His hands fall away from my throat, his body jerking once, twice, and then he's falling backward with Volk's knife buried in his spine. He hits the floor and twitches, not dead but paralyzed, staring at the ceiling with eyes full of terror.
"Finish it," Volk says, breathing hard. Blood runs down his arm from a wound I didn't see him take. "He's yours."
I don't make it quick. When it's finally over, my hands are covered in his blood and something dark and satisfied has settled into the hollow spaces of my chest.
The last guard is down. The corridor is silent except for the ringing in my ears and my own ragged breathing.
"The safe room," I manage. "Father's in the safe room."
Volk helps me stand. Steadies me when my knee threatens to give out. His face is grim but there's something else there too. Pride, maybe. Or something closer to love. I shake my head at myself for daring to think the word for the first time now.
"Can you walk?"
"I can do whatever I have to."
We step over bodies toward the reinforced door at the end of the hall. My shoulder bleeds. My ribs are definitely broken in more than one place now. Every part of me screams for rest, for medical attention, for anything other than more violence. Volk is bleeding as well, but I think most of it isn’t his, although he clearly has some cuts on his arms and torso.
We're so close. After ten years of planning and bleeding and becoming something I barely recognize, we're finally here. Father waits behind that door.
And I intend to collect what I'm owed.
CHAPTER 20
Sofiya
SONG: NIGHTMARE BY HALSEY
The safe roomdoor stands before us like a monument to everything I've become. Reinforced steel. Biometric locks. The accumulated paranoia of a man who built an empire on blood and has always known, somewhere deep in his rotten soul, that blood would eventually come calling for payment.
Volk moves to the control panel beside the door. His fingers work the interface with familiar ease, overriding security protocols he helped design. Blood drips steadily from the wound on his arm, leaving dark spots on the floor like breadcrumbs marking our passage through hell.
"He'll be armed," Volk says without looking at me. "Probably has weapons cached throughout the room. Panic button too, but there is no one left to save him."
"Good." The word tastes like copper on my tongue. Like the blood I've spilled to get here. Like the decade of hatred that's carried me through training and planning and the slow, methodical destruction of everything I used to be.
The lock disengages with a pneumatic hiss. The door swings open.
And there he is.
Father stands in the center of the room, perfectly composed despite the chaos that just tore through his fortress. His suit is immaculate. His silver hair swept back from a face that's aged but lost none of its cruelty. He holds a gun loosely at his side, not aimed at us, as if the weapon is merely an afterthought to the real threat he believes himself to be.
"Volk." His voice carries the same cold authority I remember from childhood. The voice that commanded armies, ended lives, shaped my entire world until he decided to unmake me. "I should have known you'd come crawling back here eventually. Though I expected you'd have more sense than to bring this trash with you."
His eyes slide to me. Dismiss me. Returning to Volk like I'm barely worth acknowledging. Something hot and sharp twists in my chest. Even now, even after everything, he refuses to see me as anything more than an inconvenience.
"You've cost me a great deal," Father continues, moving slowly toward a leather chair positioned near the center of the room. He sits like a king on his throne, crossing one leg over the other with deliberate casualness. "Good men. Resources. Time I'll never get back. All for what? This damaged little creature you've convinced yourself is worth saving?"
"She saved herself." Volk's voice is flat, empty of everything except cold fact. "All I did was give her a chance."
"A chance." Father laughs. The sound scrapes against my nerves like broken glass. "You gave her false hope. Made her think she could actually challenge me. Made her believe she matters when the truth is she's never been anything but a burden. A mistake I should have corrected the moment she was born."
I step forward, my hands steady despite the tremor trying to work its way up from my damaged ribs. "I'm not here to listento you talk." I raise my weapon, ignoring the pain the movement costs me.
"No?" Father's attention finally settles on me fully. His eyes rake over my blood-soaked clothes, my visible injuries, the weapons I carry like extensions of my body. "Then what are you here for, little Yelena? Revenge? Justice? Some fairy tale ending where you kill the monster and live happily ever after?"
"I'm here to end you."
"Bold words from someone who couldn't even die properly the first time." He uncrosses his legs and leans forward in the chair. "Do you know how disappointing you were? All those years I spent raising you, providing for you, giving you every advantage, and what did I get in return? A weak, emotional child who reminded me of her whore mother every time I looked at her face."
