I don't remember moving. Don't remember the decision to attack. One moment, I'm crouching, frozen, and the next, I'm racing after him. He ducks into a hallway and I follow, skidding to a stop when I see him standing. Facing me. My hands are curled into claws, a scream tearing from my throat that doesn't sound human.
My nails rake across his face, drawing blood. He stumbles backward, shock flashing across his features. I'm on him, hitting, scratching, trying to hurt him the way he's hurt me. Trying to make him feel even a fraction of the agony that's consuming me.
"You killed her!" The words come out in a shriek, almost louder than the shouts, screams, and bullets in the warehouse. "Your own daughter! She was only sixteen!"
Strong hands grab my arms, yanking me backward. Viktor's men. Two of them, maybe three. I fight like a wild animal, kicking and thrashing, but they're too strong. They drag me away from my father while he touches his bleeding face, his expression transforming from shock to cold fury.
"Restrain her," he orders, his voice sharp.
They force me to my knees on the concrete floor, their grips bruising on my arms. I'm still screaming, still fighting, but it's useless. Tears stream down my face, hot and bitter.
Viktor straightens his jacket, dabbing at the scratches on his cheek with a handkerchief. When he looks at me again, there's nothing in his eyes but contempt.
"This is exactly why I had to do it," he says. "Katya was weak. Soft. The Popov family has no room for weakness, Alina. I tried to teach you that, tried to make you strong, but you never learned."
"She was your daughter." My voice breaks on the words. "How could you? How could you kill your own child?"
"Because she was a liability." He crouches in front of me, and I can smell his expensive cologne mixed with the copper scent of his blood. "Just like you've become. I gave you everything. A good marriage, a position of power, a future. And you threw it away for what? For Dimitri Morozov? For some misguided notion of love?"
I spit in his face.
He backhands me so hard my head snaps to the side. Pain explodes across my cheek, and I taste blood. The men holding me tighten their grip, but I don't care. I welcome the pain. It's better than the emptiness threatening to swallow me whole.
"You're going to die today, Alina," Viktor says, standing and wiping my spit from his face. "But not quickly. Not mercifully. I'm going to make it look like Morozov did it. Like he tortured you, killed you, disposed of your body. The other families will be so outraged, so horrified, that they'll unite against him. They'll tear the Morozov empire apart piece by piece."
He starts pacing, warming to his subject, ignoring the chaos and fight to the death going on in the main warehouse, and I see themadness in his eyes, the ambition that's consumed everything human in him.
"With Dimitri destroyed, I'll step in as the voice of reason. The grieving father seeking justice. The families will look to me for leadership, and I'll give it to them. I'll rebuild the Bratva network under my control. Stronger. More unified. More powerful than ever before."
I barely hear him. All I can think about is Katya. My baby sister. Her dark hair and brown eyes. The way she'd curl up next to me on the couch and show me her sketches. Her dreams of Paris and Rome and all the places she wanted to see.
Dead.
Because of him.
Because of me.
If I hadn't married Dimitri, if I hadn't defied my father, would Katya still be alive? The thought is a knife twisting in my gut.
"I should have killed you both years ago," Viktor continues, his voice distant now. "But your mother begged me to spare you. Said daughters were useful for alliances. I should have known better. Women are nothing but weakness and sentiment."
Through my grief, through the fog of pain and rage, I hear something. A voice. Faint, transmitted through the tiny earpiece Dimitri's tech specialist fitted me with.
Dimitri's voice.
"Alina." His tone is urgent, controlled. "I know what you just heard. I know what you're feeling. But I need you to focus. Can you do that for me?"
I don't respond, can't respond without alerting Viktor. But I force myself to breathe, to listen.
Viktor is still talking, outlining his plans, his voice filled with sick satisfaction. The men holding me have relaxed slightly, confident I'm subdued. They're wrong.
I think about the panic button pendant around my neck. About Dimitri racing to find me. About the promise he made.You're mine, and I protect what's mine.
I think about Katya, and the rage that's been simmering beneath my grief suddenly ignites into an inferno.
My father killed my sister. He's planning to kill me. He's going to use our deaths to destroy my husband.
Not if I can help it.
