Chapter 48
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
JACE
Funny how your mind tells you one story, yet destiny gives you another.
I remember the night we escaped my father. It was bitterly cold. The air. The risk. The fear. My little body shook with it. But I huddled with my brothers, guided by our mother, protected by Maxim.
“Ya tebya lyublyu.” I love you.
It was the vow whispered to each other so many times that night that I learned to believe in love and never looked back.
I looked forward to this moment. The moment when we’d finally confront the devil again. The kidnapper. Rapist. Abuser. The criminal.
The Pakhan.
I told myself a story of violence and vengeance. Convinced this moment would be dark, dramatic, and deadly. Hell, I even wished for it.
I should’ve known better.
Now I do.
There’s nothing but love and light when the kings and queens stand together. Even surrounded by the dark walls of my mother’s club.
Elysium, indeed.
A place of perfect happiness; the heaven for heroes, and yet, I don’t feel like one.
I feel like more.
I’m a husband. A father. A friend. A brother. A son. A hopeful romantic who refuses to hate.
Even as my father stands before us, licking his mottled lips with a sneer in his evil eyes. I don’t know how many souls he had to eat to find the strength to be here, flanked by his Bratva soldiers in black suits, but he is.
Tall. Gaunt. Hiding his gasps for air. His power, prowess, and potency are all ghosts in the graveyard of his frigid eyes. Spirits of his wrath withering. The short time left in his life is far more threatening than he is.
My, how the mighty will fall.
“Moya zhena, ya—”
“I am not your wife.” Mom interrupts him.
She speaks English and lifts her chin. We form a line, standing behind her.
“I never was. I was your captive. Your prey. The princess you underestimated.” She lifts her jeweled hands, framing her proud progeny.
“Did you not, Ruslan? Did you dare to underestimate a queen?”
We tower, shoulder to shoulder, before Ruslan in the order of our birth, our thrones. Kings and queens. No children. We left them guarded, with our in-laws.
I’m the only one, clasping Vivian’s ringed hand, with his precious future in the room roiling with risk.
Ruslan’s guards are armed. So are ours. No club staff is here. Only the snipers and sentinels we’ve trusted for years. They’re posted high and low, every skull in their crosshairs.
His snarl is wicked. His nod noble. “It is why I bred you, my beautiful Princess Pavlovna.” It’s what he always called her, mockingly, cruelly. “Royalty runs in your veins. You gave me powerful, princely stock.”
“And yet, we’re not all your sons.” Axel smirks, jeering. His true paternity is such revenge. He was supposed to be Ruslan’s heir, the next Pakhan, but he’s not even his. He’s Maxim’s. The salt in the wound is so sweet.
“No matter our paternity, we will never be yours,” Sire vows. “We serve our mother, The Queen. Always have; always will.”
“You are my son, Sergei!” Ruslan snaps. “You, Grigori, Jasha. My doch, my Sasha. My blood honors your veins.”
“And so what?” Nash barks bitterly. “You’re not their father; you’re a fucking fool. What did you think would happen? You’d beat them into loving you? Lash them into loyalty? It’s the opposite; they loathe you.”
Ruslan scoffs haughtily. “You do not matter. You are not Russkiye.”
“You’re right. Nash is my son.” Mom proudly claims him. He’s one of us. “They’re all mine.” Her hand summons a handsome, leashed man. Her voice rich with salacious retaliation. “Even your son is my loyal lover.”
Normally, the kings cringe when our mom uses that L word.
Roman Kholodov is thirty years our mother’s junior and sent here by his father to kill us. Roman’s mother was Ruslan’s maid, another one of his victims.
It’s a long story that Mom and Axel uncovered. We all heard about it. We all became well aware that once we caught Roman, he fell in love with our Queen. He serves her as a soldier… and her sub.
That’s the part requiring brain bleach.
But I gotta hand it to Mom right now.
Roman is a handsome young buck, and Mom is a drop-dead dominatrix, proudly leading his strapping, inked body by a sub’s leather leash. It’s turning Ruslan into a limp cuckold.
He can’t face it. Can’t even look at Roman, who’s lifting my mother’s hand, kissing her royal ring, before he kneels beside her with his head bowed.
It’s karma with a kinky twist.
A cosmic victory for our mom.
None of his sons serves him.
So he focuses on Sasha. “Moya doch.” He calls her daughter. I catch him offering Russian words about home and love and forgiveness. I worked so hard to forget the language, but the sentiment is clear.
He’s desperate for his daughter.
“Net, otets.” Sasha stands beside Loch, shaking her head. In defiance, she switches to English. “No, Father. I am free with Mama. I stay here. Is my home. I have king.”
Every time Sasha says it, Axel narrows his eyes protectively. I wonder as well; is it her aspiration or an actuality?
Doesn’t matter right now; this is the opening. I see it in Ruslan’s eyes. Something about Sasha softens him.
“We’ll keep her safe.” My voice resonates, resolved. “Sasha will stay here. You know our mother will protect her. But we”—I point to the kings—“will avenge her. And you”—I glare—“will make it your final act for redemption.”
“I do not seek salvation, Jasha.” I catch it, how Ruslan softens toward me as well. “I was born without a soul.”
“You don’t believe that,” Sire counters. “I’ve seen you pray when you thought no one was watching. For what, I don’t care. But you know when you die, you will be damned or redeemed; it is your choice.”
“And you will choose to give us your soldiers,” I persuade. “You will tell them to help us find Sheremetev, to avenge our sister’s honor, and they will do so under the leadership of the new Pakhan.”
Out of the shadows steps Tariel, the Bratva’s most powerful Avtoritet, a brigade leader. Tariel always had a tender spot for us. He abhorred the abuse we endured. Never hurt women and children: Ruslan broke the unwritten Mafia rule.
He had to have seen this coming. He has no heir. His sons will not follow the hierarchy, while Tariel is the most revered and feared choice.
This isn’t a mutiny; it’s a matter of fact. If Ruslan doesn’t appoint Tariel, the organization will fall into deadly disarray upon Ruslan’s death.
The kings trust Tariel; he did what he could for us. Ruslan trusts him; Tariel has been loyal to a bloody fault.
“We will give Tariel our blessing,” Axel offers, his lips curling to say it, but he knows it’s the wisest way, the way Axel’s son stays alive. “Your sons,” he concedes to Ruslan, “all of us, will pledge our loyalty to the new Pakhan.”
Ruslan demands, “In my name, you will pledge to Tariel.”
It’s bold. Offensive. Spitting on every scar he’s put on his sons’ bodies, our mother’s too.
It would signal we were loyal to Ruslan all along.
“You want us to pledge in your name?” I berate.
“You want the honor? The redemption? Then fucking beg for our forgiveness. Get on your knees and apologize to our mother. Say you’re sorry for the scars you put on her and my brothers.
For the hell you put us through. You know what you did.
You close your eyes at night, and it haunts your soul. ”
Vivian squeezes my hand.
I’m fearless with her support, lionhearted in my pursuit. Every queen in here bolsters their king.
In the face of the truth, Ruslan’s stoic. It may shame his soul, but he won’t kneel. He’s trying to stare down The Queen, but she won’t cower either.
It’s another part of my mind’s story, making Destiny laugh.
It won’t happen.
Ruslan may never break, not in front of his soldiers and sons, but I will bend him.
“Forgiveness.” I let go of Vivian’s hand, trusting her safety beside Nick and Zar before I’m looming in front of the devil. His blood. His biggest. The beneficiary of his brutality. “It’s what you really want, isn’t it… Father? It’s why you’re really here.”
I search his eyes, finding cracks in his ice. A crevasse of pain he can’t hide, as deep and daunting as the valley of death.
“You don’t want my kidney. You know you won’t survive the surgery.” I lift my nose. “I smell death on you, old man. It’s coming for you. It comes for us all: the great equalizer. The question is, when it finds you, will you find eternal light or darkness?”
There it is; what he really believes.
It flashes across his yellowed eyes. His final thought before his last breath. “And you know the only way to light is through forgiveness. You need to be forgiven.”
I search.
I swallow.
I sense the little boy in the dark trunk.
He was so scared.
Before he lifts the lid and finds the light.
“I forgive you, Father.” It shocks me as much as it does him. Humility floods his stare seeing the truth in mine. “And I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for my son one day. This ends with my peace. Pray you find yours.”
An exhale liberates my heart. A cycle finally broken. Freedom never felt so good. Power so permanent.
“Prostite menya,” he mumbles. Forgive me. Foreign words in his native tongue.
Never thought I’d hear them.
“Say it to everyone,” I order, and he flinches, nostrils flaring. It’s too much to ask, but we didn’t come this far. I won’t give up. There are too many little lives at risk. “Then say we have a deal. Say we have peace.”
He straightens, tugging his black jacket, a stubborn skeleton in a suit. He can’t decide if he should shoot us or slither away. Some sins die hard.
“Say it, dying man.” I reach, barely touching his chest. “Say the only words that may save your soul.”
He steps back, faltering. As if I’m Death, come for him now. His final moment reflected in my eyes. His last breath can be painful or peaceful.
With one look at me, then Sasha, then his sons, he addresses our mom. “It is a deal… Nadia.”
He’s never said her Christian name. Not once. Not that I’m aware. And he said it in English.
When I look at our mom, I’m right.
He’s acknowledged her identity. Her injury. Her survival. Her victory.
She’s too powerful to blink in reply, to give him a single thing after he tried to take so much from her.
And lost.
But it’s done.
With a wavering pivot, he turns for his guards. The soldier I recognize from Palm Beach takes his arm, steadying him as he leaves.
But not before Ruslan barely cranes his neck, glancing over his shoulder at me. “You will be a good father, Jasha.”
He says it in Russian, loud enough for the room to hear. It wasn’t meant for just me. It was meant for all of us.
A good father: it’s everything he wasn’t and wishes he had been.
It’s his apology, leaving us speechless. Silent as we watch Tariel leave with him, but not before Tariel nods toward Axel. It’s the gesture we need—the peace we’ll have. We’ll meet again one day.
Slowly, we turn, the kings pulling their queens into solemn hugs. Sasha rushes to Mom, hugging her, with Roman loyal by her side.
I won’t let Vivian go; my future is permanently in my grasp. “I love you,” I murmur into her ponytail. “We’re finally free, baby.”
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers over my heart.
Pride. Yeah, it’s what we feel like—the pride that survived together. With my arm over her shoulder, I give single-armed hugs to my brothers, to my queens.
“You forgave him.” Sire slaps my back. “It’ll save your soul.”
“What about your soul?”
He leans down, his arm around Wren, kissing her curls before he answers, “I started to forgive him once he gave me her. But forgiveness isn’t a single act; it’s an odyssey. I’ll get there one day.”
We find ourselves in a circle, searching eyes, searching souls. Peace, like a ribbon, woven around us.
“With each baby born, I found forgiveness.” Our mom shares. “For so long, I thought it was me forgiving God; I was so mad about my fate. But now…” She’s letting proud tears fall; goddamn, all the queens are. “I’m so thankful for our lives.”
Ruby grins, swiping her cheeks dry and cutely challenging. “Does that mean you’ve forgiven Ruslan?”
Our Queen laughs. “My dear, a Southern woman forgives a man after he’s buried.”
Alena bubbles. “Well, better late than never.”
Vale cackles. “Bless his dead heart.”
The moment lightens the mood. I gaze down at Vivian to share it with her, to steal a quick kiss, but she’s pale, her nose scrunched, her eyes fretting…
“Viv, baby, are you o—”
“Oh no.” She lurches, turning around, vomiting a little pink puddle on the floor. “Sorry.” She spits joyfully. “God, I’ve been holding that in. I didn’t want to toss my cookies in front of the Pakhan.”
Wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her white cardigan, she smiles. “It’s not the baby. It’s my nerves. I’m just so relieved it’s over. We all can—”
“Oh no…” Vale mumbles, holding her mouth, and sprinting across the club toward the ladies’ room.
Nash rushes after her while Grant booms, “If she pukes pregnant chunks, too, I’m not cleaning it up!”
“Gross, right?” Vivian radiates, all flushed and apologetic, her baby-blue eyes blinking up at me.
I smooth her golden ponytail, nothing but a smitten husband, a besotted best friend, a proud father. “No, Smokeshow. You’re fucking gorgeous.”