“Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.” Maksim clicks his tongue and leans back against the wall, arms folded. “Patience, Stephan. Not everyone’s as eager to meet their end as you are.” His eyes flick to the hallway as a faint thud of boots echoes closer.
Three sharp knocks echo through the basement. Boris’s massive frame fills the doorway, nodding once before stepping aside. The hinges creak, cold air rushing in.
“What… the… fuck… is this?”
Clara strides in wearing one of my old black Henley shirts, stolen from my closet—sleeves pushed up to her elbows, too big on her frame. She’s paired it with the first things she probably found: dark jeans and trainers. Her hair’s yanked back in a hasty braid, loose strands framing a face that promises murder.
“Stephan…” she whispers.
Clara’s shoes leave wet marks on the concrete as she takes in the scene. Her throat works, swallowing hard. The sight of Stephan—her second father, her protector—hanging like slaughtered meat hits her harder than she expected. I see it inthe way her fingers curl against her thighs, in how her chest barely moves with each breath.
My muscles coil, ready to move between them, but Clara needs this. Needs to see the monster beneath Stephan’s mask. Still, my hand twitches toward my holster when she steps closer to him.
“Finally.” Maksim pushes off the wall. “We’ve been waiting.”
Metal wheels creak behind her. Mitch appears, hulking and silent, his large hands gripping the back of Maxwell Caldwell’s wheelchair. The old man’s hollow eyes widen, taking in the carnage. His hands grip the armrests so tightly that his knuckles blanch, trembling as sobriety collides head-on with the brutal reality in front of him.
He looks like a man forced to confront every ghost he’d spent years drowning in a bottle to forget.
Stephan’s thrashing stops mid-swing. “Cla-Clara?” Blood sprays from his lips, painting his chin crimson. His next words drown in wet coughing that splatters red across the floor. More seeps through his shredded shirt where Ludis carved his message.
“Well,” Maksim drawls, drawing his weapon. “Looks like the rest of the family’s here.”
67
Clara
The basement air hits my lungs like ice. Blood and metal and darkness.
The Henley I’m wearing—Leonid’s scent still clinging to the fabric—feels too big, too warm. Everything narrows to Stephan hanging there, pieces of him dripping onto concrete.
Sixteen years old. His office. “You’re family.” The knife he gave me that birthday digs into my hip, its pearl handle cold against my skin. The same hands that taught me to drive, that braided my hair, now twist uselessly above zip ties.
My feet move without permission. One step. Another. Each splash of my shoes through puddles of his blood echoes wrong.
Dad’s wheelchair creaks behind me. The sound pulls my spine straight—muscle memory from years of his drunken disapproval. But it’s the sobriety in his voice that cuts deeper.
“Cla- Clara?” Stephan coughs, spraying red. His eyes find mine, and for a second, I’m 15 again. Ice cream at the pier.Learning to shoot in his private range. Every father-daughter moment twisted into a knife he planned to bury in my back.
Each step brings me closer to the stranger wearing Stephan’s face. It’s a mess of purple and red, but those eyes—the ones I thought held kindness—they’re the same. Just empty now. No mask left to hide behind.
“Fucking… bitch.” The words bubble through blood. “Should’ve died with… your brother.” His lips pull back from red-stained teeth. “Too stubborn. Just like Jake. Never knowing when to give up.”
I stop. Something hot runs down my cheek. My hands shake as his words keep coming, a poison I can’t unhear.
“Your fault.” His chin drops to his chest, words slurring together. “All your fault. Wouldn’t just… fucking… die. Had to keep digging. Had to keep pushing.” A wet laugh. “Should’ve put a bullet in you right after Jake.”
My fingers trace the knife scar on my forearm—his first lesson in self-defense. “Always be ready,” he’d said. Now I understand why. He’d been preparing me for this moment, teaching me how to kill while planning my death.
“What… is going on?” Dad’s voice breaks through the basement’s silence.
I look over my shoulder, catching Mitch’s gaze. His jaw tightens—the same expression he wore at Jake’s funeral. When I look down, Dad’s bloodshot eyes are clear for the first time in fourteen years. The bourbon haze is gone, replaced by something worse: understanding.
His hands shake as he takes in the scene—Stephan hanging like meat, blood dripping onto concrete, Leonid standing in shadows. Recognition hits him like a physical blow. His spine straightens in the wheelchair, muscles remembering the man he used to be.
“You…” Dad’s trembling finger points at Leonid. Spittle flies from his lips as he lurches forward. “You killed Jake, you bas-bastard. My son. My only son!” The words slur together, muscle memory from a decade and a half of whiskey.
Leonid doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just watches with that predator’s stillness that makes my skin prickle.
