Chapter 36
IVAN
She tosses me a wide grin that knocks the breath straight out of my lungs.
Then she’s launching herself at the bed. But instead of slipping into the space I made for her, she straddles me and lies flat on my chest like she’s claimed it as her personal territory.
My arms find her waist without any input from my brain, pulling her closer, and I feel the tension loosen by degrees.
Her warmth against my chest does something I refuse to examine too closely.
Whatever it is, it makes what I'm about to do a little less impossible. Bare myself to someone. Something I vowed never to do. But Melani isn’t just anyone to me.
“Viktor Petrov was a very sick man.” I pause, unsure if talking about him is even relevant to what she wants to know.
I glance down at my arms, at the identical tattoos on both hands.
My siblings and I all carry something similar on different parts of our bodies because of him.
So I suppose it is relevant. I’ll just… keep it brief.
Thankfully, Melani doesn’t try to confirm whether Viktor is my father.
Hearing her call him that earlier had twisted my gut—the reminder that no matter how much distance I carve between myself and that man, I'll never escape him, not fully.
Not when his blood runs in my veins, and I carry his markings on my body.
“He loved hurting people,” I continue quietly.
“Loved hearing them beg.” Sure, my brother and I hurt people as well, but only those who deserve it.
Thieves. Traitors. Spies. And we don’t necessarily enjoy it.
Viktor did. He derived a sick sort of pleasure from it.
“Most especially his wife and children.” Most especially Aleksei, his first son and heir.
I clear my throat. “My siblings and I endured a lot of abuse from him. Verbal at first, then physical once we started getting in the way of what he did to our mother. He liked to hit her.” The memory surfaces without being invited—mom flinching, making herself small.
My brothers and I learning that putting ourselves between them was the only thing that helped.
“We started interfering as soon as we were old enough to understand what was happening. Old enough, meaning big enough to absorb a hit without going down.” He started redirecting his aggression to us, and we gladly took it. It meant Mom got a break from him.
The more I speak, the easier the words come.
“Then one day, he took Aleksei to work with him, and my brother came home with tattoos on both arms. Viktorovich Petrov.” My lips twist. “He said Aleksei had become a made man. That, as his heir, he needed to start early so he knew what his future looked like.” Aleksei got his first kill that very night.
“After that, he started taking Aleksei to work with him more and more, and the fists kept coming whenever things frustrated him. Then on my eighteenth birthday, I was made, got the same tattoos, and the hitting slowed. Aleksei was already twenty-one by then—big, armed, finished with being patient about it. After I was made, so was I.” Aleksei and I made it clear he would lose his hands if he ever touched Mom or any of us again.
“He stopped hitting us, but we could tell he didn’t like it.
” Not one bit. My lips curl faintly as I recall the look on his face when he wanted to hit Mom after a heated argument one night, and Aleksei cleared his throat behind him.
Oh, he was pissed. But he lowered his hand and walked away.
For the first time in his life, he knew his actions had consequences.
“Things became… almost normal after that. Or as normal as it could be. We went on like that for three years, but tension between Aleksei, Viktor, and me kept building—him knowing he’d lost control of us, us knowing he wouldn’t tolerate that without eventually trying to reclaim it.
” I exhale slowly. “Then everything exploded the night Dimitri turned eighteen, and Viktor announced he was going to get him made.”
Melani’s fingers trace slow patterns on my chest, and I let the sensation ground me before I continue.
“Aleksei and I refused, of course, and Viktor lost his temper and went on a tirade. Started shouting and threatening, and when that didn’t work, he slapped Aleksei.
A big mistake, because Aleksei didn’t hesitate to slap him back. ”
That was the first time any of us truly fought back.
Viktor stood there stunned. Then he looked at me like he expected me to take his side over Aleksei.
But I just looked away. “Realizing he was outnumbered, he finally backed down and agreed to wait another year before bringing Dima into the fold. Aleksei and I wanted him to be twenty, but Viktor giving us even one year was already a huge victory. So we took it.”
He didn’t dare tell anyone about what happened that night.
He couldn’t afford to. Things were already shaky with our hold on the city, and tensions with the Marinos were still high.
If word got out that the pakhan couldn’t even control his own household, it could have cost him his position. And Viktor wasn’t willing to risk that.
“We bought more time for Dima and kept working for Viktor.” We didn’t really have a choice. But Aleksei and I started paying closer attention, taking note of the people whose loyalty was beginning to waver. And quietly, we managed to sway them onto Aleksei’s side.
“Then, about a month before Dima’s nineteenth birthday, Viktor came up with an errand for Aleksei and me.
We should have known something was up.” But we were distracted by the growing war and took Viktor’s assignment at face value.
“We were gone for two weeks, and when we returned, Dima was made, my sister Mira was engaged to some old fart—Viktor had traded her like a case of good vodka, payment on an alliance he wanted—and Mom…" I shake my head, my heart aching as I remember the condition we found her in. “She was catatonic. Had bruises all over. It was a miracle she didn’t slip into a coma. I saw red. Aleksei and I marched straight to Viktor’s office, angry as fuck—and he had the nerve to smile at us.” That was the first time I ever truly lost my shit.
Melani’s fingers sinking into my hair drag me back from that bloody night, and my heart softens as I glance down at her. I press a kiss to her temple and inhale deeply before continuing.
“We confronted him, demanded to know what the hell he was thinking, making those moves behind our backs. Abusing his own wife, hurting his son, and putting his only daughter in danger. He didn’t like the tone we were using.
The argument escalated fast, and at some point, he grabbed the bottle of whiskey off his desk and hurled it at us.
It missed Aleksei’s head by a hair. Viktor didn’t notice, or didn’t care, because he was too far gone in his own rage.
” He was dealing with pushback from the capos and pushback from his sons.
He must have felt like a cornered animal—rightfully so, because he was nothing but an animal in human skin.
My jaw tightens as the memory of his words echoes in my head.
I’m tired of your bullshit. You think you can control me? You’re all Viktorovich and Viktorovna. Mine! You’re nothing without me, and you will fall in line or die. I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.
“After the tirade, he picked up his knife and tossed it at Aleksei.” My hand tightens around Melani’s waist. “This time he didn’t miss.
” I can still see Aleksei crumbling to the floor, clutching his side where the knife was protruding.
There was so much blood. I was so sure Aleksei was going to die.
“Then Viktor took out his gun and pointed it at me.”
My muscles lock just remembering it. Standing there, staring down the barrel of my own father’s gun.
Shocked. I guess, deep down, some stupid part of me still wanted his approval.
Still believed there were lines he wouldn’t cross.
Arguments and fights were one thing, but trying to kill your own sons? Unforgivable.
“A gunshot went off, and I glanced down at my shirt, expecting to see blood… but there wasn’t any. Then came the sound of something heavy hitting the floor, and I glanced up to see Viktor collapsing. Dead.” Aleksei had shot him.
“Aleksei saved my life.” The moments after that were a blur.
We left the office, locked the door behind us, and kept the key.
Back then, Luka was dating a medical student, so she came to check on Mom while Mira sat with her, and Dima and I dug Viktor’s grave.
Aleksei insisted on watching us dig, even though he should have been inside receiving treatment for the knife wound.
A faint, humorless smile tugs at my mouth. He has always been a stubborn fucker.
Breaking Mira's engagement was one of the first things Aleksei did as pakhan. Her fiancé objected exactly once. The streets learned the lesson faster than he did—these days they call our sister the Petrovs' Jewel, and they keep their hands in their pockets or risk losing them.
“The next day, Aleksei and I went to a tattoo parlor and had the Viktorovich part of our tattoos covered up. We kept Petrov. That is our identity, after all, even if he fouled it. Dima’s tattoo was still too fresh to work over safely, but the first chance he got, he did the same.”
I glance down at Melani, a little surprised I managed to get through all of that. I’ve never told anyone that story. Hell, I don’t think I’ve said that much at one stretch in my life.
“Is Viktor the man in the picture I saw in your nightstand?” she asks tentatively, slowly running her palm down my chest.
“The picture isn’t there anymore.” I have no need to keep it. “But yes, that was him.”
“You and your siblings look nothing like him,” she says, pressing a kiss to my pectoral. “I’m glad.”
I blink down at her, caught off guard. We all indeed favor our mother—her eyes, her bone structure—but I’ve never thought much about it.
“Me too.”
I wake up before Melani. For a moment, I just lie there, watching her sleep as my hand drifts down her bare arm. My heart feels… exposed. Like it’s no longer entirely mine. She doesn’t realize it yet, but she holds it now, completely unguarded in her grip.
I have to protect her. I can’t imagine ever losing her. I don’t think I would survive it.
Leaning down, I press a lingering kiss on her eyelid. My lips tug into a grin when she mumbles my name and instinctively shifts closer.
“Shh, go back to sleep, devochka moya.” My girl. I wait until her breathing deepens again before carefully sliding out of bed. I grab some clothes from the closet and pause at the bedroom door, casting one last glance back at her before stepping out.
The living room is still empty—none of the men will dare come back inside until I invite them in. I head to my office and continue into the ensuite bathroom, where I take a quick shower and get dressed.
When I’m done, I check my phone. An unread message waits in the group chat I share with my brothers. It’s from Aleksei.
Be here by 10.
We need to discuss a course of action.
Dima has already replied with a thumbs-up emoji, so I add mine as well and check the time—I have less than an hour until ten.
I text Luka to get ready, then grab a notepad and pen from my desk.
I scrawl a quick message for Melani and take it towards the bedroom.
A crack of the door lets me see she’s still sleeping, and I hesitate.
I consider leaving the note inside, but instead I turn back and return to my office, folding the paper and slipping it into my drawer. Then I pull out another sheet and write a different message. This one I tuck neatly into an envelope before heading out of the suite.
Boris is waiting in the hallway. I hand him the envelope, giving him explicit instructions on how to deliver it.