24. Rowan #4
My knuckles crash into the side of his face hard enough to snap his head sharply to the side.
Ivan snarls low in his throat as he rears back around, the sound so animalistic and unfamiliar it almost throws me.
He grabs a fistful of my shirt at the collar and slams me back onto the floor, hard enough to make my head ring.
Old reflex roars up from somewhere underneath the tailored discipline ingrained in me to protect him. I twist, not away from the pressure, but into it. My hand catches his wrist to stop him from grabbing at me again, my knee jerking upward hard and catching his hip to throw him off balance.
He flies off me when I throw my body weight against his the second my knee connects with him. He crashes to the floor next to me, a strained grunt leaving him. I roll and push up onto my hands and knees and drive my elbow up between us when he comes at me again.
It hits him right beneath the sternum where he’d been shot. He hisses through his teeth, the sound breaking with pain as the movement yanks at whatever residual pain is still there.
That’s all I need.
I twist hard and shove at him again. Our bodies rock sideways across the floor, colliding with his desk. Things topple off it, crashing to the ground around us. Ivan catches himself before he fully loses purchase of me and fists one hand around my shirt and the other in my hair.
He’s stronger than he should be. Or maybe the rage and adrenaline are turning him into something hard to contain.
“That all you got, boy?” he taunts. The grip in my hair turns painful. “I expected more from you than this.”
I slam my forehead into his. Not exactly a move I’d advise anyone sober enough to avoid it to do, but it works. The crack of skull against skull stuns us both.
His curse is slurred and vicious, but he lets me go immediately. My vision flashes and doubles, pain ringing through the center of my head like a bell. Warmth spills from somewhere near my hairline and the room sways.
I blink through the haze until my vision clears and grab the front of his jacket to haul him close enough that our breaths collide in the air between us.
“You of all people should know better than to underestimate your opponent.”
His eyes flicker and then widen slightly when my fist slams into the side of his head.
I let him go, watching him slump to the floor with a choked groan.
He fumbles as he fights to push himself up off the floor, one hand slipping briefly in the smear of blood between us.
But I’m already moving, pushing to my feet.
My ribs scream when I rise. My jaw throbs, my mouth burning from where he split my lip open. Every breath feels like dragging barbed wire across my chest.
I cross the room to where my gun lies near the door. My hand closes around the grip, my fingers locking into place automatically even with blood slicking the web between thumb and forefinger. When I turn to train the muzzle on him again, he’s already looking at me.
Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth and his temple. One eye is already swelling shut. My own face hurts, mirroring the injuries on his in a grotesque reflection I can feel more than see.
Fitting.
We always were cut from the same cloth.
The gunshot is deafening.
I always thought when this moment came, I would be shaking so badly I wouldn’t be able to hold the weapon level. That something inside me would revolt against the idea and fight to save him from me by force.
But the gun stays up, the barrel aimed right at his chest.
My trigger finger rests where it should.
He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, then looks at the blood smeared across his skin like it belongs to someone else. When his gaze lifts to mine again, there is no fear in it. Just bitter understanding.
He lets out a shuddered exhale. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”
“This was always going to end this way,” I counter.
Something shifts in his expression, then he chuckles. “I see.”
I stare at Ivan. At the blood, and the wreckage we’ve made of this study. At the man who built me and broke me.
“Goodbye, Pakhan.”
For a split second after the trigger is pulled, I hear nothing but the ringing of the shot in my ears. The recoil travels up my arm, familiar, yet the weight of it feels heavier than any shot I have ever fired.
Ivan’s body jerks, then slams back against his desk. The expression on his face is not fear or surprise, only that quiet, bitter understanding. His breath shudders out of him as a dark stain blooms on his chest. His eyes grow vacant within seconds, the final rattle of air leaving his lungs.
And then he is still.
The silence that follows is unbearable.
I stand there for a long moment, my chest rising and falling slowly as I stare down at the man who turned a starving boy from Moscow’s underground into the most feared enforcer in the Kuznetsov Bratva.
My Pakhan.
My mentor.
The closest thing I ever had to a father.
The gun lowers slowly in my hand. I expect something to happen, some violent burst of emotion to match the enormity of what I have just done.
Instead there is only a hollow quiet settling inside my chest. I kneel beside the body, reaching down almost instinctively.
For a second my hand hovers over Ivan’s shoulder before I lift it to close his eyes.
I force myself to stand.
This was never about revenge.
It was never about power.
Ivan would have burned Russia to the ground to become its king.
He would have dragged the Iron Pact into chaos and crushed anyone who stood in his way.
I knew that when I walked through this door.
I knew there was only one way this would end.
Still, as I take one last look at the body on the floor, the weight of it presses heavily over me.
When I finally turn for the door, I find Sofia standing there in the doorway.
For a second I just stare at her, my mind struggling to reconcile the sight of her beauty against the distant gunfire and shouted orders further down the estate.
The hallway light behind her casts a faint glow around her figure, and she looks exactly as angelic and untouched as the last time I saw her.
My heart squeezes painfully. The fear I have been carrying since the moment I stepped back onto the estate grounds finally loosens its grip on me.
She’s safe.
Before I can say anything, Sofia runs to me. I don’t even realize how unsteady I’ve become until my legs suddenly give out beneath me. The strength that carried me through the confrontation, and the impossible act I just committed, drains from me all at once.
My gun clatters to the floor as Sofia catches me.
Her arms wrap tightly around me as I collapse against her, and the dam I’ve been holding together finally breaks.
The tears come without warning, hot and bitter as they spill down my face.
I press my forehead against her shoulder and hold her against me in a tight grip.
Her arms tighten around me as she rocks me gently the way someone might soothe a frightened child after a nightmare. Her fingers slide through my hair, her voice soft as she murmurs against my ear.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I’m here.”
Tangled in Sofia’s arms like this, feeling her steady warmth and hearing the quiet reassurance in her voice, something inside me begins to settle.
The guilt will probably never leave me but the fear and the crushing dread that I might lose her too is gone. In that moment through the haze of exhaustion and heartbreak, I realize that this path and this terrible choice I never wanted to make have led me here to her.
Having Sofia here beside me makes it all worth it.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her hands framing my face, thumbs brushing away the tears that are still falling. “You do. You chose me when it cost you everything. That’s more than anyone has ever given me.”
The tenderness of it is almost unbearable.
I spent years believing love was something earned through usefulness, guided only by obedience and the undying need to prove I was still worth keeping around. The way Sofia looks at me now is like none of that matters. That I am worth something to her even now, as broken and lost as I am.
God, I love her so much it hurts.
My mouth finds hers with all the ache in me still raw and bleeding.
Relief is so fierce it borders on pain when she tilts her head and deepens our kiss.
My free hand slides to the back of her neck, fingers curling into her hair as I pull her closer.
It turns fuller, hungrier, all the love and terror and need between us catching fire at once.
When we finally break apart, I brush a strand of hair from her face, my thumb lingering on her cheek.
Her smile is small and sweet. “I’m with you. We’re in this together.”
Those words feel like a vow. Ones I will defend until my dying breath.
Whatever comes next, war with the remnants of the Kuznetsov Bratva, fractures within the Pact, the political chaos Ivan’s death will unleash, we will face it together just as she said.
I look down at her, at the woman who walked into my life and shattered every certainty I had. She looks back at me with those steady blue eyes, certainty reflecting back at me.
“I love you,” I say quietly.
Her smile widens. “I love you too, Rowan.”