24. Katerina
KATERINA
Ifollow Sasha down the narrow staircase, each step heavier than the last.
The air grows colder down here. Aleksandr walks behind me, close enough that our arms brush with every movement.
His presence is a dark, steady heat against the chill.
He doesn’t speak when we finally reach the bottom, and neither does Sasha.
The only sounds are our footsteps as we continue on further.
My heart should be racing, but strangely, it isn’t. It beats slowly, steady in a way I haven’t felt in years.
The basement opens into a low-ceilinged room lit by a single harsh bulb. A metal chair is bolted down into it in the center.
And in that chair sits my father.
Bound with thick zip ties at the wrists and ankles, arms wrenched behind the backrest so his shoulders are forced back in unnatural submission.
His shirt is torn at the collar, dark stains spreading across the white fabric from his now-dried bloody nose.
The skin above his left eyebrow is split open, also dried.
One eye is swollen almost shut. His silver hair, always so meticulously combed, hangs in greasy strands across his forehead.
He looks… small.
The sight hits me harder than I expect. This is the man who once lectured me about honor and duty over breakfast every morning of my childhood, who told me I was born to serve something greater than myself.
Now he’s reduced to a bloodied, trembling thing, stripped of every illusion of authority he ever wore like armor.
His good eye finds me the second we step into the light.
“Katya,” he rasps. The childhood nickname sounds obscene coming from his cracked lips. “Thank God. Help me. Please. Tell them this is a mistake. Convince them to let me go. I’m your father. You owe me that much.”
The words land like a slap across my face.
Owe him.
After everything?
I stare at him for a long time. The desperation flooding his face is raw and almost animalistic in a way.
There is no shame in how he begs me, no regret that tells me everything he did to me had been a long and complicated set of choices that he now no longer agrees with.
All I see is the frantic calculation of a man who still believes he can talk his way out of consequences despite everything.
“Do you even understand where you are? Do you understand what’s happening?” I ask. My voice comes out quiet, almost curious.
He blinks, confusion flickering across the parts of his face that can still move.
His gaze darts from me to Aleksandr, then to Sasha, then back again.
He tries again, softer this time. Pleading.
“Katya… These men, these monsters—they’ve taken everything from us.
You can’t let them do this. You’re my daughter.
You’re better than this. You’re better than them. ”
Aleksandr steps forward before I can say anything back to him. He moves with the same calm, predatory grace he always has, reaching to something at his hip and drawing a compact black pistol. He doesn’t look at Ramil. He looks only at me.
He places the gun in my hand.
The weight is heavy and unfamiliar, but balanced the same way. My fingers close around it automatically. He doesn’t say a word. He simply steps back, Sasha mirroring the movement on my other side.
They give me space to make my choice.
Control against a person who never allowed me that kind of luxury.
Ramil’s eye widens. The confusion vanishes as panic floods in, fast and ugly. “No,” he chokes. “Katya—no. Please. I’ll disappear. I’ll leave the country. You’ll never hear from me again. I’ll live in obscurity. I swear it. Just—please. Mercy. For your mother. She wouldn’t want you to do this.”
The mention of Mama twists something vicious in my chest.
I snap, the words coming out low and lethal sounding. “Don’t you dare use her name.”
He swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs.
My hand squeezes the gun, flexing my fingers to comfort me.
“Tell me this much. When did it start? When did you decide I was worth less than your debts? Was it the first time you sat at a table and lost more than you could afford but couldn’t find the right buyer?
Or did it happen slower? Did you look at me every morning and think, ‘One day, she’ll be useful for something’? ”
His mouth opens, closes. “It wasn’t like that. I was… protecting our family name. The debts—they were temporary. I would have fixed it. I always fix things. I would have gotten you out.”
“You sold me,” I say, raising the gun to point it at him. “You sold me to a man you called a monster. You lied to my face. And when I did what you asked—when I spied and gave you the information you wanted and waited for your orders—you abandoned me. You left me there with nothing.”
His face crumples. “I had no choice. The truth getting out would have ruined me. Everything we’ve built—”
“Everything you built,” I repeat. “Not us. Not me. You.” I take one step closer. The gun stays steady in my hand. “Did you ever love me? Or was I just another asset? Another thing to trade when the cards were against you?”
He stares at me.
For the first time, I see something flicker behind the panic.
Not remorse, not quite. But something close to sorrow.
That the man who raised me is gone. Whatever fragment of him still existed died long before tonight.
But that look in his eyes makes the hand around the gun hesitate to pull the trigger.
I hate myself for it.
“I loved you,” he says. The words are hoarse. “In my own way.”
“Liar,” I spit back.
Bitterness rises in his voice. “You think you’re so different? Standing there with a gun pointed at the man who raised you. Your own flesh and blood. You’re just like them now. You chose power over your own blood. Just like I did. We’re no different from each other, Katerina.”
The accusation should hurt, but strangely… it doesn’t.
Because he’s wrong.
I stand here not because I chose power, but because I chose love.
I raise the gun and level the barrel directly at his chest.
He flinches.
My voice is steady when I speak. “You are a disgrace. You shamed our name. You destroyed everything you ever claimed to stand for. And you did it without a second thought. I hope you rot in hell.”
His mouth opens one last time.
I pull the trigger.
The shot is deafening in the small room. The recoil jars up my arm, snapping my shoulder. Ramil jerks backward. His head snaps back, blood bursting from his chest and blooming dark across his shirt. Then he slumps forward, held upright only by the zip ties tethering him to the chair.
The silence that follows is absolute.
My knees buckle.
Aleksandr is there before I hit the floor. His arms wrap around me, strong and steady, catching my weight as the gun slips from my fingers and clatters to the concrete. He holds me against his chest, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other locked around my waist.
I don’t cry. The tears are there burning behind my eyes, but they don’t fall while the finality settles around me like ash after a fire.
I refuse to cry for that man any longer. Even in death.
He presses his lips to my hair. “I’m proud of you. Not for the shot. For taking back what he stole. You should be proud too.”
I wrap my arms around him and squeeze him tightly. He guides me toward the stairs as my legs move on autopilot. Behind us, I hear Sasha on his phone, his voice low and clipped, calling in a crew to handle the body.
I don’t look back while we leave. When we reach the main floor, the house is quiet. Aleksandr stops in the hallway and turns me to face him. His hands frame my face, thumbs brushing under my eyes to catch any tears that threaten to fall before they do.
His eyes search mine. “You’re free now. The debt died with him. The bargain we made… our marriage… it died with him too. You can walk away right now if you want. I’ll make sure you’re safe. Money, a new name, a new life. Anywhere you want. No strings attached.”
For a second, I don’t fully process what he’s saying.
Then the meaning sinks in.
I look up at him—really look at him. Not just at the man leaning in front of me now, but everything that he represents.
The man who bought me, who saw through my father’s lies when no one else would, who dragged me out of a cage I didn’t even realize I was living in. Who bled for me and almost burned half the city down just to get me back.
The man who loves me.
My chest tightens as the truth settles quietly into place.
He isn’t offering this because he wants me gone. He’s offering it because he thinks I deserve the choice. Because loving me doesn’t mean owning me the way my father once did. My father used control disguised as love to keep me close.
Aleksandr offers freedom even when it costs him his heart.
My hand lifts slowly, fingers curling into the front of his shirt. “Trying to get rid of me already? We haven’t even gone on our honeymoon yet.”
His brows lift slightly. For one heartbeat, he doesn’t move. Then the corner of his mouth curves up into a smile. The expression is fiercely proud, almost feral in nature. He pulls me into him, one hand fisting in my hair, the other splaying across my lower back, and kisses me.
It’s not the gentle one from before. This is every bit the claiming that he’s ever promised me. A vow sealed with teeth and tongue and the taste of him that will cling to me long after tonight. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
“How does Caicos sound? It’s supposed to be beautiful this time of year. Plus, I’d love to see you in a bikini.”
I exhale a laugh. “I love the beach.”
He pecks my lips again. “It’s settled, then.”
My hand slides gently to the back of his neck, pulling him closer until our foreheads touch. “You’re stuck with me now.”
He chuckles. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”