Chapter 18 Kiren #2
Time has changed him, but not enough to erase recognition.
His hair has more gray than I remember, and the lines around his eyes run deeper now, but his posture remains the same.
Straight-backed and confident. The quiet authority of someone who has spent decades within the Bratva.
The man who once sat at my father’s table. The man I once called uncle.
Viktor slowly closes the distance between us while snow gathers along the shoulders of his coat. When he stops a few steps away, his eyes move curiously over my face.
“You’ve grown into him,” he remarks.
The reference requires no explanation. Nikolai. My father’s name remains unspoken between us.
I study him for a moment before answering. “You didn’t.”
A faint smile touches the corner of his mouth, as if the remark amuses him more than it offends him.
“Still direct,” Viktor notes. “Your father always believed that was your strongest trait.”
My hands remain relaxed at my sides while I hold his gaze.
“My father also believed you left the Bratva world.”
Viktor gives a quiet breath that almost resembles laughter. “Your father believed many things.”
The cold air moves between us while the distant sound of water against the docks echoes faintly through the dark.
“You killed him,” I continue. There’s no anger in my voice, only certainty.
Viktor tilts his head slightly. “Yes.”
He admits it immediately, with no explanation and no attempt to deny it.
“You arranged the attack on me as well,” I add, the alley returning to my mind, along with the night Rowan stepped into my life.
Viktor’s eyes narrow with brief interest. “That one should have succeeded,” he answers calmly. “Your survival complicated things.”
The memory flashes briefly through my mind, cold pavement beneath me and the taste of blood in my mouth, while Rowan’s voice cut through the darkness, refusing to leave me there.
“You miscalculated,” I remark.
“Yes,” Viktor replies. “I rarely do.”
His gaze sharpens slightly. “She turned out to be… significant.”
The mention of Rowan rests between us like a quiet threat. “You had her taken,” I continue.
“I did.” Viktor’s tone remains steady, almost conversational. “I recognized her importance to you the moment I saw the way you looked at her.”
The statement doesn’t surprise me. Viktor always studied people carefully.
“You believed hurting her would weaken my position,” I observe.
“That was the intention.”
Snow continues to fall across the lot, while the silence between us stretches briefly.
“You were wrong.”
Viktor’s expression tightens at that. “Yes,” he admits after a moment. “Unexpected outcomes do occur.”
He glances briefly toward the men standing in the shadows behind me before returning his attention to my face.
“Ivan was supposed to finish what Arkady began,” he continues. “Unfortunately, Ivan lacked patience.”
“You trained him,” I reply.
Viktor inclines his head slightly. “I shaped him.”
The distinction is deliberate.
“Ivan possessed ambition,” Viktor continues. “What he lacked was discipline. Arkady provided the structure necessary to keep the operation functioning.”
“And when Arkady stopped serving you,” I add, “you removed him.”
Viktor’s eyes flash briefly with approval. “You learn quickly.”
I study the man in front of me. The man who once stood beside my father like a brother.
“You spent years building this,” I observe.
“I spent years correcting your father’s mistake.” The answer arrives without apology. “When Nikolai refused to expand the Sovarin empire the way it should have grown, he limited its future. I simply corrected that.”
“You murdered him,” I snap.
“I replaced him.” The calmness in Viktor’s voice reveals how long he has believed that version of events.
“He chose loyalty over power,” Viktor continues. “A leader can’t afford that weakness.”
My fingers tighten briefly at my side. “My father built something that lasted.”
Viktor gives a quiet shrug. “And yet here we are.” There’s a faint challenge in his tone. “Ivan was meant to take control once the structure collapsed,” Viktor adds.
“And then you would step forward,” I note.
“Eventually.”
Viktor studies me again while snow gathers along the ground around our feet. “You figured it out sooner than I expected.”
“I had help,” I answer, Rowan’s name moving through my mind even though I don’t speak it aloud.
Viktor’s eyes narrow. “Your attachment to her remains your greatest vulnerability.”
“No.” I keep my eyes on his. “It’s the reason you lost.”
Viktor remains silent while the wind moves across the open lot. Then he releases a quiet breath. “You always were stubborn.”
He glances toward the dark skyline of the city beyond the harbor before returning his attention to me. “You still have an opportunity to make the correct decision.”
His words are calm, almost generous. “Walk away. Give me the Sovarin empire,” Viktor continues, “and I will allow you to leave tonight.”
His eyes lower briefly toward my hands before returning to my face. “You could disappear. Start a different life with the woman who means so much to you.”
The offer hangs in the cold air between us while my men remain motionless behind me and Viktor’s men wait the same distance away. No one moves. For a moment, the entire lot feels suspended in silence.
Then I give a slight shake of my head. “No.”
Viktor watches me carefully. A brief hint of disappointment touches his expression before the faint smile returns. “I suspected you would answer that way.”
Behind him, one of his men moves half a step forward.
Behind me, Mikel does the same.
I lift a hand without looking away from Viktor, and it’s enough to stop my men before tension can harden into gunfire.
Viktor notices. His eyes dart once toward my men, then return to my face with a faint expression I remember from years ago, the one he used whenever I learned a lesson faster than he expected.
“This doesn’t need to cost them,” I tell him.
Viktor breathes in through his nose and glances toward his own men. “You would spare them for my sake?”
“For mine.”
His mouth curves slightly, though there is no warmth in it. “You still think in terms of personal responsibility,” he remarks. “That was always Nikolai’s flaw too.”
I take one step closer. “No. I think in terms of waste.”
The faint smile leaves his face. “If you want the Sovarin empire,” I continue, my voice low enough that only he can hear it clearly over the wind and the distant sound of the water, “you’ll have to kill me yourself.”
For the first time tonight, real interest shows on his face. He turns his head just enough to glance toward the men waiting behind him.
“Stay out of it,” he instructs without raising his voice.
I hear the faint rustle of coats and boots as his men hold their positions. Behind me, Mikel remains silent, though I can feel the force of his restraint from where he stands. He knows better than to interfere once I make a decision.
Viktor removes his gloves one finger at a time and drops them onto the hood of the nearest car. Then he takes off his coat and hands it to the man nearest him before stepping farther into the open space between us.
Snow lands in his hair and along the shoulders of his black shirt. He rolls one wrist once, then the other.
The movement pulls a memory from a place I haven’t touched in years. He used to do that before sparring sessions in Moscow, loosening his hands as if what followed mattered less than the air he breathed before it began.
“You always did prefer this lesson the hard way,” he murmurs.
I take off my coat and let it fall over the hood of my car without looking away from him.
“You always did confuse cruelty with instruction.”
His eyes narrow. Then he moves.
The first strike comes fast, aimed high toward my throat, and I catch his forearm with one hand while driving the other into his ribs.
The impact forces air from his lungs, but he recovers immediately and twists out of my grip with speed that would surprise anyone who mistakes age for weakness.
His elbow catches the side of my jaw hard enough to split the inside of my mouth against my teeth.
The taste of blood spreads across my tongue.
I drive forward before he can widen the distance, forcing him back across the slick concrete until his shoulder hits the side of a steel support beam.
He swings low toward my kidney. I block it, though the force still jars through my side, and answer with a blow to his sternum that makes the beam ring behind him.
Viktor grunts, then brings his knee up sharply into my abdomen.
Pain blooms through muscle and old scar tissue all at once.
I step back, and he uses the opening immediately, his fist slamming across my cheekbone with enough force to turn my head.
By the time I face him again, he already has a knife in his hand.
Of course, he does.
Moonlight and dock lights flash once along the blade.
He comes at me quickly, cutting in close with the confidence of a man who has spent half his life in violence.
I avoid the first strike, catch his wrist on the second, and feel the blade graze along my sleeve instead of entering my flesh.
He twists sharply, trying to break my hold, and I drive my forehead into his nose.
Cartilage gives with a wet crunch, and blood pours at once. He stumbles back two steps, but he doesn’t drop the knife.
He comes again, lower this time, the blade angled toward my stomach.
I catch his wrist with both hands and force it outward while his free hand crashes into my throat.
The blow closes my airway for one ugly second, enough for him to wrench partially loose.
The knife cuts across my side, hot and immediate, though shallow.
I answer by slamming his hand against a steel beam once, twice, until the blade clatters onto the pavement between us.
We both dive for it. I reach it first.