Chapter Thirty-Six
Arkady
The Empire Royale office tower sits in the financial district, forty-two stories of glass and concrete that announce wealth without apology.
My downtown office occupies the top floor, panoramic views of the city sprawling below. I prefer it to Ashwater Heights for certain conversations. The kind that require distance from the people we’re protecting.
The kind where we discuss killing our father.
Yanis is already waiting when I arrive. He stands at the ceiling-high window, hands buried in his pockets, shoulders locked in that rigid posture I’ve seen since we were teenagers. A man with a lot on his mind.
“Bratok,” I say, closing the door behind me.
He turns. Same eyes as mine, but where mine have learned to freeze people out, his still hold something I lost years ago. Warmth, maybe. Or the belief that good men can survive in our world.
“We need to talk about the old man.” I cross to the bar cart, pour two fingers of Macallan into crystal tumblers. The liquid catches the afternoon sun, amber and gold, and somehow obscene given what we’re about to discuss.
“I know.” Yanis takes the glass I offer, but doesn’t drink. Just grips it, knuckles tight against crystal. “He’s not going to stop, Arkady. Not after what happened at the gate.”
Five dead on his side. Dmitri dead on ours. The gravel still stained dark where the blood soaked through, no matter how many times we hose it down.
I’d had Gavriil in my crosshairs that day. Perfect shot. The Dragunov scope so clear I could see the individual silver hairs at his temple, the vein in his neck. My finger on the trigger—three pounds of pressure between him breathing and him bleeding out in the leather interior of his Mercedes.
And I’d let him drive away.
Blyad.
“I should have taken the shot.” I drain my whiskey in one swallow. “Had him dead to rights through the Dragunov. Fucking let him go.”
Yanis watches me. Silent. Waiting.
“You know why I didn’t pull the trigger?” My voice is too harsh, giving away the tension inside. “Because some rotted, pathetic piece of me still wants him to be a father, instead of a monster.”
I slam the empty tumbler onto my desk.
“Weak. Stupid.”
“Not stupid. Human.”
“Same thing in this business.” I pour another measure, heavier this time. “Human gets you killed. Gets the people you love killed. I had the shot, Yanis. One squeeze and none of this would have been our problem now.”
Outside, the city churns—cars and commerce and people living ordinary lives where the hardest decision is what to order for lunch. Not whether to murder the man who gave them DNA.
Yanis drains his whiskey in three long swallows, then sets the glass down—measured, deliberate. “He came to Ashwater Heights with assault rifles, Arkady. Came for Debra. Opened fire on our home. Our people. Whatever he was to us once, he’s not that anymore.”
The way he says Debra—there’s something new there. Something that wasn’t present when we pulled her from Gavriil’s estate, her wrists scarred from restraints and her eyes empty.
“How is she?” I ask, studying my brother’s face.
“Better. Dr. Harrison says she’s making progress with the grounding techniques. The nightmares are less frequent.” A pause. When he speaks again, his voice carries a weight I recognize. “You were right. I’m falling for her, Arkady.”
Hardly a surprise. I’ve watched the way he moves around her, the care he takes to stay visible, to keep his hands where she can see them, to ask permission before touching even the most innocent surface.
But hearing him name it changes things. Adds gravity to decisions already heavy enough to crush bone.
“She was a prisoner, Arkady.” Steel beneath the words now. “Six years in that house while our father—” He stops. Swallows whatever image tried to surface. “I won’t let her spend another day living in fear. As for the old man... He’s gone too far down to redeem himself.”
Too far down to redeem himself.
Translation: we end this. Permanently.
I nod once. “Ya soglasen bratok. Glad we’re on the same page.”
Something eases in Yanis’s posture. We both know what comes next. Unity. A united front against the man who created us and spent decades trying to break what we became.
My phone vibrates against the mahogany desk. The calendar reminder I set this morning. Fifteen minutes until the wedding planner arrives.
“I have to go,” I say. “Meet with the wedding planner in my office to arrange our ceremony. I refuse to put our lives on hold because of that pizda.”
Yanis’s eyebrows rise a fraction. “You’re still moving forward with the wedding? Now?”
“Especially now.” I straighten, roll tension from my shoulders. “Gavriil wants to terrorize us into submission. Wants us cowering in bunkers instead of living. Fuck that. I’m marrying Mirabel. On my timeline. Not his.”
The first genuine warmth I’ve seen from Yanis in days crosses his face. “Where are you planning to have the wedding?”
“On a private island resort where I can control all security aspects while giving Mirabel the dream wedding she deserves.”
“An island.” He processes this, running the same scenarios I’ve already gone over a dozen times. “Smart. Limits access points. Easy to monitor incoming traffic.”
“Three hundred acres off the coast. Single causeway that can be closed and secured in under two minutes. Helipad for emergency evac. Private airstrip for controlled arrivals.” I tick off the features.
“Stefan’s team has already swept it twice.
Clean. And far enough from here that Gavriil can’t mobilize fast enough to cause problems without us having advance warning. ”
“How many guests?”
“Fifty, maybe less. Tight list. Background checks on everyone, down to their childhood dentist. Mirabel’s father, obviously.
Debra, if Dr. Harrison clears her for travel.
The core team—Stefan, Volodya, Sasha, the twins.
A few of Mirabel’s friends from the registry.
” I shrug. “Not a spectacle. Just us. The people who matter.”
Yanis absorbs this. “Debra would like that. Might be good for her—seeing Mirabel happy. Safe. Proof that good things can happen even in our world.”
“Then make sure Harrison signs off on it.” I check the time again. Ten minutes. “I want both sisters there. Mirabel deserves that.”
“Da. I’ll talk to Harrison today.” Yanis reaches for his jacket draped over my desk chair, shrugs into it, adjusts the sleeves. “What about the old man? You have a timeline for handling him?”
Handling. Such a clean word for murder.
“Working on it. Stefan’s tracking his movements. He’s gone to ground since the gate. Regrouping. But he’ll surface. Stupid fucker can’t stay hidden long. Too much ego.”
“And when he does?”
I meet my brother’s eyes. Hold them. “This time, I don’t hesitate. This time, I pull the trigger.”
Yanis returns my stare. Then he nods, sharp and final. “Da pomozhet vam Bog. God help you. Because if you don’t, I will.”
No judgment. No moral hand-wringing. Just acceptance that we’ve already crossed the line, and the only question is how deep the other side goes.
He moves toward the door, pauses with his hand on the brushed steel handle.
“Take care of Debra,” I say. “She’s family now. Whatever she needs—therapy, time, space, armed guards, a house in the countryside—it’s yours. No questions. No limits.”
Something shifts in his expression. Recognition, maybe. The understanding that we’re building something here in the ruins of what Gavriil tried to forge with violence.
“Same goes for Mirabel,” he says. “And your kids. Aleks, the baby… whoever else comes. We protect our own now. The family we chose, not the one we were born into.”
“Da.”
He leaves. The door swings shut behind him with the heavy hiss of reinforced steel settling into its frame.
I stand alone in my office, forty-two stories above a city that has no idea what’s being planned in its glass towers.
In two weeks, I’ll marry Mirabel on a private island with guards in the shadows.
We’ll exchange vows while my security team monitors every boat within five nautical miles, every helicopter that enters our airspace.
It’s not the wedding she probably dreamed of as a little girl.
But it’s the one I can give her and keep her breathing.
My phone buzzes. Text from reception: the wedding planner has arrived.
I pour one more measure of whiskey. I don’t drink it. Just hold the glass and watch the light fracture through the amber.
Some men write their wedding vows in poetry.
I write mine in extraction protocols and kill zones.
But the promise underneath is the same: I will keep you safe. I will love you with everything I have left. And I will end anyone who tries to take you from me—no matter who it is.
I set down the glass and head for the door.
Time to plan a wedding in the shadow of war.