Chapter 2
MAKSIM
This meeting is useless.
I stare down at the polished table in the center of the safehouse, my hands clenched into fists so tight that my fingers burn.
Around me, the remnants of my inner circle shift in silence—Roman at my right, stone-faced and looking exhausted.
Matvey beside him, tablet in hand, rifling through CCTV footage for the tenth time this hour.
Andrey and Katya flank the perimeter of the room, standing guard like we’re expecting gunfire through the windows.
Detailed maps of every inch of the city are laid out across the table.
Underground sewer networks, above ground infrastructure, back alleys, abandoned restaurants, sketchy fronts.
Everything. And yet nothing has gotten us any closer to finding Ivy or Leo.
They’ve all but vanished, gone without a single trace left behind.
It’s impossible to believe absolutely no one knows anything. That no cameras picked up their trail once the crash took place and the driver from the offending vehicle stepped out onto the road. Everything’s been wiped, nothing’s been left behind. Not even the faint whiffs of a lead.
All of it reminds me of Anton.
His successor has been taught well.
No one speaks when I turn to look at them one by one. Mainly because there’s nothing to say. No one knows where Ivy is. No one knows where my son is, and I am one wrong word away from gutting the next man who breathes wrong in my direction.
“They couldn’t have just vanished,” I finally snarl, the fury inside me starting to outpace the ice I’ve used to hold it back in order to keep a level head.
“Mikhail took them somewhere nearby. He couldn’t just disappear them that fast by taking them far.
He may have wiped the local CCTV, but someone has to know something. ”
Roman glances at Matvey, then looks back at me, not answering.
“We’re working as quickly as we can, Pakhan,” Matvey says calmly, like he’s trying to reason with a rabid dog. “We’re saying whoever took them knew what they were doing. They acted quickly and effectively to distract us from catching them before they went underground.”
My teeth gnash together as I chew on his words.
Mikhail is reckless to have done something this stupid like taking my significant other and child, and while that will inevitably lead to his end, he’s been just smart enough to keep himself out of the public eye for now.
He’s unfortunately already succeeded at what most enemies haven’t—taking the people who matter the most to me.
I’m going to kill him slowly for it.
Roman shifts in his seat, leaning back just enough to cross his arms over his broad chest. He lets out a deep sigh, sounding just as worn out as he looks.
“We are working around the clock, Pakhan. We’ve also looped in Lev as well.
He’s scouring what’s left of Anton’s network back in Russia.
If there’s anything buried in the old system, he’ll find it. ”
I drag a hand over my face. The stubble on my jaw scrapes my palm.
I can’t remember the last time I slept, let alone showered and cleaned up.
It’s been nonstop combing through surveillance, questioning people out on the streets at the time of the incident, following leads that always seem to lead to dead ends.
And still, we have absolutely nothing. “It’s been nearly two weeks. ”
Katya clears her throat from where she is back against the far wall.
One leg has been lifted to rest behind her.
Her usual cut-throat demeanor has been subdued since all of this started.
“Whatever program they used to mass-wipe the data has been in the works for a while. It wouldn’t be surprising if we find Mikail’s been planning this for months.
Most likely when you landed here to find Ivy.
The witnesses we have been able to locate are only able to put some of the pieces together for us.
The rest… we’re still trying to find. Matvey’s been able to uncover somewhat of a timeline. ”
Only one thought echoes in my head. This is Mikhail’s play for the crown. Not with an army, not with bullet aimed for my head, but with my blood. The woman I love, the son I didn’t know I had until it was too late… He’s using them both to rip me open, and what’s worse, he knows it’s working.
He knows I’m scrambling for answers I don’t have, no doubt delighting in watching me fumble.
The second I get my hands on him, it’s over.
An hour later, we call Lev.
I stare at the screen as the secure line works to connect us to our private network, pacing the length of the room while Matvey’s program does its thing.
Lev appears in grainy pixels at first, slowly clearing to reveal him sitting in what looks like the back of a warehouse, crates stacked behind him and a shotgun leaning up against the side of one of them.
“No,” he says before Matvey even speaks. “I haven’t found anything yet.”
My hand slams into the nearest wall, the plaster cracking under my palm.
My frustration has boiled over into unadulterated rage at this point.
More bad news stacked up on top of the already overwhelmingly tall pile has all but crushed me.
No matter what corner we turn over, it’s always the same answer. There are no answers.
Lev’s voice doesn’t falter as he continues.
“What I have found is every one of Anton’s old channels have gone cold.
Even after his fall, there were still some stragglers hanging on using his old networks.
I looked into the contacts he used to have when he was still alive that I figured would’ve been passed down to Mikhail, but oddly enough, those have been completely dissolved.
It’s like Mikhail erased his father’s existence before he hopped on that plane to the US. ”
“Why, though?” I bite out, the words coming sharper than I intend.
“What’s the point? If he’s gone to such great lengths to erase his father’s legacy, that either means he’s confident he’ll be coming out on top with this and successfully absorbing our Bratva as his own, or…
” I pause, swallowing the bitter taste of the thought.
“His last-ditch effort is to completely wipe everything if he fails before I can dismantle it.”
Lev doesn’t flinch at my questioning. He’s been down this road before plenty of times.
“I thought that too. I would wager his idea is a mixture of both. He’s delusionally confident that taking Ivy and Leo will be enough for you to hand him what he wants—power, leverage, legitimacy.
The title. Your empire without the war it took to build it. ”
I pace, hands balled into fists. “You’re right. He is delusionally confident. Not even his father had the balls to think like that. He at least knew things could come crashing down at a moment’s notice.”
He exhales. The signal grows static for a minute, warping his appearance on the screen, before finally stabilizing again.
“He’ll burn it all before you ever reach him, that much is clear.
He’s done so in Russia already. That’s the failsafe.
He knows you, knows how you think. If he erases every record, every last thread that ties their family to this network, then what’s left for you to dismantle?
If you do kill him, it’s just blood for blood. Nothing else.
I fall silent, my jaw locked tight. Of course he would plan for both outcomes.
In all my years of knowing Anton—and by extension, his bastard son—it tracks. Anton was a tactician down to his bones, a man who could create entire matrixes out of thin air if it meant preserving his influence. A spider spinning webs, weaving a history that served him and only him.
And his son? Clearly, he’s inherited that same sickness. But where Anton was patient, meticulous, and deliberate in his moves, his son is wild beneath the surface. Reckless with conviction.
Anton built an empire out of the shadows of paranoia left from the old ways, manipulating perception within our Bratva until our shared allies couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t.
It seems his son has taken that same philosophy and sharpened it into something crueler.
Less about control, more about revenge. It was never just about power for him.
It was about rewriting the story—stripping my name from every page and replacing it with his own.
“He wants to make it meaningless,” I say aloud, the truth finally hitting me. “All of it. Even if I kill him, he wants to make sure I get nothing out of it. No satisfaction. No victory. No proof of what he and his father did to dismantle our Bratva from the inside.”
Lev gives a slow nod. “That’s his real win, to deny you the final blow that changes anything.”
“Shit,” Andrey mutters from across the room.
My eyes close for a beat, but it does nothing to stop the heat flooding my chest. The fury coils tight in my ribs, sharp and surgical.
He thinks this ends with the erasure of his name.
That if he wipes out the ledger, the history, the roots of his father’s regime, he’ll vanish cleanly.
But people like him don’t get clean endings.
Not when they drag children into their madness. Not when they touch what’s mine.
I open my eyes and look at my second, finding him already staring back at me with the same intensity that churns in my own chest. There’s a flicker in his eyes—hunger, barely leashed violence.
He’s waiting for me to say it. For the green light, the full send he’s been craving since the moment I left Russia.
Since the first whisper of betrayal happened years ago.
Since Mikhail crossed a line that can’t be undone.
I give him the smallest of nods because it’s all he needs. “Let’s show him how wrong he is, then.”
A slow, dangerous grin starts to pull at the corners of Lev’s mouth.
“And how are we going to do that?” Katya asks.
Her head tilts slightly to one side, a single brow rising with that unyielding eagerness of hers.
She’s the fire to Roman’s calm. The serrated knife to Lev’s scalpel.
Analytical and always three steps ahead like Matvey.
There’s heat beneath her cool exterior, a challenge she’s been waiting to take on.
She wants to hear it from me, and I’m ready to say it.
When my attention slides to her, the plan has already begun stitching itself together in the back of my mind, loose threads tightening while pieces fall into place with every gear that shifts and turns. It’s not fully formed yet, not quite, but it’s more than I’ve had in weeks.
It’s what I’ve been missing since Ivy and Leo were taken. That cold, merciless precision that once made me a king in a country built on blood and loyalty. It’s back, certainty replacing the helpless rage I’ve been drowning in.
Finally, after almost two weeks of fog, of being one step behind, of letting fear and fury rot my logic, something shifts. My mind starts clicking back into place like a weapon being reassembled. That sick, hollow ache in my chest is still there, but it’s no longer a weakness.
It’s fuel.
My voice is low when I speak again, but the intensity in it cuts through the room like a fuse being lit. “We destroy the fantasy he’s built.”
Katya doesn’t interrupt, neither does Roman. They wait and listen.
I go on, each word more punctuated than the last. “If Mikhail thinks I’ll give him a clean death when we find him, he’s wrong.
He wants a legacy to steal. To inherit what he never earned and twist it into something else.
He thinks by taking what’s mine, he can manipulate the story, rewrite it to put himself on the throne.
But he’s forgotten one thing. He’s a footnote at best. A poorly written epilogue.
So we’ll remind him. We’ll dismantle every piece of the fantasy he built along with his name, his resources, the people he turned. And we’ll do it publicly.”
Andrey tilts his head, intrigued now. “You want to expose him?”
I nod. “I don’t just want to kill him. I want to make him visible.
Embarrass him for ever thinking he could get away with trying this like his father did.
Anton got off easy with a clean death. His son will pay for both of their sins.
He’ll be dragged out of the shadows and made to face the world for what he is.
A coward with stolen power. A traitor hiding behind a false legacy.
A fraud clinging to someone else’s throne. ”
Roman exhales. He shifts in his seat, eager. “How are we going to do any of that?”
I lean forward, every word deliberate. “We unearth every traitorous act he and his father ever committed against the Bratva. Every secret deal, every betrayal, every body they buried and tried to erase, and bring it to light. He thinks he can leave this world without a trace, without consequence. So, we’ll show him otherwise. ”
Katya’s lips curl in a rare smirk. “You always did have a flair for theater.”
“He wants to vanish like a myth,” I say.
“So we make sure his ending is messy. Undeniable. We make sure his name is cursed in the streets, whispered with disgust in the same breath as cowards. We don’t stop with him.
We’ll tear down everything that ever carried the Sidorov name, every last tie he has to the world his father left behind. ”
Roman rises from his seat, the fire in him unmistakable now. “Just say the word.”
I nod. “Go.”
We are done being cornered. Done playing defense. Let Mikhail think he’s still in control, let him believe this ends the way he wants. We’ll show him reality. True reality.
He has no idea the kind of reckoning we’re about to unleash.