Chapter 39
thirty-nine
Shattered cries surround me.
They come in waves, raw, broken sounds that scrape against my skin. Tearful sobs. Hushed, indistinct murmurs. Voices overlap and fracture, words dissolving before they reach me, like someone trying to talk through a bad phone line with terrible reception.
Everything feels staticky.
Disconnected.
Red lights smear across the wet pavement, reflections rippling in the shallow pools left behind by the hoses.
Firefighters move in sharp, urgent motions, their shouts swallowed by the roar of dying flames.
Water splashes, steam hisses, and droplets scatter, disrupting the fragile mirror on the street’s surface.
I feel my father before I register him.
The solid heat of his body presses against my back as he drapes his coat around my shoulders, wrapping me in it like a shield. The night air bites at every inch of exposed skin, cold enough to make my teeth chatter, but inside me there is nothing.
No cold.
No heat.
Just numbness.
It spreads slowly, methodically, seeping through my veins and hollowing me out from the inside.
The flames licking at the ambulance finally begin to die, shrinking down until all that remains is a blackened, twisted shell.
Metal groans as it cools. Smoke curls upward, thick and bitter, clogging the air.
There won’t be anything left of him.
I know that without needing to be told.
Not that it matters.
Vas watched them load him into the ambulance. He was there, every step of the way, until the moment that mattered most. That realization slams into me all at once, and something ugly tears free inside my chest.
Fury erupts.
White-hot.
Blinding.
I wrench myself away from Liam, barely aware of his hands reaching for me as my gaze sweeps the chaos. It locks onto Vas instantly. The normally jovial sovietnik stands off to the side, shoulders tense, mouth drawn into a hard line. His eyes are dark with grief.
But he’s standing.
Breathing.
Unharmed.
“Why weren’t you with him?” The words rip out of me, shredded and hoarse.
My fists slam into his chest before I even realize I’ve moved. Once. Twice. Again. Each blow lands with a dull thud as hot tears spill down my cheeks, blurring everything.
“Where were you?” I sob. “Why did you leave him alone?”
I don’t recognize myself.
I don’t recognize this voice, this violence, this animal grief tearing through my body.
My mind barely registers who I’m hitting or why. Something inside me has snapped clean in two, and the part left standing wants blood. It wants payment. It wants someone—anyone—to hurt the way I am hurting.
This is Vas.
Sweet, funny, loyal Vas.
But my grief doesn’t care.
He doesn’t stop me. He doesn’t raise his hands or step back. He just stands there, frozen, taking every blow with grim resolve. Why isn’t he fighting back? Why isn’t anyone stopping me?
He’s Pakhan now.
Touching him should be a death sentence.
And yet no one moves.
My fists grow weaker. The strikes lose their force, turning into slaps, then clumsy, useless shoves as my body runs out of rage-fueled strength. The fog begins to thin, just enough for horror to creep in at the edges.
Warm arms wrap around me, firm and unyielding, pulling me against a hard chest. The familiar scent of orange and cloves fills my lungs, grounding and devastating all at once. I collapse into him, sobbing harder as guilt crashes down over me in suffocating waves.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice broken against my ear. “I am so sorry.”
I don’t understand it then.
Not really.
The edges of my consciousness blur as shock and adrenaline begin to ebb, dragging exhaustion behind them like a tide. But even through the haze, his apology feels heavier than it should. Deeper. Like it carries a weight that doesn’t belong solely to grief.
It isn’t his fault.
Or maybe it is—just not in the way I think.
Secrets.
The Bratva thrives on secrets.
Even as I shake and cry in Vas’s arms, the rage doesn’t fade. It coils tighter, sharper, embedding itself into my bones. Vasily isn’t responsible for Matthias’s death—but someone is.
And Kenzi wasn’t acting alone.
I will find every single person who helped her.
I will hunt them down, one by one.
I will tear this city apart.
Let it all burn.