Chapter 33
Ryder
Getting closer to my father used to mean standing in the same room and knowing when to disappear into the background.
Now it means something else entirely. It’s been almost three months since I left Savannah, since I was involved in his day-to-day operations.
And now I need to learn how he’s adapted, how he’s tightened his operations, and if there are any new weaknesses. That is my way in.
The problem is that the team I left him with learned well.
He doesn’t use unsecured lines or other forms of communication.
It’s mostly face-to-face where he slips and reveals more than he should.
But he’s still in Savannah, and there’s no way Liev would agree to let me fly back. Even without knowing that I’m pregnant.
Liev is resting upstairs, finally asleep after fighting it for too long. Viktor is stationed somewhere close enough to intervene if something shifts.
I sit at the desk in the smaller office, my laptop open, a second screen pulled up beside it.
His phone is locked, encrypted, and routed through multiple layers that are constantly cycling. But I know the systems he uses, and nothing is perfect. Definitely not him.
I trace patterns first, the way his device connects and disconnects from networks, the rhythm of it. Then I isolate the windows where it’s most vulnerable. There are brief moments where the encryption resets and something flickers just long enough to slip through if you’re patient.
I am.
The code unfolds slowly, line by line, until something catches. The connection stabilizes for a fraction of a second, then again, then long enough to hold. I route it through a quieter channel, masking the intrusion so it doesn’t flag immediately.
And then I can hear voices.
“…not what I asked for.”
My breath stills as I hear my father’s voice, clear, controlled, and angry.
Part of me wants to go and wake Liev up.
I don’t want to be alone with whatever I’m about to hear.
Instead, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and focus on the audio feeding through the headphones.
I adjust the levels, filtering out interference, and pulling his voice forward.
“I was told this would be handled,” he continues. “Cleanly. It’s been months.”
Another voice answers, lower, distorted slightly by the connection. “It was supposed to be. Demsky’s security—”
“Is not the problem,” my father cuts in. “Incompetence is. He barely had any security when he arrived there. Now I’m told there’s a Bratva assassin on the grounds.”
I lean forward slightly, my fingers hovering over the keyboard, resisting the urge to adjust anything else. If I push too far, I risk losing it entirely.
“Four attempts,” he says. “Four. And he’s still breathing.”
My chest tightens, nausea roiling through my stomach. The thing I’ve been fearing this whole time is turning out to be true. My father is the one who put the hit out on Liev.
I should be surprised, but I’m not.
There’s a pause on the other end. Then the other man speaks again, cautious now. “We underestimated—”
“You don’t get to underestimate,” my father snaps. “Not with me. Fix it,” he says finally, quieter but colder. “I don’t care how. I don’t care what it costs. I want him gone.”
My fingers curl slightly against the edge of the desk. What are the chances, a small voice whispers in my head, that he’s doing this for me? That it’s because of the forced marriage—
No, he’s never cared that much.
A beat passes. My eyes scan the screens, trying to figure out where the other call is coming from. Who it might be. It looks like a burner phone, and without more information I can’t track it.
“And the girl?” the other man asks.
Everything in me goes still.
There’s a pause, longer this time.
“If she’s there,” my father says, “she’s there.”
In the back of my mind, I can almost see him shrugging casually, wearing a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned too far.
The words sink in slowly, anger burning in their path.
Collateral.
That’s what I am to him in this. Not his daughter, not someone to protect, just a risk he’s willing to take.
“Miami needs to be corrected,” he continues. “It was mine. It will be again.”
“You’re certain you want to push this?” the other man asks. “Demsky has backing now. There are complications.”
“I don’t care who backs him,” my father replies. “Everyone bleeds.”
The certainty in his voice is absolute, but I can hear the emotion under it too. At some point, Liev offended and embarrassed him. This is revenge as much as it is business.
My pulse is steady now, oddly calm as the reality locks into place.
I wait when the line goes fuzzy, letting it stabilize again before I risk pulling back. The voices blur for a second, then sharpen, but the conversation has shifted. It’s less useful now as they talk about small tasks taking place in Savannah.
It’s enough.
Carefully, I disengage, peeling back through the layers I forced open, closing each one behind me so it doesn’t look like it was ever touched.
There’s a chance one of the young men or women I trained will notice I was there, but there’s an even higher chance they won’t say anything.
That’s the difference between my father and me; he cultivates fear; I cultivate loyalty.
The signal drops, clean and quiet, like it was never there at all.
I pull the headphones off slowly, setting them down beside the laptop. My reflection is faint on the dark screen for a second before it dims completely.
My father tried to have my husband killed.
More than once.
And he didn’t care if I got caught in it. If I died, too.
I push back from the desk, standing slowly, my body steady even as it feels like my entire world is shifting. This is no longer something I can ignore or soften. I’m a Bratva queen, and I need to protect my family.
My father has just proven that we aren’t family.
I turn toward the door and stop.
My mother is standing there. The headphones fall from my fingers, and instinct clicks into place, cold and sad.
“How long have you been here?” The question comes out cold and flat. I try to correct quickly: “I didn’t know you were coming.”
She hasn’t visited once since we moved in.
Her gaze flicks briefly to the laptop, then back to my face, something unreadable moving behind her eyes.
“Ryder,” she says.
I meet her gaze evenly. “Mama.”
She studies me for a moment, taking in more than I say, more than I show. “You’ve been busy.”
“I have.”
“I heard your father’s voice. You’re spying on him now?” It’s reproachful, and when I laugh, the surprise on her face shifts to annoyance. “You shouldn’t involve yourself in this,” she bites out, arms crossed.
“I already am.”
“Be careful.”
“Of what, exactly? Or who? Did you know?”
I can feel it all boiling inside me, pressing to the surface. Years of being neglected, underestimated, used, discarded. And now…
“Did you know he’s trying to kill my husband?”
Carmela doesn’t look surprised. That’s the first thing I register as the silence stretches between us. Not shock, not denial, not even irritation at being caught in my house, uninvited, lurking.
For a second, I think she might deflect, might try to soften it into something less direct.
She doesn’t.
“I knew,” she says quietly.
There’s no hesitation or apology. Grief swells up with anger, pressing tears into the corners of my eyes. I angrily blink them away.
“How long?”
Her shoulders shift slightly, a subtle release of tension I hadn’t noticed until now. “Long enough.”
“And you didn’t say anything,” I say. “You were okay with…what if…”
Her expression doesn’t change. “This is how these things are handled.”
I scoff, a hand flexing toward the knife clipped to my side at all times. Even if this is my mother, she’s now a threat as well. Or could be. “By pretending they’re not happening? You were willing to bury him, too, after everything I’ve been through to get here? Back home?”
“It’s what’s necessary, Ryder.”
Every sound grows dimmer as she gesticulates. Maybe it’s the hormones, but a rush of emotions sweeps through me. The continuing undertone of anger, but with it sadness and grief. Have I always been so disposable and in the way?
“Who exactly is this necessary for?” I ask quietly, hands fisted.
Mama sighs. I feel like a kid all over again, having done something wrong and not understanding it. “It’s necessary for stability,” she says. “For control. Your father built something here. He’s not going to let it be taken from him without a response.”
“A response?” I echo. “You call this a response?”
Her gaze sharpens slightly. “I call it inevitable.”
“You’re both monsters. This was a business deal, Mother. He gave up Miami to move north. Then he practically sold me like chattel. Now you’re fine with him killing the man I was handed off to, the man I’ve made a life with?”
Carmela doesn’t flinch. “Yes.” Her lips press together briefly, then ease. “It resolves the situation.”
A hollow feeling opens up in my chest. “You think I should be relieved.” It’s not really a question, because right from the start she hasn’t respected my relationship with Liev—that someone in the Moreno family might not go back on their word.
Her gaze shifts, something almost like patience settling into it. “You’ll be free.”
Free.
Like this is a gift.
Like this is something I’ve been waiting for.
My throat tightens, but I force the words out anyway. “I don’t know what you think this is, but he treats me like an equal.”
Mama rolls her eyes. “That doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything.”
She shakes her head faintly, like I’m missing something obvious. “You’re too close to it.”
“No,” I say quietly. “I’m finally seeing it clearly.”
“I know you love Papa, but you’re not blind, Mama. Do you really think he’ll be able to come back and take control when he’s already stretched himself too far? This doesn’t create stability.”
“It does,” she says.
“For you,” I correct. “If he can manage it.”
“For all of us.”
I let out a quiet breath, something brittle threading through it. “Even me?”
“Yes.”
“Even knowing he doesn’t care if I’m there when it happens?” I ask.
That gives her pause. It’s small, barely there, but I realize that she doesn’t know; not really.
“What do you mean?” she asks, arms unwrapping from their death-grip around her chest.
I hold her gaze, not letting her look away from this. “I heard him,” I say. “They asked about me. About what happens if I’m with Liev when they make their next attempt.”
“And do you know what he said?” I continue.
She doesn’t answer. I don’t give her the chance.
“He said if I’m there, I’m there.”
For the first time in my life I can remember, my mother looks caught. Her expression breaks, brows knit and painted lips twisted in a grimace. Her eyes go to my laptop, the headphones, my face.
“He wouldn’t—” she starts.
“He would,” I cut in. “And he will.”
I watch her, waiting, giving her the space to process it, to try and justify it. I watch her try to find some way to make it fit into the version of this entire life she’s been telling herself.
“How can you be okay with that?” I ask, quieter now. “Are you willing to lose me, too, for this? If he comes home, Mama, it doesn’t mean he won’t leave again. He’s your husband. But I’m your daughter.”
Her gaze flicks to mine, something sharp there now, defensive. “Don’t make this into something it’s not.”
“I would never do that,” I say, the words quieter now, but more certain than anything I’ve said so far.
Her brow furrows slightly. “Do what?”
“That. Choose something else over my child’s life.”
I clench my fists again, fighting the urge to brush my lower belly. I’m keeping this baby. There’s no hesitation in it now. No uncertainty left to work through, no fear strong enough to override what I feel in this moment.
Carmela watches me closely, like she can see the shift happening in real time. It’s like she understands that something just locked into place that she can’t easily undo.
“You’re being emotional,” she snaps. It’s something I’ve heard all my life, and it makes me laugh unexpectedly.
“No, I’m being logical. If Papa wants a war, we’ll give him one. And I’ll die by my husband’s side. You’ll have to live with yourself—with knowing you let him kill me, too—if it gets that far.”
“Ryder—”
“You can step out of the way,” I continue, not raising my voice, but not giving her space to interrupt. “You can let me handle this, and you can stay out of whatever happens next.”
“And if I don’t?”
The question is testing. I hold her gaze.
“Then you can go tell him,” I say. “Right now. Call him, tell him what I know, and help him finish what he started. Then you’ll be a murderer, too.”
“If Liev goes down,” I add, “I’m going down with him.”
I hold her gaze for one more second, letting the weight of it settle, letting her understand exactly what I’m saying, exactly what I’m choosing.
“Get the fuck out of my house,” I hiss.
Then I turn and walk away.