31. Viktor
VIKTOR
I sit across from her at the kitchen table, the same table where I gave her a fraction of the truth weeks ago, and I understand, looking at her face, that fractions aren’t going to survive tonight.
“Start from the beginning,” she says. “All of it. I don’t want pieces anymore, Viktor.”
So, I do.
“I’m not just a club owner. I run an organization, one that doesn’t advertise itself, that operates through the club and several other businesses as legitimate cover.
In my world, the man who runs an operation like mine is called a Pakhan.
I’ve held that position for fifteen years, since I was young enough that most people thought I’d never hold it long. ”
Harper’s face doesn’t change much, though her hands go still on the table, flat, bracing. “That’s not a business. That’s organized crime.”
“Yes.”
“Say it plainly. Don’t dress it up.”
“I run a criminal organization, Harper. Drugs, in part. Money that moves through channels the government would very much like to tax and can’t find.
Men who work for me, some of whom you’ve met, who’ve spent years learning how to hurt people efficiently when hurting people becomes necessary.
” I make myself hold her gaze while I say it, refusing to soften a single word.
“That’s what the club actually is. A front, and a genuinely profitable one, but a front regardless. ”
She’s quiet for a long moment, absorbing that, and I watch her expression harden in a way it wasn’t a minute ago.
“Keep going,” she says. “Tell me about Pavel.”
“Eleven years ago, there was a standoff at a warehouse on the east side of the city. A rival organization, run by a man I only ever knew by face, never by name. Twelve of my men against fifteen of his. It nearly ended both organizations in one night.” I pause, the memory still sharper than I’d like after all this time.
“There was a moment, guns drawn on both sides, close enough to a bloodbath that I still remember the exact silence right before someone decided against pulling a trigger. Neither side ever agreed on who backed down first.”
“And nobody died that night.”
“Not that night. Within the year, though, his face disappeared from every corner of this business. Presumed dead. Nobody looked for a body. Men in this business vanish for a hundred reasons, and a rival not showing up anymore was treated as good fortune, not a mystery worth solving.”
“And that man is Pavel.”
“That man is Pavel Ivanov,” I say, the full weight of it plainly, watching it land. “The same man who sat in that courtroom watching you fight for custody. The same man whose face I recognized the day of the hearing, though I didn’t have a name to attach to it until the lawyer said it out loud.”
Harper’s breathing changes, shallow and fast. “Grandma and Grandpa Ivanov. Ginger’s grandparents. You’re telling me that is who this guy is.”
“He’s the same man you danced at Mia’s wedding with.
The same man who taught you to make pierogi in his kitchen.
” I don’t look away from her, though every instinct tells me to.
“I’ve suspected it since the courtroom. I had it fully confirmed only recently, once we traced the surveillance funding back to accounts controlled by the family directly. ”
“You’ve known since the courtroom.” Her voice comes out low, dangerously controlled. “Months, Viktor. You’ve known for months.”
“I suspected. I didn’t have confirmation until weeks ago.”
“That’s not the same as telling me nothing. You let me sit across a courtroom from him. You let me let him near Ginger for supervised visits. You let a man who’s apparently spent your entire war circling my family into a room with my daughter, and you said nothing.”
“I know.”
“Don’t just say ‘I know’ like that settles anything.
” She stands, too agitated to stay seated, one hand braced against her lower back as she paces.
“Today, Viktor. Today a man grabbed my arm hard enough to bruise it trying to take Ginger, and I still didn’t have the full picture until right now, sitting at this table, hours after it happened. ”
“You’re right to be furious with me.”
“I am furious with you.” Her voice cracks, fury and grief tangled together in a way that’s worse than either alone.
“You made a choice, over and over, every single day for months, to keep me blind to exactly how dangerous this family actually is. You let me trust them at that visitation center. You let me leave my daughter in a room with a man who’s apparently been planning something against us since before I even married you. ”
“I made that choice because I was trying to protect you.”
“You don’t get to decide what protecting me means without asking me first!
” Her voice breaks entirely on the last word, and she’s crying now, angry tears, the kind that come from exhaustion and fear as much as rage.
“I’m not fragile, Viktor. I proposed to a stranger in a strip club to save my family.
I’ve handled everything this custody case threw at me.
I could have handled the truth. I deserved the truth, and instead you decided, again and again, that your comfort with silence mattered more than my ability to protect my own daughter. ”
I don’t have a defense for that. I don’t try to build one.
“You’re right,” I say instead. “I don’t have a good excuse. I told myself I was protecting you. The truth is I was also protecting myself from watching exactly this happen, you looking at me like this, knowing how badly I failed you by staying silent.”
“How long have you actually known who you married into, in the sense that matters? Not the club. The rest of it. When did you first suspect the man in that courtroom could be Pavel?”
“The second I saw his face. Before the lawyer said a word.”
“And you said nothing. Not that day. Not the next day. Not for months.”
“I told myself I needed certainty before I frightened you with something I couldn’t yet fully explain.
I told myself that story so many times I nearly believed it myself.
” I hold her gaze, refusing to look away from the anger there.
“The truth is simpler and worse. I was afraid of exactly this conversation. I was afraid of watching you look at me the way you’re looking at me right now. ”
“You should have been more afraid of what happened today.”
“I know that now. I knew it the moment I saw those men on the ground in that parking lot and understood how close we came to losing everything because I chose silence over honesty one time too many.”
She wipes her face, furious at her own tears as much as at me, and paces another lap around the kitchen before finally stopping, hands braced on the counter, back to me.
“Tell me the rest,” she says, voice steadier now, though still edged with anger. “All of it. What does he want? Why now, after eleven years?”
“I don’t fully know yet. My best guess, based on everything Dimitri’s gathered, is that Pavel never actually died to us by choice alone.
Something forced him underground, possibly infighting within his own organization, possibly something else we haven’t uncovered.
He’s spent eleven years rebuilding under the Ivanov name, patient, waiting for an opening.
” I choose each word deliberately now. “When my name landed on your custody case, he found out exactly who you’d married.
I believe that changed his priorities entirely.
This stopped being about winning Ginger back in court a long time ago.
I think he wants to hurt me, and he’s decided the way to do that is through everyone I love. ”
“That’s why they tried to take her today.”
“Yes.”
“And the baby.” Her hand goes to her stomach instinctively. “He knows about the baby.”
“I have to assume he does. If he’s been watching this closely, he knows everything.”
Harper turns to face me finally, and the anger’s still there, real and justified, but underneath it a raw fear has surfaced too, one that makes my chest ache to witness.
“What happens now?”
“Now we stop being reactive. I should have gone on the offensive weeks ago instead of hiding you both behind cameras and hoping patience would run out on his side before it ran out on mine.” I stand, crossing to her, stopping close enough that she’d have to step back to keep the distance, though she doesn’t.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me tonight.
I don’t think I’ve earned that yet. I’m asking you to let me fight for this family the way I should have been fighting for months, out in the open, with you fully informed instead of protected into ignorance. ”
“What does fighting for us actually look like? Concretely, Viktor. Not vague promises.”
“Moving somewhere more secure than this house, for a start. Somewhere I can guarantee the perimeter completely, not just reinforce it after the fact. Dimitri’s already working every contact we have to find out exactly what Pavel’s planning next, so we’re not just waiting for him to make the next move.
” I keep my voice steady, deliberate, wanting her to hear the actual plan rather than empty reassurance.
“And you’re part of every decision from here forward.
Not informed after the fact. Part of it. ”
“I need time,” she says. “To be angry. To actually sit with everything you just told me instead of just reacting to it in the moment.”
“Take whatever time you need.”
“I need to check on Ginger,” she says, standing before I can respond, needing motion more than anything else right now.
She leaves the kitchen without another word.