His eyes skim over me, assessing and appraising, like I’m a piece of inventory rather than his daughter. “Payback. The kind that shatters legacies. The kind that ruins bloodlines. I built my position. I took control of the Sokolov empire. And I waited for the right moment to take everything from them.”
My stomach twists. “So, you used us. Me. Hope.”
A faint shrug. “Leverage is leverage. Luka’s attachment to you gave me an opening. Hope gave me control. People are easiest to manipulate when someone they care about is at risk.”
My breath freezes. “We’re yourdaughters.”
“That doesn’t change what you are in the larger scheme,” he replies calmly. “The Barinov line took something from me. I’m taking more in return.”
The air around me feels thinner, colder, and suffocating. “You let Mom mourn you for almost two decades. You let Hope grow up fatherless. You let me believe we were abandoned.”
His face stays still, untouched by regret. “Emotional casualties,” he says. “Necessary ones.”
I stumble back. “You planned this for eighteen years… just to destroy them?”
“No.” His gaze locks onto mine, unblinking. “To end them.”
The realization breaks over me like ice water. Ray was a diversion. The USB was bait. Every threat, every step, every impossible choice… he engineered all of it.
My father. Alive, ruthless, and hell-bent on destroying Luka and the entire Barinov Bratva. And now that includes my baby.
Hope lets out a muffled sob, but the sound feels far away as the truth settles like lead in my lungs. I didn’t walk into a trap built by enemies. I walked into the trap built by my family. And Thomas didn’t hesitate to use his own daughters as weapons in a war he’s been waiting eighteen years to finish.
16
SAGE
The sound of the warehouse settles around me like dust, thick, gritty, and impossible to swallow. Hope sits tied to a metal chair a few feet away, duct tape stretched across her mouth, her eyes swollen from crying. Every time she tries to move, the ropes dig into her arms, and I watch the pain ripple across her face. Seeing her like that makes my stomach twist until it feels like I can hardly breathe.
Thomas stands between us, calm as if this is nothing more than another chore he needs to finish before the day ends. Shadows from the overhead lights stretch across his face, pulling him even farther from the man I once held onto in my memories. If he ever cared about us, I can’t find even a trace of it now.
My voice trembles, but I force the words anyway. “I need to understand this. All of it. How did you convince Isaak you were dead? How did you just vanish for eighteen years?”
Thomas folds his hands behind his back, the posture almost casual. “People disappear every day, Sage. Some do it poorly. Some do it well.” He strolls closer, his shoes echoing softly across the concrete. “I chose the second category.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.” My throat tightens. “You let us grieve you. You let Mom die thinking you were gone forever.”
He studies my expression with an indifference that makes my skin prickle. “Your mother understood the world she married into more than you think.”
My jaw clenches. “She spent years waiting for answers. You never gave her any.”
“She wasn’t the priority,” he replies in a tone so light it steals my breath. “Survival was.”
I stare at him, trying to find something familiar in his features. The strong dark brows, the lines around his eyes, and the sharp cut of his cheekbones are pieces I recognize. But the expression sitting on them belongs to someone else entirely.
“How?” I whisper, though part of me wishes I didn’t want the details. “How did you fake your death without Isaak noticing it was staged?”
A faint hint of pride curves his mouth. “I had assistance. Two Barinov enforcers owed me. They arranged the vehicle, the body, the burned wreck. Enough resemblance to accept at a glance.”
The chill that runs through me tightens every part of my body. “So the coffin, the funeral Mom held… all of that was built on a lie.”
“Funerals are for the living,” he replies, unbothered. “I had no use for one.”
Hope lets out a soft sound behind the tape, something between a plea and a warning. Her breathing turns quick and uneven, the way it does when she’s close to spiraling. I step toward her without thinking, but Thomas lifts a hand, halting me.
“Stay where you are.”
“She’s scared,” I argue, heat rising in my voice. “And she’s been tied up who knows how long. She needs her meds.”
