Chapter 17 Zoya
Zoya
Men like my father didn’t rush unless they were cornered. He preferred patience and applied pressure slowly, invisibly, until people folded without realizing they were being bent.
I’d seen it countless times just in the confines of my expensive prison.
When Dmitry’s phone rang just after noon, the sound cut through the house like a blade. I sat silently and watched from the bed as he checked the screen, jaw tightening, then looked at me.
“He’s pushing,” he said.
My father.
I sat up straighter. “What is he saying?”
Dmitry didn’t answer right away. He walked to the far window instead, scanning the tree line out of habit, not fear. Then he spoke, voice calm and even.
“He wants a time and a place. Today.”
My stomach dropped, but I didn’t let it show. “To get me back.”
“Yes.”
I took a slow breath. The house felt quieter suddenly, as if it were listening. My father didn’t care about my well-being. He cared about his investments. And God… the thought of what he’d do to me if he found out what I’d done with Dmitry, which “ruined” me in his eyes. I’d be useless to him.
“What happens if you don’t?” I asked.
“Won’t,” he said, hard and so fierce that I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere. Dmitry turned back to me, his expression now unreadable. “He’ll make threats and start calling in fakes and pulling strings.”
“Like what?” I don’t want him to soften a damn thing.
“He’ll lean on people connected in our organization.”
I knew he meant the organization as a whole. Organized crime that housed all criminal factions.
“He’ll start problems.” His eyes locked on mine.
Even if my father didn’t want me back, this was an affront of all aspects, a stain on his prowess and control. It would make him look weak if he didn’t get me back, so I knew he’d go to whatever lengths to ensure he got his way.
Dmitry’s phone buzzed again in his hand, but he ignored it as he stared at me.
“I want to be there with you when you meet him,” I said.
“No.” The answer was immediate and absolute.
“I wasn’t asking,” I replied quietly, tipping my chin up and hoping he saw my defiance. “I’m telling you.”
He stepped closer, looming now, every inch of him a warning and protection all wrapped together. “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“I know, and I don’t want to see him either, but I need to be there… for myself,” I said.
That made him pause.
I stood and closed the distance, chin up, voice steady even though my heart hammered. “You said you wanted me to choose this life,” I said. “This is part of it.”
He stared down at me for a long beat, eyes dark and unreadable, as if he were measuring every risk against every instinct screaming to keep me locked away. Then he exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled.
“You stay in the car,” he said, voice low and final. “Off-site. Out of sight. The thought of him even looking at you again makes me want to put a knife through his throat and watch him bleed out slowly.”
He didn’t soften the threat. Didn’t dress it up. Just let it sit there, raw and real.
I swallowed, fear and resolve twisting together in my chest, but I didn’t back down. “I can do that.”
His jaw twitched once. Then he nodded, sharp and reluctant. “You stay silent. You don’t move. If he so much as senses you’re close, I’ll end him with a bullet, damn the blowback.”
I nodded back, feeling the weight of it settle in my chest. There was fear, yes, but also something fiercer. Something that felt like the start of being unbreakable.
He cupped my jaw with one big tattooed hand, thumb pressing just hard enough to remind me I was here with him. “You’re mine, Zoya. Not his. Not anyone else’s. Ever. And I’ll protect you even if it puts me in the ground.”
Then he kissed me once, claiming every part of me with his lips and tongue until I knew everything would be okay. When he broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against mine for a second, and then turned his attention back to the phone when it rang.
“Andrey,” Dmitry answered on speaker, voice flat and cold like ice.
“Dmitry. You’ve had your fun.” My father’s voice slithered through the line, all smooth and oiled, like he was closing a deal instead of bargaining for his daughter’s return.
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached.
“The information was delivered,” Andrey continued. “Everything you wanted. Names. Routes. Accounts. We’re square now, give me back what’s mine.”
I saw Dmitry curl a hand into a tight fist and his jaw clench at hearing my father say I was his. “We were never square,” Dmitry said.
A thin, venomous laugh crackled over the line. “You took what belongs to me.”
“She was never yours,” Dmitry said, voice low and lethal, eyes locked on mine like he was speaking the truth straight into my soul. “She never will be. I took what you threw away… what you never deserved to have in the first place.”
The words landed heavily, possessively, and final. No anger. Just cold certainty. Like he was stating a fact the universe had already carved in stone.
Silence stretched, thick and ugly. Then my father spoke slower, deliberately, the mask slipping just enough to show the rot underneath. “Bring her to me. Tonight. Or I start drawing blood.”
My stomach lurched. I’d seen what my father did to people who crossed him, heard the screams from rooms in the bowels of my childhood home I wasn’t supposed to know existed.
And now… now I knew what he’d do to me if he found out what I’d done with Dmitry.
Damaged, useless, and a worthless liability.
The horror clawed up my spine, cold and sharp.
But I was done running. I wanted to stop this and men like him from breaking more girls, from selling lives as if they were nothing. I wanted to be strong enough to help Dmitry end it.
Dmitry glanced at me, reading every flicker on my face. He didn’t soften. He waited. “And if I don’t?” Dmitry asked, then smirked because we both knew he wasn’t giving me back to my father.
“Then things get unfortunate,” Andrey said, voice smooth but edged with that false calm he always used when he was bluffing. “For people you care about. For your operation. Accidents happen when men forget their place. I’ll have to call in Alexei.”
The threat landed flat. Cold and empty. Dmitry didn’t flinch or tense.
He just let a slow, dangerous smile curve his mouth as he kept his eyes on me.
“The only person I ever cared about was my mother,” he said, voice low and lethal, every word deliberate.
“And you already took her from me. There’s no one left for you to threaten, Andrey.
No leverage. No weak spot. Just me. And I’ve been waiting years to settle that debt. ”
His gaze never left mine, and it felt like he was speaking the truth straight to my soul, letting me see the void where grief and rage had lived for so long, and how I was the only thing that had ever filled it since.
“So go ahead,” he continued, tone flat and final.
“Make your accidents. Call your favors. Send your men. You’ll only give me more bodies to stack.
And when the last one falls, I’ll be the one standing over you, watching the life bleed out of the man who thought he could take everything from me twice. ”
The line stayed silent for a beat… long enough for the weight of his words to sink in.
My father exhaled slowly and long, and although I couldn’t see him, I knew he was enraged. Dmitry ended the call himself without another word. The room felt heavier after that. Sharper, as if the air itself knew the game had shifted.
There was no softness in his expression as he stared at me.
There was only fierce, possessive pride, the kind that burned like a brand.
The kind that came from knowing I was the only living thing he’d ever let matter since his mother.
The only thing he’d ever claimed as his since everything was taken from him.
Dmitry had explained things to me, things like the world we lived in.
The higher-ups—the real ones running this nightmare—were still out there.
Men like Alexei Drakovich’s father, the Bratva king who ruled with iron and blood, the one who’d turned his second son into the most ruthless executioner the organization had ever seen.
I found out Alexei didn’t negotiate. He followed his father’s orders and ended things.
Clean, final, and no loose ends. And Dmitry declared if my father was scared enough to call in that kind of favor—reaching for the Bratva’s blade when he knew exactly what it meant—then he was more desperate than I’d thought.
But Dmitry didn’t flinch at the name. Didn’t tense. Just let a slow, bitter smile touch his mouth.
“Let him call Alexei,” he said, voice low and sure. “I’m not afraid of the executioner. I’ve faced worse. And if the Drakovich’s want to step into this, they’ll find out what happens when they cross my path.”
He leaned in closer, voice dropping to that low, dangerous rumble that always made my pulse spike. “I told him he’s got nothing left to take,” Dmitry said quietly, but the words carried weight, like a vow carved in stone. “But I lied. I’ve got everything to protect now.”
His hand reached out and curled around my nape, fingers wrapping around me like he was chaining me to him right there in the quiet room.
“You, Zoya,” he said, shifting his hand to press his thumb hard against my pulse point, no doubt feeling it race under his touch.
“You’re mine. The only thing left in this fucked-up world I’d kill, bleed, and burn the world down for.
And I’ll rip apart anyone who tries to take you from me…
starting with the bastard who thought he could sell you like property. ”
His grip tightened just enough to remind me he meant every word.
“You’re the only weakness I’ll ever have.” He pulled me close and I rested my head on his chest. My heart was racing from this moment, but Dmitry’s was steady, calm, and I knew he had everything under control.