Chapter 52
Peighton
Dad steps closer, the tension thick.
“Found Janice back home. I confronted her,” he says.
“I held up the letters. Told her I knew. She tried to lie for five seconds, then folded. She said she loved Magnus. That he understood her. That being a boss’s wife in America felt predictable.
I told her infidelity is a sin and that if she wanted to worship him, she could join him in hell.
I pulled my gun and pointed it at her, but I couldn’t shoot.
I loved her too much. I lowered the gun and told her if she wanted to die for him, she could do it herself. ”
My chest is tight. “Dad.”
“She looked me right in the eye,” he says hoarsely, “and said she would rather die than live without him. Then she took the gun out of my hand and pulled the trigger. I thought she was bluffing. I thought she was trying to scare me. She was not. I watched your mother kill herself, and I let my anger push her there. That is what I carry.”
The garden spins. All those years of vague stories about witness protection, hushed tones, sudden silence when I said her name. Gone. Replaced by something more tragic.
My father presses his fingers to his eyes. When he drops his hands again, they are wet.
“I have spent every day since knowing she chose another man over her own family,” he says.
“That I pushed her over the edge. That I did not stop her. I regretted it the second the gun went off. It was too late. So yes, when you ask if I killed her, I feel like I did. But I did not pull the trigger. She did. And none of that was your fault.”
I step forward and put my arms around him.
He stiffens, then crushes me to his chest, burying his face in my hair the way he used when I was a kid and got a cut.
I feel his shoulders shake. My own eyes blur.
For a second we are not a mob boss and a mafia princess in a Russian garden.
We are just two broken people trying to hold something that cracked a long time ago.
When we pull apart, my throat is raw.
“Why did you not tell me?” I ask.
“How could I?” he says. “You adored her. I didn’t want you to hate her. Or me.”
Silence hangs between us. A raven caws on the roof. Another answers. The sound makes all the hairs on my arms stand up.
“I wonder if that is why Gustav married me. For some kind of revenge?” I ask.
He sighs. “When I found out Gustav wanted to marry you, I did not understand it. With Janice and Magnus dead, both sides paid the ultimate price. I hoped that Gustav Just wanted an American girl with the right bloodline. But I don’t know what Sophia told him.
I asked Gustav when we first spoke over the phone.
He didn’t mention the affair, but I worry for you. Every day.”
“So why come now?” I ask.
His mouth twists. “Tyra visited. She told me you went into labor. That the baby was early and fragile. That your husband was acting strange and she was worried. I didn’t want to come, because of the history and blood spilt here.”
Tyra. Of course. She returned to California a few days ago. She’d been here for months taking care of me. It was time for her to go back. Live her life. It didn’t take long for her to make sure someone took her place. Just wish it wasn’t my dad.
Suddenly, Dad says with an air of surprise, “Gustav?”
I turn.
Gustav stands by the rose bushes at the edge of the garden, half in shadow, half in sunlight. Tall. Still. Hands in his pockets. His pale eyes locked on us. On my father. On me. I have no idea how much he heard, but from the tightness in his jaw and the faint tic under his eye, I know it’s enough.
My stomach drops.
“Gustav, wait,” I call, taking a step toward him.
He doesn’t answer. His gaze flicks to my father.
“So,” he says, voice low and almost calm. “Janice Piccanno is the reason my mother shot my father.”
The way he says my mother and my father makes my skin prickle.
My dad swallows and nods. “Yes. I am sorry. I never meant for it to go that far.”
Gustav’s face does not move. For a heartbeat, he looks carved from stone. Then the corner of his eye twitches again.
Without another word, he turns and walks away, disappearing around the corner of the hedge.
Panic claws at my chest. I want to run after him. To grab his face in my hands and tell him I love him, that I am not my mother, that I will never do to him what Magnus and Janice did to our families. But he’s just as a shook as me. We both need a moment to process this.
“Do you want to come home with me, lil one? If he allows it. It’d give him space he might want.”
“I love him,” I say quietly. “I can’t leave him. Especially now.”
He sighs and straightens his jacket. “At least let me see my granddaughter before I go.”
I nod and take him back inside. Keira is in the sitting room, rocking Vera gently and humming a lullaby. When she sees my father, she stands immediately and offers the baby to me so I can present her properly.
For a few minutes, watching him cradle that tiny body, all I feel is sadness and love. Then it’s time. He kisses my cheek, squeezes my shoulder, and leaves with a promise to call. I watch his car roll down the long drive and disappear.
Keira appears and lingers in the doorway beside me, arms folded loosely.
“You could’ve gone with him,” she says quietly. “With your father. Back to America. It’d not be cowardly. You have a baby to think of now.”
I picture it. Sun and palm trees and grocery stores without guards. No cards. No councils. No ravens on the roof. A life where my daughter’s father is a story instead of a shadow in the halls.
“No,” I say, surprising myself with how firm it comes out. “Dad asked me the same thing. But if I leave now, I abandon more than just a man. I abandon a family. A bratva. And I abandon Gustav when he is hanging by threads. This isn’t just a bratva thing. It’s a mafia thing. You don’t leave family.”
Keira nods approvingly. “Then we make it work. Together. But you must be careful. Rupert and the Council aren’t done with him.”
Micha appears in the entryway, big and solid and kind, rubbing his bald head like he always does when he is unsure if he should interrupt.
When he sees my face, he smiles, warm and steady, and some of the panic inside me unclenches.
If Gustav is the storm, Micha is the anchor.
My surrogate-dad who somehow feels more like one every day.
“Everything all right?” he asks.
“For now,” I say, and mean it only halfway.
Before bed, I find Gustav in one of the dens, pacing, shadows carving sharp lines into his face. He is arguing with no one, hands flexing at his sides, eye twitching. The ravens outside rasp and croak like they are echoing something only he can hear.
When he sees me, he stops. For a moment he looks broken. Young. Terrified. I take a step forward, wanting to reach him.
A knock sounds from the hall.
A maid slips inside, cheeks flushed from hurrying. In her gloved hands she holds a large, ornate blue envelope with gold trim. She looks from Gustav to me like she hopes I will be the one to take it.
“From Rupert,” she says carefully. “To Gustav.”
His jaw tightens. The ravens outside shriek. And deep inside my chest, I know with absolute certainty that whatever is inside that envelope is going to change everything.