“My parents died in a plane crash,” I said automatically, the lie I’d lived with rising to my lips out of pure instinct. I’d repeated it so many times it felt carved into me.
“Your mother, yes.” He turned slowly, eyes dark, merciless. “Your father, no.”
He crossed the room in three long strides and sat on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on his knees, studying me with the cold patience of a predator who knew there was nowhere left for its prey to run.
“The plane crash was orchestrated by your father,” he said calmly. “He didn’t just kill your mother. He killed your grandfather—who was traveling with her—and every other innocent passenger on that flight.”
Something inside me collapsed.
My legs gave out completely. I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to my chest, arms locked around them as if I could physically hold myself together.
“My father is...” My voice came out thin, childlike. “...alive?”
Ruslan didn’t soften. Not even a fraction. “Who do you think has been running the underground dealings of your family all these years?”
“I thought...” My mind scrambled uselessly. “One of his brothers. Or a cousin. Someone distant.”
A bitter smirk curved his mouth. “That’s what he wanted you to believe.”
My head shook slowly, denial warring with the sickening sense of truth clawing its way in. “No. He wouldn’t. He loved her. He loved my mother.”
Ruslan’s eyes hardened. “Men like your father love only power.”
He leaned back slightly, gaze never leaving mine. “I killed Al-Chapo. I dismantled most of his inner circle. But his network was vast. Deep. And ironically, your father was one of his most loyal allies—his financier, his strategist. The man who kept the money clean and the blood invisible.”
The room tilted harder now, nausea crawling up my throat.
“No,” I whispered. “You’re lying.”
“I don’t lie about things like this.”
I pressed my palms to my temples, as if I could physically push the truth away. Memories surfaced unbidden—my father’s frequent absences, the coded phone calls he’d end abruptly when I entered the room, the way he’d insisted on private flights, private doctors, private schools. The paranoia I’d mistaken for protectiveness.
“He let me believe he was dead,” I said hoarsely.
“Yes.”
“He let me grieve him,” I whispered. “Let me bury him.”
“Yes.”
“And my sister?” My voice cracked completely. “Did she know?”
Ruslan didn’t answer immediately.
That silence told me everything.
A sob tore out of my chest—raw, broken, humiliating. I folded forward, forehead pressing to my knees, breath coming in jagged gasps.
“My whole life,” I whispered. “It was all a lie.”
“Your family,” he went on, voice steady. “And your ex-fiancé’s family. Along with the other three of California’s five dominant syndicates.”
He leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his thighs, eyes fixed on mine without blinking.
“They were all tied to Al-Chapo—money laundering, logistics, shell corporations, political cover. Different roles, same disease.”
He paused, letting it sink in.
