Sofia
I wake up alone in the guest bedroom. Sergei had let me have my space last night. I lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, my hand resting on my stomach.
The conversation floods back in. It feels like too much. But I don’t have a choice. I have to deal with the fallout of everything he said to me.
I do the math I didn't do last night. He was at my mother's funeral. I was thirteen. He would have been thirty-three. A grown man, already running an empire, making a promise to a dying woman about a child he'd never met.
I sit with that for a moment. Wait for it to feel wrong.
It doesn't. Not the way I expected it to.
What he did for the next eight years wasn't the act of a man who wanted something from me.
It was the act of a man who kept his word when no one was watching and nothing was in it for him.
That's not something I can be afraid of.
That's the only thing in my life that has ever been entirely, unconditionally mine.
I push myself out of bed and head for the shower. I dress in jeans, my favorite boots, and a simple black t-shirt. I find Sergei in his office.
He looks up when I enter. There are dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t sleep.
“I’m going to see my father,” I say.
I expect him to argue. To tell me it’s too dangerous. To remind me that Yuri is still out there and my father’s compound isn’t secure.
Instead, he just nods. “I figured you would.”
“You’re not going to try to stop me?”
“No.” He closes his laptop. “Nelson will go with you. And a full security detail. Six men, armed. They stay with you the entire time.”
I expected an argument. I’m not going to thank him.
I don’t know if I’m mad at him, but I’m something.
I can’t figure out what that something is until I confront my father.
I think I’ve always known my father was behind her death.
I just didn’t understand in what capacity.
And now that I know, I’m ready to make him pay.
“When do you want to leave?” he asks.
“Now.”
He stands and walks around the desk. For a moment, I think he’s going to pull me into his arms. Instead, he just looks at me.
“Be careful,” he says quietly.
“I will.”
I turn to leave, but his voice stops me.
“Sofia.”
I look back.
“I meant what I said last night. All of it.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I say nothing. I just walk out.
Nelson is waiting by the front door with six men I recognize from the security rotation. They’re all armed, all watching me with that same careful assessment I’ve gotten used to.
“Ready?” Nelson asks.
“Yes.”
I honestly didn’t think I would ever step foot in his house again. I stare out the window and try to remember the last days with my mother. I wish I would have committed the little details to memory. What did we eat? What did we talk about? Did I tell her I loved her?
My hand keeps drifting to my stomach. I force myself to stop.
Nelson doesn’t try to make conversation. He knows me well enough by now to recognize when I need silence.
When we pull up to the gates, the guards hesitate. They recognize the SUV as Sokolov’s vehicle. But then they see me in the back seat and wave us through.
The compound looks the same as it always has. Cold. Imposing. A fortress designed to keep the world out.
I used to feel safe here.
Now I just feel sick.
Nelson and two of the guards follow me to the front door. The rest stay with the vehicles, eyes scanning the perimeter.
The same butler who’s been here since I was a child opens the door. His eyes widen when he sees me flanked by Sokolov’s men.
“Miss Baranova,” he says carefully. “Your father isn’t expecting you.”
“I don’t care.” I push past him. “Where is he?”
“The study, but— “
I’m already moving. Nelson stays two steps behind me. The guard stations himself outside the study door.
I don’t knock. I just walk in.
My father is sitting in his chair by the window, oxygen tank beside him, the cannula in his nose.
He looks worse than the last time I saw him.
Grayer. Thinner. Like death is sitting on his shoulder, waiting.
I came here with every intention of driving my blade into his throat.
I wanted to watch him take his last breath.
Now, I realize his slow death is the best revenge.
He looks up when I enter. If he’s surprised to see me, he doesn’t show it.
“Sofia.” He gasps, struggling to catch his breath. “To what do I owe this visit?”
The door stays open. Nelson follows me in but stays about five feet away, giving me this moment but close enough to intervene if needed.
“Did you do it?” I ask. “Did you kill her?”
He doesn’t ask who I’m talking about. He knows.
His breathing is labored. His entire body jerks with every breath he tries to draw. But his defiance is loud and clear. The evil I see in his eyes shocks me.
How had I never seen it before?
Because I didn’t want to.
“Yes,” he says simply.
The confirmation still hits like a punch to the gut, even though I already knew. Hearing him say it sends fresh nausea flooding through me.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
His eyes harden. “She betrayed me. She was sleeping with Boris Sokolov. My rival. My enemy.” He leans forward slightly. “There’s a code, Sofia. You know this. Betrayal demands a response.”
“So you beat her to death.”
“It was decided by the heads. All of them.”
“You let them touch her.”
He shrugs. I don’t remember when I understood my parents didn’t love each other. Five? Six? When my mother read me princess stories, and I couldn’t see that love between my parents. They were never affectionate. I never saw love.
“You could have divorced her. You could have sent her away. You didn’t have to kill her.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“She was my mother.”
“She was a traitor.”
I move closer to his chair. He doesn’t flinch, but I see him tense. Good. He should be afraid of me. I pull the knife from my back pocket, remove the sheath and slide the tip along the papery skin on top of his hand.
Beads of red appear. He doesn’t flinch. I realize I could actually cut his throat.
The thought stops me. I will not give him the satisfaction of turning into his murderer. He wants to die. He believes his daughter murdering him is some kind of win.
I step back.
“I want you to sign over power of attorney to me,” I say. “Now.”
He tries to laugh and ends up choking. “You can’t be serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
I lean down so we’re eye level. “You’re dying. We both know it. You have days, maybe weeks. I can end your suffering. Sign.”
He’s thinking about it.
“I will kill Yuri,” I tell him. “My husband or I will. Maybe he’s already dead.”
He stares at me. I see him processing. Calculating. Trying to figure out if I’m bluffing.
I walk to the desk and pull open the drawer. The documents I had drawn up more than six months ago are still there. When it became clear he wasn’t going to survive, I thought he’d sign the POA. That was before I knew the extent of his evil.
I grab a pen and hand it to him along with the documents. “Sign and your suffering ends.”
I see hope flare in his eyes. He’s ready for death. He wants it.
“You’ve become just like me,” he says.
“I’ll never be like you.”
I watch his eyes move across the page, looking for loopholes, for ways to maintain control even in death.
He won’t find any. I made sure of that.
He looks at me for a long moment. "Yuri underestimated you," he says. "I wondered if he would."
Finally, he signs. His signature is shaky but legible.
I take the papers from him. Nelson is there to take them from me.
“You’ll regret this,” Nelson whispers in my ear.
I know what he’s warning me against.
His hand touches mine, the one holding the knife. “I’ll handle it,” he says.
I look at Nelson and smile before I look at my father.
“I’m not doing anything,” I say. “You’ll sit here and rot in that chair.
You’ll take your last, painful breath alone.
You will die knowing you have nothing. I will not grieve you.
I won’t even think of you. This house will be burned to the ground.
You have no legacy. You will be forgotten five minutes after you’re gone. No grave. No funeral. Nothing.”
“Don’t you dare go back on your word,” he hisses.
I smile. “Rot in hell.”
I walk out with my father coughing and sputtering behind me. Nelson is at my back. The two guards flanking me.
I don’t look back.
I never want to see this place again.
When I get outside, I stop. The sun is too bright. I suck in a deep breath. I feel a bloodlust I’ve never tasted. I turn, ready to go back in there and give him what he wants.
No. He suffers.
“Sofia?” Nelson’s hand is on my elbow, steadying me.
“I’m fine.” I’m so far from fine I can’t even see fine from here.
“Let’s get you home.”
I let him guide me to the SUV. I climb into the back seat and stare out the window as we pull away from the compound.
I think about my mother. About the choices she made. Did she love Sergei’s father? She knew the risks, but she did it anyway. I want to believe she would only do that if she loved him.
I think about the baby growing inside me. The baby who’s going to be born into this violent, complicated world.
I press my hand against my stomach.
“I’ll keep you safe,” I whisper. “No matter what it takes. I promise.”
Sergei is waiting for us when Nelson walks me into the brownstone. Nelson immediately disappears.
“How did it go?” Sergei asks.
“I know Nelson filled you in.”
His lips quirk. “No, he didn’t. He told me I would have to hear it from you.”
“He signed.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
He nods. “Do you want me to do it?”
“No. I want him to live as many days as God allows.”
He says nothing. I believe he understands.
“I’m going to lie down.”
“Are you—”
“No, Sergei. No, I’m not okay. But I will be.”