Chapter Twenty-Eight
Arkady
I’m sitting at the workbench in my gun room, late afternoon sun slanting through the bulletproof glass, turning oil and metal into something almost holy. Empire Royale’s quarterly reports sit untouched on my desk three floors down. Seven-figure decisions that can wait.
Because I’m planning a fucking engagement party.
The absurdity isn’t lost on me. Six months ago, “engagement” made my teeth grind. Now I’m sitting here with gun parts and guest lists, building something that terrifies me more than any enemy I’ve faced.
My phone sits silent beside a cleaning rod. Waiting for Yanis.
I run the bore brush through the barrel—metal scraping metal, the smell of solvent sharp in my throat. This is what I do when my head gets too loud. Strip weapons down to their bones. Reassemble them. Check the chamber twice. Three times. Make sure nothing’s going to fire when it shouldn’t.
Control the things I can control.
The intercom crackles. “Mr. Laurov, your brother is here.”
“Send him in.”
I don’t look up when the door opens. Just keep working—brush, wipe, inspect. Yanis knows where to find me when I’m like this.
“Gun room,” he says. “That bad?”
“That necessary.” I set the barrel down, reach for the slide. “We need to talk. Close the door.”
He does. Moves to the chair across from my workbench, eyes tracking over the disassembled weapons laid out like surgery. “Planning something or just brooding?”
“Planning.” I fit the recoil spring back into place, feel the tension compress under my fingers. “An engagement party.”
Yanis goes completely still.
Then something shifts in his face. “Blyad. You’re actually doing it.”
“Saturday. Two weeks.” I snap the slide back onto the frame, rack it once to check the action. Smooth. Perfect. “Stefan, Natalia, and Julia. Debra. Baby Aleks and Fanny. Diane—Mirabel’s best friend. Mirabel’s father, if he can make it. Everyone who matters.”
“Everyone except Father.” Not a question.
I chamber-check the Glock—empty, like I knew it would be, but I check anyway because this is what I do—then set it aside. Start on the next one. “You asking if I’m inviting our slave-trading khuylo of a father?”
“Just confirming you haven’t lost your fucking mind.”
“My mind’s questionable for other reasons.” I field-strip the second Glock faster than the first, muscle memory making my hands efficient. Brutal. “But Gavriil Laurov gets nowhere near my family.”
“Good.” Yanis leans back, and there’s something almost vicious in his smile now. The brother I recognize. “Because I’d have to hurt you if you invited that mudak. And I’m too fond of you to enjoy it.”
The joke sits wrong. Too light for what we both know.
“It’s been nearly a month,” Yanis continues, voice dropping. “Debra’s still in your house. Let’s expect Father to make his move.”
There it is. The dread I’ve been carrying since I pulled her from that cellar. Father seeing Debra as property he lost. Something to reclaim. Something to punish me with.
“Security’s tight.” I keep my hands moving—disassemble, clean, check. Ritualistic. “Armed men at every entrance. Cameras covering every angle. Motion sensors in the gardens. Three perimeter sweeps per shift. No one gets near this house without me knowing. Mirabel and Debra are safe here.”
“And when they leave?”
“They don’t. Not without protection.”
“Arkady—”
“I’m not locking them up!” I bark. I stop, force myself to breathe. To not crush the firing pin I’m holding. “I’m keeping them alive. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” His eyes pin me down. “To me this still sounds like you’re making decisions for them. Same shit Father does.”
I want to argue. Want to explain that Father controls people to break them, and I control situations to protect them. But the distinction feels thin. Meaningless. Just different flavors of the same poison.
“You’re falling for her. Debra,” I say instead.
Yanis doesn’t flinch. “So what if I am?”
“So she’s vulnerable. Traumatized. She needs—”
“She needs someone who sees her as more than broken.” He cuts through my bullshit. “Someone who trusts her to know what she can survive.”
The words land where he aimed them. Right in my hypocrisy. Because isn’t this exactly the war I fight with Mirabel? Wanting to lock her away where nothing can touch her versus trusting her to make her own choices, live her own risks.
I finish with the second Glock. Chamber-check. Set it aside. Start on a third.
“Just don’t hurt her,” I finally say.
“I won’t.” Yanis stands, moves toward the door. “But she’s stronger than you think. Stronger than Father tried to make her believe she wasn’t.”
The door clicks shut behind him.
I’m alone with my weapons and my thoughts. Neither particularly comforting.
My phone vibrates against the workbench. Mirabel’s name lights the screen.
I answer immediately. “Zaychik.”
“Arkady.” Her voice sounds thin. Stretched tight over something sharp underneath. “Something’s happened.”
Every nerve ending in my body fires warning signals. I set down the gun I’m holding, giving her my full attention. “Tell me.”
“It’s my dad.” A breath catches in her throat.
“He’s back in the hospital. The cancer… it’s taken a turn for the worse.
They’re running more tests, but the doctors sound…
” She swallows loudly enough that I hear it over the line.
“They’re worried, Arkady. He’s in the ICU, and…
and I need to see him. Before it’s too late… ” She trails off.
I’m already on my feet. Already calculating hospital layouts, security weaknesses, whether I need to deploy men now or if I have time to get there myself.
“When are you going?” My voice comes out flat. Controlled. The tone I use when I’m one wrong answer away from violence.
“Tomorrow. As soon as the doctors are done with the tests.” Pause. “Debra will want to come with me.”
Everything in the room sharpens.
“Together.” I keep my voice level. “You’re taking Debra to see your father. Who doesn’t know she’s alive.”
“I thought it might help him. She’s strong enough to see him now. I really think it could work.” There’s steel under her fear now. That part of Mirabel that refuses to bend. “Knowing she’s safe. That she’s home.”
“Or it could stop his heart.” Brutal honesty. The only kind I have. “All these years of believing she’s dead, then seeing her walk through his hospital door. That kind of shock kills people, Mirabel.”
“Or it gives them a reason to keep fighting.” Her voice hardens. “Arkady, I’m not asking permission. I’m telling you what’s happening.”
There it is. The woman who broke into my Secret Room. Who snooped through my life even when I warned her not to. Who falls asleep in my bed and carries my daughter and refuses to be controlled by men who think they know better.
The woman I can’t live without.
I drag my free hand through my hair, force my brain to work through the fear. She’s right. Peter McLeod deserves to see his daughters. Deserves to know the six-year nightmare is over. And stopping them because I’m afraid—that’s not protection. That’s just me being my father in different clothes.
But there’s no fucking way I’ll let them walk into that hospital unprotected.
“Text me before you go,” I say. “I’ll arrange protection.”
“Arkady—”
“Armed security. Close enough to intervene, far enough not to disturb. Non-negotiable.” I pick up the Glock I was cleaning, check the chamber one more time. Empty. Always empty. “I’m not taking chances.”
“Fine,” she says. “But they stay outside his room. I don’t want him scared.”
“Plainclothes. They’ll blend. Hospital staff, visitors. No one will notice them.” I set the gun down, grip the edge of the workbench. “But Mirabel—if anything feels wrong, even slightly wrong, you leave. Immediately.”
“I will.” Her voice drops, goes soft. Vulnerable. “Arkady? I’m scared. I’m so scared of losing him.”
The admission guts me.
I want to promise it’ll be okay. Want to swear I’ll fix everything, that nothing bad will happen while I’m alive to prevent it. But those are lies. I can’t control cancer. Can’t control her father’s heart. Can’t control the thousand ways this could go wrong.
“I know, zaychik.” I fight the roughness in my voice. “But you’re not doing this alone.”
The call ends.
I stand in my gun room surrounded by weapons I’ve stripped to their components, and I do what I do best—I prepare for war. Text my security team. Deploy men to the hospital. Build walls between the people I love and everything that wants to destroy them.
Then I return to the workbench. Finish reassembling the third Glock. Check the chamber. Twice. Three times. Put it back in the safe with the others.
If my father wants to make a move, let him come and face me himself.
I’ll be waiting.