23. Mikhail
Mikhail
Daniil hasn’t left my side since the other day. My hoodie covers the marks on my neck, the evidence of what I tried to do. He refuses to let me out of his sight, finding any excuse to follow me room to room. Bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, wherever I go. He’s always there.
What I did broke something in both of us. I catch him staring at me like he’s scared I’ll do it again the second he looks away.
The guilt is crushing me. He had to see me hanging there and get me down.
I can’t stop thinking about what that must have felt like for him, watching me choke and struggle.
The shower’s the only place I can cry about it without him knowing because the water hides that I’m falling apart over what I put him through.
I just need to get this event out of the way. I’m hoping my brothers want to help me kill our father because I need it. We all need it, I think. Once he’s gone, maybe I’ll be able to exist without feeling like I’m suffocating.
I’m not very good at taking care of myself. Never have been. I take care of everyone else first, and I’m always last on the list. Daniil needs something, I handle it. The clubs need attention, I’m there. Someone needs backup, I show up.
But when it comes to me, to what I need, I just push it down and ignore it until it explodes. It’s just who I am, how I’ve always operated.
Daniil takes care of me though.
I wish I wasn’t such an idiot and realized I loved him sooner. All those times he pushed me away, all the hurt in his eyes when he saw me with girls at the clubs. I would have been destroyed if I loved him like that and had to watch him do those things.
He’s the love of my life. The missing piece that was never actually missing because he’s been right here all along, waiting for me to see it. He’s been there through everything and knows every fucked-up corner of my brain and every terrible thing I’ve done and stays anyway.
I glance over my Uno cards just to sneak another look at him next to me.
He’s hunched over his hand, focused, chewing at his lip while he thinks through his next move. We’re on the meeting floor above Ozero, the music from downstairs a distant thrum beneath our feet.
Alexei sits next to him, looking way too serious about a card game, his brown eyes scanning his cards. Yulian’s across from me, actually behaving himself for once, which is almost more unsettling than when he’s being an ass.
We’re going to ask them soon. About how to get out from under our father’s thumb.
Daniil finally plays, slapping down a draw four on Alexei with a satisfied look spreading across his face.
“How do you always have the best cards?” Alexei says flatly, dragging four new cards off the pile with his jaw clenched tight.
It’s rare we get through a full hand of Uno without someone throwing a punch or flipping the table.
The game brings out something competitive and violent in all of us.
I throw my card down hard, and the slap echoes across the pile, louder than it needs to be.
Yulian plays his next with that signature smirk he always has.
Then it’s Daniil’s turn again. He slaps down his final card and taps the pile twice. His signal for winning.
Alexei frowns. “You always cheat. How do you even do that? There’s no way that’s luck, asshole.”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” I snap at him, my hand tightening around my cards.
The table goes quiet. Alexei looks at me, one eyebrow raised.
Yulian leans back in his chair, watching us with interest now. “Someone’s in a mood today.”
“Shut up, Yulian,” I say and toss my cards onto the table.
Daniil’s hand comes to rest on my leg under the table, squeezing once, telling me to calm down.
“Our father shouldn’t have done that,” Yulian says out of nowhere.
I look over at him. “What?”
“I heard about what happened at the arena.” He leans forward, his elbows on the table. “Making you fight those guys while he held a gun to Daniil’s head. All of it.”
“How did you hear about that?” I ask.
“Does it matter?” he says, shrugging. “He’s losing it. Whatever control he had is gone now.”
“I want him dead.” The words blurt out before I can stop them.
Fuck. I was supposed to ease into this, coerce them somehow, not just throw it out there.
They all look my way and freeze. No one says anything. Yulian’s blue eyes bore into mine, and Alexei’s brown ones study me, confused.
“Ha, good one,” Yulian mutters.
“I have my plans,” Alexei says, shrugging.
“What?” I ask.
He waves me off dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.”
Yulian raises his eyebrows. “If you have something, I want in. Don’t keep me out of that.”
“You all want him dead?” I ask, looking between them.
“Da? Who fucking doesn’t,” Yulian says, rolling his eyes. “The man’s a nightmare. But wanting and doing are different things.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. How I’d do it. Where. What tools I’d use. How long I’d make it last.”
Yulian stares at him. “Alexei.”
“What? You don’t think about these things?”
“I think about it in much more detail than that,” Yulian mutters.
Alexei narrows his eyes at him.
“So are we doing this or not?” Yulian asks, setting his cards down completely now. “Because if we’re talking about killing him, we need a real plan. Not just Alexei and me fantasizing about it.”
“They’re not fantasies. If anyone gets to kill him, it should be me.”
Yulian tilts his head. “I was kind of hoping I could stab him first, but maybe we can all take turns.”
“Why is he freaking out so much over Danya’s past anyway?” I ask, glancing between them.
“I don’t know. That flight to Germany was a bust, so we are back at zero,” Yulian says and narrows his eyes. “Who knows, but he’s terrified of something. That’s the only reason he’d go that far to stop you from digging. So, the killing thing, are we actually doing this or just talking about it?”
Why is he so interested in this? I’m the one who brought it up, but now he’s pushing it harder than I am.
Yulian and I don’t get along well, mostly because he has no filter and constantly says things that piss me off. But he’s never even hinted at wanting Father gone before. So why is he suddenly so invested in making this happen? What’s in it for him?
Alexei curses under his breath and throws his cards onto the table. “It would be difficult. There’d be a massive fallout. The family would fracture. Our allies would question everything.”
“Obviously,” I say. “But staying under his control is worse.”
“That event you’re planning,” Alexei says, his brown eyes meeting mine. “The club expansion opening. We could use that. Plan something for after, when security is already spread from the event. Use the confusion as cover.”
This is going easier than I thought it would.
I assumed we’d have to convince them, talk them into it, make our case. But they want him gone as much as I do. Alexei I understand—Father’s been cruel to him for years, especially after he found out about Kelly. But Yulian? He’s hiding something.
Whatever. I’m not going to second-guess it when we all want the same thing. Father first. Then I’ll get answers about whatever he’s hiding.
“We need a real plan,” I say, leaning forward. “Something solid. Something that doesn’t leave a trail back to us. He’s always surrounded by his guards, and we need to figure out how to get them away from him first. If even one of them sees something, we’re dead.”
“Da, we can plan something,” Alexei says, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “This is personal for me. He needs to pay for what he’s done.”
“Agreed,” Yulian says. “I’m in. Whatever it takes.”
I glance over at Daniil, and he’s staring at the table, but I can see the relief in his eyes. His hand squeezes my leg again under the table, harder this time.
“So we’re doing this,” I say, looking around at all of them. “We’re actually killing him.”
“Yes,” Alexei says without hesitation. “We are.”
“Okay, so how do we do this?”
“I can put together the plans and get them to all of you. I’ll talk to Lev, he wants this too,” Yulian says, leaning back in his chair.
“How would you manage that?”
He grins. “I have my resources. It’ll be good, don’t worry about it.”
I wave him off. “Fine, but texting isn’t safe. He probably has all of us under surveillance already.”
Daniil looks at me and pokes my arm, so I speak up for him. “We’ve got a program we can all use. Encrypted messaging, can’t be traced.”
Alexei hums, considering it, then finally nods.
“I need to make a call.” He pushes back from the table and walks off toward the corner of the room, already pulling out his phone.
Yulian shrugs and does the same, heading to the window while he waits for whoever he’s calling to pick up, and he waves toward the door, asking us to leave.
I pull Daniil by the arm into my office.
The moment we get in there, he shoves me up against the wall and goes for my pants, fingers already working my zipper.
“Fuck, you little psycho, they’re still in the next room. I can hear them through the wall.”
He rolls his eyes and works my pants open. My cock swells fast, and he looks up at me with those hazel eyes, dark and hungry and demanding, and I lose it. I’m about to go for the door to lock it, but he catches my wrist, stopping me.
“Leave it.”
He’s insane. Shoving my pants down, I spin him around, pushing him roughly up against the wall. I drag his pants down, and he kicks them off completely. My hands grip his ass hard, spreading him open.
Leaning in, I bite into his earlobe, and he gasps. “You like knowing our brothers are on the other side of that wall, don’t you? That they’re right there, completely unaware of what I’m about to do to you. Does that get you off, Danya? How close they are while you’re going to be taking my cock?”
“Yes,” he moans, arching his back and pushing his ass out. “Please, Misha, I need you inside me.”
“You’re going to stay quiet the whole time. Understand?” I say, rolling my hips so he feels exactly how hard I am.
Yulian’s and Alexei’s voices echo on the other side of the wall, and my cock pulses hard.