Two Years Later
Becoming Pakhan was in my blood. I didn’t choose it. I didn’t want the throne, the power, the rot that came with it. But wanting has never mattered. It clung to me—uncomfortable, but natural. Like a second skin I couldn’t tear off, no matter how hard I tried.
The business prospered. Not because I loved it, but because I was built for it.
Money flowed. Order followed. My men were everywhere—Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Kharkiv—loyal not out of affection, but out of respect sharpened by fear.
They trusted my decisions because they knew I wouldn’t hesitate. I never did.
Small gangs still surfaced now and then. Idiots who thought chaos was opportunity. They never lasted long. The city swallowed them whole, and no one asked questions.
I existed. That’s the word. Not living—existing. Waking up. Working. Killing when necessary. Ruling because someone had to. Days blurred together, cold and mechanical, stripped of color or meaning.
I kept myself empty on purpose.
Because emptiness was safer than memory. And memory meant Kira.
If I let myself think of her—I felt something inside me buckle. And a man in my position cannot afford fractures. Cracks become weaknesses. Weakness gets you killed.
So I learned how not to feel.
For over a year, I didn’t touch another woman. I was so numb. Hollowed out. There was nothing left in me that wanted.
Eventually, even that emptiness began to decay.
So I started fucking.
Not for pleasure. Never that. I fucked because animals fuck.
Because bodies are warm and sound drowns out thought.
Because for a few minutes, I could forget that I was a grave walking upright.
Faces blurred. Names never stayed. Their hands clawed, their mouths begged, and I felt nothing but a dull, animal satisfaction that disgusted me the moment it was over.
Anyone decent would have been repulsed by me.
I was repulsed by myself.
And still—I kept going. Because stopping meant silence. And silence meant her.
I checked on Anton at first. Quietly. From afar.
Private investigators. Blurred photos. Reports stripped of emotion.
He was just over two and he was perfect.
And that was the problem. Every part of him reminded me of the one person I could never let go of, no matter how much I tried to rot it out of me.
Every time I saw him, something inside my chest twisted violently, like my ribs were trying to cave in.
Eventually, even that became unbearable.
So I stopped asking for pictures. I stopped reading the reports. But I never stopped paying. Never stopped making sure he had everything—safety, comfort, anonymity. He would never know my name. That was the point.
I was poison.
And poison doesn’t raise children.
Mila…
I watched her too. Less directly. Just enough to know she was alive. Functioning. Existing in a world that had no idea what it had almost done to her. I told myself it was protection. That I was keeping distance for her sake.
The truth was simpler.
I was afraid.
Afraid that if she looked at me too closely, she’d see exactly what I was.
Then everything broke.
The report came in like any other—routine, mundane, something that should have passed across my desk without consequence. Mila Harrington. New position. New firm. I barely reacted at first.
Roen Architecture.
The name scraped against something old and buried, something I had tried to seal off years ago. I told myself it was coincidence, that paranoia was a habit I’d never quite shaken. I was wrong.
I dug.
And then I dug until my hands were covered in blood.
Roen Architecture wasn’t just a firm. It was a front. One of many. Clean lines. Glass offices. Prestige. And behind it—children moved like merchandise. Files I hadn’t opened in years. Names I wished were already dead.
It was the same network. The same hell.
And Mila was inside it.
I went completely still.
For a long time, I just stared at the folder, my pulse pounding in my ears, my body reacting like it was under attack. Cold sweat. Rigid muscles. Rage so sharp it tasted metallic.
She had walked straight into the viper’s nest.
I didn’t know if it was coincidence or fate. I didn’t care. All I knew was that she didn’t understand where she was standing—and that ignorance could kill her.
I told myself to stay away. That going back into her life would ruin it. That I was bad for her.
But this wasn’t about what I wanted anymore.
I couldn’t send a letter. I couldn’t tell her the truth without shattering her world. You were trafficked. I’m your brother.
She’d think I was insane.
But doing nothing was not an option.
So I began to close doors.
Ukraine would survive without me for a while.
I tightened the structure. Cut loose anything unstable.
Put Sashko in place with explicit instructions.
He didn’t argue, but he made it clear it was temporary.
He had a family—two kids now—and that kind of responsibility had never been part of his plans.
But this wasn’t just going to be a reunion. It was going to be war.
Because the filth didn’t die with Roman.
It metastasized. Spread across borders like a disease—changing faces, forging identities, laundering horror through clean banks and offshore vaults.
U.S. was part of it, and I knew damn well that some of the same men responsible for Mila’s disappearance still operated there.
This wasn’t just a network. It was rot handed down through generations.
I didn’t pretend I could fix the world. I wasn’t that delusional. But I could burn the branches that touched my blood. There were still children in cages. Still girls sold like cattle. Still monsters fattening themselves on pain. And I was going to gut them from the inside.
It was time. I was going to meet her—my sister—the last fragile thread tying me to something human. Twenty-two years later, I would finally face her.
I am not noble. I am not selfless.
She might be the only thing left that can reach me.
I want her in my world. And if it costs me everything, I’ll pay it.