I can see the apprehension in his posture.“Go on,” I press.
“There is—” He pauses, clears his throat again, shifts on his feet. “There is talk on the street.” His voice is hushed, as if the very air might carry the dangerous words beyond these walls.
I fix him with my gaze, my eyes burning holes through him. “Speak,” I rasp, the single word a command.
He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, then continues, his voice gaining a fraction of strength, though still laced with caution. “I’ve heard rumors and have sent my men after them. I haven’t been able to get a confirmation, but they say whoever has been following your woman might be related to Peter’s accident.”
My breath catches in my throat. I’ve always dismissed the whispers, the vague suspicions that circulated in the immediate aftermath. An accident. A tragic, drunken mistake. A consequence of his reckless youth and terrible decisions. That’s what I told myself, what I made everyone believe. But now? Now the old doubts, the ones I buried deep, claw their way back to the surface, sharp and venomous.
“What kind of connection?” I press. My mind races, trying to connect the disparate threads, to find a pattern in the chaos.
“The word is that it wasn’t an accident, not really.” Dmitri’s eyes finally meet mine and are filled with a grim, unsettling certainty. “The rumor is that the same hand that pulled the strings on Peter’s car is going after someone else close to you.” He pauses, taking a shaky breath. “It is my opinion that someone in the shadows is moving chess pieces, Boss. Someone who wants to dethrone you.”
The air crackles with unspoken tension, thick and suffocating. Someone in the shadows is trying to dethrone me, to take my empire from me. The words are an insult, a challenge thrown directly into the face of a lion. My empire wasn’t built on a whim; it was forged in blood and iron, brick by painstaking brick, over three decades of ruthless ambition and calculated violence. For years, I’ve crushed every challenge, every upstart, every fool who dared to dream of taking what was mine.
But this feels different. This doesn’t feel like a spontaneous act of defiance. This feels like a calculated move, a patient predator stalking me from the periphery, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
The connection to Peter’s accident is a cold, hard knot in my gut, twisting tighter with each passing second. Peter has his faults—many faults—but was he just a pawn? Was his tragedy orchestrated, a strategic blow meant to weaken me, to chip away at my foundation so I was entirely without an heir?
The thought makes the rage boil over, a roaring inferno consuming every other emotion. The idea that someone could have so coldly, so deliberately, crippled my son, intended to kill him, simply to gain an advantage in this brutal power struggle, is unforgivable.
My gaze fixes on Dmitri, then sweeps to Iliya. He stands at attention, waiting for my command.
“Go,” I snarl, pointing a trembling finger at the door, the tremor not from fear, but from the sheer force of my suppressed fury. “Go and find them. Bring me answers. Bring me their heads.”
Dmitri turns, nods, and leaves, his movements swift and purposeful, and also hurried, because I know he doesn’t want tobe in the room with me like this any longer than he has to be. The heavy door closes behind him with a soft thud, leaving Iliya and me in the silent office once more.
I turn to my second in command, my eyes still burning, but the raw, uncontrolled rage has begun to settle into a cold, hard resolve. “Whoever this is...” My voice is softer now, but dangerously so, the calm before the storm, the stillness before the hurricane. “Find them before they try again and correct their mistake.”
Iliya meets my gaze, his own eyes, usually so impassive, now holding a flicker of something akin to grim satisfaction. He understands; he always understands.
The hunt has begun. And it will be bloody.
I walk to the window, pulling back a corner of the heavy drape. Outside, the city lights begin to twinkle, a deceptive blanket of normalcy over a world where shadows conspire and blood is currency.
I will tear those shadows apart, one by one, until I find the hand that dared to touch my family. And then, they will pay.
They will all pay.
15
LEAH
The grand living room, despite its opulence, feels like a cage. The silence is heavy, suffocating. My earlier surrender to Viktor’s command—to move in, to accept this new, terrifying reality, to leave my independence behind—still echoes in my ears, a testament to the raw fear that had gripped me. But now, as the initial shock begins to recede, a cold dread settles in. I’m here. Eliza will be here after school. And we’re inextricably linked to Viktor’s dangerous world.
What kind of a monster am I to lead my child, and the child growing inside me, into this mess?
After reassuring himself that I was okay and assuring me someone would come to help me settle in, Viktor left me standing in the center of the vast room, his fury palpable. Unlike Peter, Viktor doesn’t shout, doesn’t slam doors. His rage is a quiet, simmering inferno, far more terrifying than any outburst.
After he left, I stood where he left me for a long time, my hands trembling, the image of the shattered window and the sound of gunfire replaying in my mind. My apartment, my independence, my illusion of a normal everyday life, all of it is gone.
The housekeeper, efficient and coolly polite, appears out of nowhere, offering me a glass of water. Her eyes are kind but wary. I take the glass, my fingers still shaking, and nod my thanks. The water is cool, a small comfort against the dryness in my throat.
She asks if I need anything else, and when I shake my head, she tells me she’ll make up a room for Eliza and me and disappears.
Time passes and several black SUVs pull up outside the house, disgorging men in suits. The front door opens and closes, and the sound of footsteps mixes with the low murmur of voices speaking Russian.
I wander to a large window, looking out at the street, the last of the autumn sunlight in shimmering patches on the sidewalk. Cars drive by and people walk along. The world outside seems serene, oblivious to the violence that just unfolded. It’s a stark contrast to the storm brewing within these walls, within Viktor.
