11. Kirill
Kirill
Iassign a guard to post outside Sandrine’s bedroom and head toward the dark side. The north residence.
The wooden door to my father’s wing opens with the same creak I’ve heard my entire life.
Even now, it sends a cold shiver down my spine.
Thick runners over polished floors temper my harsh footsteps.
The halls of this gilded-age mansion stretch long and familiar.
And smells like old cigar smoke. The man Yuri Volkov used to be still clings stubbornly to the walls.
Two guards I keep for ceremonial purposes post outside Papa’s bedroom.
The nurse glances up at me when I step into the chamber.
“He’s awake,” the gray-haired woman says softly. “But he’s agitated tonight.”
“Then we’re halfway there,” I mutter.
“Sir?” she asks with a tilted head.
And she doesn’t call me Pakhan. No one does in his presence. He still thinks he’s in charge. I am. His food, his security, his medical care, and access to visitors are all completely under my control. He can think he’s the Prime Minister of Russia for all I care.
I move farther into the bedroom, and the sight of him is still a punch to the gut. Every fucking time.
Yuri Volkov once commanded rooms like violent storm clouds filling the night sky. Men feared him before he even opened his mouth. Now one side of his body hangs down from the stroke, the skin of his face garishly uneven.
He sits half-reclined in a massive bed. Alone. Oxygen hisses beside him. A blanket covers him to his waist despite the heat in the room.
His dark eyes, clouded with advanced cataracts, slowly shift toward me.
“Kirill?” His voice sounds like gravel dragged over broken glass.
“Excuse us,” I say to the nurse and wait for her to disappear through a side door. “It’s me, Papa.” I stop near the foot of the bed. Gripping the wooden footboard, I don’t mince words with him. “I found her. Sandrine. She’s home.”
His gaze narrows, and then for a moment, a thoughtful expression moves through his cloudy eyes. “And?”
The way his mouth twists, I know what he’s really asking.
Did she betray us?
I shove my hands into my pockets before the urge to reach for my gun becomes too obvious. “She doesn’t remember anything.”
That gets his attention. He responds with a cold stare.
“She had an accident,” I clarify and tell him what I know.
Thomas De la Vega’s involvement. The hospitalization. The memory loss.
Silence settles thickly between us.
Finally, Papa gives a sinister smile. “Convenient for you. Put her back where you found her. Do what is expected of you, Kirill.”
Rage flickers hot beneath my ribs.
“You keep forgetting, I love her,” I say, even though I’m not sure anymore.
I won’t give this man the satisfaction of thinking he got what he wanted all along. I had to live with the humiliation for five years that he might have been right about her. That my broken heart was deserved.
“Weak people break under pressure.” His breathing rattles faintly. “The pakhan’s wife must be a strong woman.”
“Like Mama? The woman you beat and cheated on. The mother who took her own life?” I say flatly. “Strong like that?”
“That was my business with my wife,” he says coldly. “Or did you forget what I can do to you when you overstep?”
Forget? Acid curdles the word now.
How could I forget the beating I got? His enforcer, Adrian Chernov’s knife against my throat. My father’s fists. A broken rib. A gun slammed into my face. Blood in my mouth. The Vory watching while I knelt on the floor taking it all because I refused to give up Sandrine.
Because I married her against his wishes.
“No. I didn’t forget.” My jaw tightens hard enough to ache. “I didn’t forget the night you decided my obedience mattered more than the blood we share.”
I should expect a more violent outburst for speaking to Papa this way. Now there’s only wheezing and the slow hiss of oxygen.
I take a breath, not wanting to spin this conversation any further in an ugly direction.
“Papa, I’m ready to take my place as pakhan. I have my wife. There will be sons next.” I twitch as I say this.
His eyes narrow at me again. The other name he won’t say because he’s a cruel prick.
“Drago and I took control of New York and Boston. Other cities are next.”
He laughs weakly, bitter amusement scraping from his chest. “You’re not ready to be pakhan. You’re making the mistake of a young, stupid man. Starting with keeping a wife who doesn’t know you.”
“That’s my business with my wife.” I throw his ridiculous argument in his face.
“This brotherhood is my business!” He sits up completely, pounding his bedsheet.
For a second, I see it. The old Yuri. The man who ruled Chicago with blood and fear. I’m torn, wanting him back and wanting him dead. Maybe if I keep fueling his adrenaline, it will give him a heart attack.
He opens his mouth to yell at me more, but another wet coughing fit hits him hard enough to fold his body forward.
The nurse rushes back into the room. “Pakhan—”
He shoves her away, still coughing into the sheet already stained pink.
I stare at the blood. At his trembling hands. At the monster who terrified me as a boy slowly drowning inside a decaying king.
“Good night, Papa.” For the first time in my life, I walk away from my father without waiting for permission.
Back on my side of Iron Keep, everything here is controlled. Even if the storm I’m facing is still clawing at the edges of my mind. Even if Sandrine’s scent still clings to my skin, to my clothes, so deep that I don’t think I can scrub it away now.
The chaos in my chest lifts, my duties as pakhan fading to the person who comes first in my life.
I reach the bedroom next to mine and pause. Just for a second, I let the noise in my head settle enough that I can step inside without bringing it with me.
I open the door, and warmth greets me immediately.
She looks up from where she’s sitting on the floor, surrounded by toys, her hair a wild halo of dark waves, her eyes—Sandrine’s warm amber eyes—lighting up the moment they find me.
“Daddy!”