Chapter Three
Arkady
It’s morning.
My father doesn’t knock. The office door slams open, rattling the frame. Papers on my desk flutter. I don’t look up from the laptop, even though the spreadsheet on screen has dissolved into meaningless numbers. Let him wait.
“Arkady.”
One word. Ice wrapped in barbed wire.
I close the laptop. Lean back in my chair. Meet his eyes. “Father.”
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
His accent thickens when he’s angry—consonants sharpening, vowels flattening. Right now, they could cut glass.
“I was thinking I didn’t want to marry a woman who bores me.”
“Bores you?” He barks out a laugh. No humor in it. “You burned a strategic alliance because you want to be entertained? Your ego is going to get you killed.”
“It’s more than that, Father. I won’t spend a lifetime playing games for you. That’s not ego—that’s self-preservation.”
“Self-preservation.” He crosses the room in three strides, plants both hands on my desk.
Leans in. I can smell the Turkish tobacco on his breath, the expensive cologne that can’t quite mask the scent of old violence.
“You want to talk about self-preservation, boy? Let’s talk about what you cost us yesterday. ”
“Us?” I don’t move. Don’t blink. “You mean you.”
His jaw clenches. “It’s not the first time you’ve disappointed me, Arkady. But this—” He straightens, spreads his arms. “What kind of mudak says no at his own wedding?”
“The kind who was never supposed to be there in the first place.”
“That wedding took months to arrange.” His voice rises. “Months of negotiation with Sergei. Territory agreements. Trade routes. Alliances that would have protected us from the Georgians—”
“I don’t care.”
“—and you destroyed it all.” He’s shouting now, face flushing. “In front of the entire Bratva. In front of everyone who matters. Do you know what Sergei is saying right now? What calls he’s making?”
“Da, and I don’t care. I have my property business. It’s doing well. The very reason I built it was to get out of this bullshit.”
The silence that follows is worse than the shouting.
My father stares at me. Then he laughs—quiet this time, ugly. The sound of something breaking.
“I have bad news for you, son.” He leans forward again, close enough that I could headbutt him if I wanted.
Part of me wants to. “You were born into the Bratva. There is no way out for you. Not while I’m breathing.
Not while you carry our name.” He taps my desk with one finger.
“You think you can play businessman? Pretend you’re clean? You’re not. You never will be.”
The words settle into my chest like a fucking life sentence. Which is what the Bratva is, after all.
“Every disappointment,” he continues, voice dropping to something softer, more dangerous. “Every failure. Every time you’ve embarrassed this family—it all comes back to the same thing, doesn’t it?”
My hands tighten on the armrests.
“Mishka.”
I pull in a breath, forcing down the visceral response to ram my fist into his face.
For a second, I’m fifteen again. The weight of the Makarov in my hands—heavier than it should be, unfamiliar, the metal still warm from my father’s palm. Hold it like this, he’d said. Respect the weapon.
I’d been trying to do everything right. Checking the chamber like he taught me. Finger off the trigger until—
The crack splits the air.
Mishka’s face—surprise first, then confusion, then nothing. His small body crumpling. The blood spreading dark across his shirt, too fast, too much. My mother’s scream ripping through the house, raw and animal and endless.
The gun clattering to the floor.
My hands shaking so hard I couldn’t make them stop.
Blyad.
I’m gripping the desk now. Knuckles cracking. The wood grain digs into my palms, but the pressure isn’t enough to ground me. Gunpowder still fills my nose—nearly fifteen years gone, and I can still smell it. Still hear the click that came a second before everything ended.
“You destroyed this family, Arkady.” My father’s voice comes from far away. “First, you killed your brother. Then you broke your mother’s heart. She was never the same after. You know that.”
I know.
I know because I watched her fade. Watched the light drain out of her eyes day by day until there was nothing left but an empty shell that stopped eating, stopped speaking, stopped living. The doctors said heart failure. But we both know what really killed her.
Me.
“And now,” he says, “you’ve destroyed the only alliance that could have saved us. Again.”
He straightens. Crosses his arms.
“And let’s not forget Operation Blackout.”
The words land like a second bullet.
“Six years ago,” he continues, “my own son—my own blood—sabotaged my operation. Cost me millions. Humiliated me in front of the other families.” His lips curl. “The ultimate betrayal.”
My jaw locks. “That wasn’t betrayal. That was having a conscience.”
“Conscience?” He spits the word. “Conscience doesn’t pay debts, Arkady. Conscience doesn’t keep the Georgians from swallowing our territory. Conscience doesn’t feed families or protect borders. In our world, conscience is a luxury we cannot afford.”
“Those were girls, Father. Eighteen years old. You were selling them like—”
“Like inventory. Like business.” He waves a dismissive hand. “Nothing more.”
“They were human beings.”
“They were profit!” He leans in again. “And you stole that from me. Sent your men—” His gaze flicks to the closed door, as if Stefan might be listening.
“Sent them to steal my property. Hid the girls in your house like some kind of savior.” The disgust drips from every word.
“Do you know how long it took me to rebuild that network? How much trust I had to repair?”
“You said you stopped.” I snap the words out.
His smile is all teeth. No warmth. “Yes. Of course I did, syn.”
Ice floods my veins.
He’s still doing it. Still trafficking. Still destroying lives for profit.
Ty mraz’!
“You’re fucking hopeless for a son, Arkady.” He turns toward the door. “Sergei is making calls. The Georgians are circling like vultures. And when they come for you—and they will come—don’t expect me to stop them.”
He walks out. Doesn’t slam the door this time. Just closes it with a quiet click that somehow feels worse.
I sit in the silence.
My hands are still locked on the desk. Pulse hammering. The ghost of gunpowder in my nose, Mishka’s blood on my hands, no matter how many times I’ve washed them.
Focus, mudak.
I open the laptop. Pull up the file for Ashwater Heights—the estate I just closed on. Sprawling grounds. Countless bedrooms. Needs a full staff, which is proving harder than expected. I should be thinking about contractors. Security systems. Housekeepers.
But I’m not.
I’m thinking about her.
The registrar. The way her eyes had gone wide when the fabric split.
The way her throat moved as she swallowed hard, tits heaving.
That scarf slipping lower every time she breathed, revealing all that soft skin.
The way she’d looked at me—flustered, embarrassed, but still standing there doing her job like her world wasn’t falling apart.
I want her up against the wall. Want to see if she breathes that same way when I get my hand between her legs. Want to know what sounds she makes when I—
Blyad!
I snap the laptop shut.
This isn’t going away.
She’s a problem I can’t afford. A distraction that could get me and my men killed. Sergei’s already planning revenge. And I’m sure my father’s still trafficking girls and lying to my face about it. I should be planning, strategizing, shoring up defenses.
Instead, I’m sitting here hard as stone, thinking about a woman whose name I don’t even know.
My phone buzzes. A text from Stefan: Property manager called. Ashwater needs staff by end of week.
I stare at the message.
Ashwater Heights. Staff.
I force myself to get my head back in the game.
I don’t have time for this shit.