn them, not even to protect the girl.”
He turned on his heel and pulled a kitchen knife from the block on the counter. “But first, you take the oath. Call Dmitri back in.”
Dmitri stood talking quietly with a blonde woman I didn’t recognize. His eyes flicked from the knife in Nikolai’s hand to me, and a parade of emotion crossed his face—grief, relief, regret.
He followed us up the stairs without a word. The woman came too, and Nikolai didn’t stop her.
Dmitri closed the door with a click, only for the blonde woman to enter. “Elena,” Nikolai said, exasperated.
“Baba,” she answered, taking a seat in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk.
“Fucking daughters,” Nikolai said with a smile. “Is this because of Irina?”
Dmitri slid into the seat beside her and elbowed her. “Your father recognizes another woman as head of her family, and now you think you’re part of the bratva?”
Elena elbowed him back.
“Children,” Nikolai said, and regret poured through me. How much had I missed? Dmitri had found family, and I’d never known.
He handed me the knife. The blade caught the light, sharp and clean.
I knew what this meant, what I was giving up. For Eva, it was worth it.
Nikolai took down a religious icon from the shelf behind him. Olga, who’d been baptized Elena. Games within games within games.
But if it would keep Eva safe, then it’d be worth it.
I pressed the blade to my palm and sliced. The sting was sharp and immediate. Blood welled up, dark red against my skin.
I swiped it over the porcelain of the icon’s robes, where I could see that countless men had done the same before me.
“I swear,” Elena’s voice rang out behind me. I repeated after her, and Dmitri and Nikolai join me.
“I swear, by my name, my life, and my blood, my loyalty to the brotherhood.”
The words tasted like ash—like failure. Sixteen years ago, I’d walked away from this exact moment, choosing legitimacy over vengeance. Now, I was swearing my soul to the devil, not for revenge, but for a slip of a girl who might never truly forgive me for what I’d done to her.
“I will die before I betray its secrets or my brothers. If I break these oaths, may my soul be damned forever.”
They each cut their thumbs and pressed them against the icon, and then, to my surprise, Elena did as well, casually, as she walked around the desk and opened a cabinet behind it.
“A toast,” she said, raising a fresh bottle of vodka and four glasses. “To our newest brother.”
Nikolai shook his head, smiling ruefully at his daughter. “Incorrigible.”
She grinned, unrepentant. “Welcome back to the family, Alek.”
I downed the vodka. It burned all the way down.
I’d just sold my soul, and I’d do it again, a thousand times, for her.
Dmitri’s hand found my shoulder and squeezed. “Welcome home, brother.”