I saw Dmitry curl a hand into a tight fist and his jaw clench at hearing my father say I was his. “We were never square,” Dmitry said.
A thin, venomous laugh crackled over the line. “You took what belongs to me.”
“She was never yours,” Dmitry said, voice low and lethal, eyes locked on mine like he was speaking the truth straight into my soul. “She never will be. I took what you threw away… what you never deserved to have in the first place.”
The words landed heavily, possessively, and final. No anger. Just cold certainty. Like he was stating a fact the universe had already carved in stone.
Silence stretched, thick and ugly. Then my father spoke slower, deliberately, the mask slipping just enough to show the rot underneath. “Bring her to me. Tonight. Or I start drawing blood.”
My stomach lurched. I’d seen what my father did to people who crossed him, heard the screams from rooms in the bowels of my childhood home I wasn’t supposed to know existed. And now… now I knew what he’d do to me if he found out what I’d done with Dmitry. Damaged, useless, and a worthless liability. The horror clawed up my spine, cold and sharp.
But I was done running. I wanted to stop this and men like him from breaking more girls, from selling lives as if they were nothing. I wanted to be strong enough to help Dmitry end it.
Dmitry glanced at me, reading every flicker on my face. He didn’t soften. He waited. “And if I don’t?” Dmitry asked, then smirked because we both knew he wasn’t giving me back to my father.
“Then things get unfortunate,” Andrey said, voice smooth but edged with that false calm he always used when he was bluffing. “For people you care about. For your operation. Accidents happen when men forget their place. I’ll have to call in Alexei.”
The threat landed flat. Cold and empty. Dmitry didn’t flinch or tense. He just let a slow, dangerous smile curve his mouth as he kept his eyes on me. “The only person I ever cared about was my mother,” he said, voice low and lethal, every word deliberate. “And you already took her from me. There’s no one left for you to threaten, Andrey. No leverage. No weak spot. Just me. And I’ve been waiting years to settle that debt.”
His gaze never left mine, and it felt like he was speaking the truth straight to my soul, letting me see the void where grief and rage had lived for so long, and how I was the only thing that had ever filled it since.
“So go ahead,” he continued, tone flat and final. “Make your accidents. Call your favors. Send your men. You’ll only give me more bodies to stack. And when the last one falls, I’ll be the one standing over you, watching the life bleed out of the man who thought he could take everything from me twice.”
The line stayed silent for a beat… long enough for the weight of his words to sink in.
My father exhaled slowly and long, and although I couldn’t see him, I knew he was enraged. Dmitry ended the call himself without another word. The room felt heavier after that. Sharper, as if the air itself knew the game had shifted.
There was no softness in his expression as he stared at me. There was only fierce, possessive pride, the kind that burned likea brand. The kind that came from knowing I was the only living thing he’d ever let matter since his mother. The only thing he’d ever claimed as his since everything was taken from him.
Dmitry had explained things to me, things like the world we lived in. The higher-ups—the real ones running this nightmare—were still out there. Men like Alexei Drakovich’s father, the Bratva king who ruled with iron and blood, the one who’d turned his second son into the most ruthless executioner the organization had ever seen.
I found out Alexei didn’t negotiate. He followed his father’s orders and ended things. Clean, final, and no loose ends. And Dmitry declared if my father was scared enough to call in that kind of favor—reaching for the Bratva’s blade when he knew exactly what it meant—then he was more desperate than I’d thought.
But Dmitry didn’t flinch at the name. Didn’t tense. Just let a slow, bitter smile touch his mouth.
“Let him call Alexei,” he said, voice low and sure. “I’m not afraid of the executioner. I’ve faced worse. And if the Drakovich’s want to step into this, they’ll find out what happens when they cross my path.”
He leaned in closer, voice dropping to that low, dangerous rumble that always made my pulse spike. “I told him he’s got nothing left to take,” Dmitry said quietly, but the words carried weight, like a vow carved in stone. “But I lied. I’ve got everything to protect now.”
His hand reached out and curled around my nape, fingers wrapping around me like he was chaining me to him right there in the quiet room.
“You, Zoya,” he said, shifting his hand to press his thumb hard against my pulse point, no doubt feeling it race under his touch. “You’re mine. The only thing left in this fucked-up world I’d kill, bleed, and burn the world down for. And I’ll rip apartanyone who tries to take you from me… starting with the bastard who thought he could sell you like property.”
His grip tightened just enough to remind me he meant every word.
“You’re the only weakness I’ll ever have.” He pulled me close and I rested my head on his chest. My heart was racing from this moment, but Dmitry’s was steady, calm, and I knew he had everything under control.
We were in this together now, locked in, with no turning back. We’d start dismantling it from the top down, piece by bloody piece. I wasn’t stupid enough to think we could burn the entire organization to the ground. This thing was worldwide, woven into every dark corner of power and money, a culture that had survived wars, governments, and time itself.
Dmitry was part of that same world—born in it, shaped by it, blood on his hands from the same machine we were trying to break. But he wasn’t like them.
What we could and would do was carve out the worst of them. The ones who preyed on the innocent. The ones who sold girls like they were nothing, who turned screams into profit and called it business. We’d hunt the monsters who thought they were untouchable, the ones who built empires on broken bodies and shattered lives. We’d drag them into the light and end them, one by one, until the rot stopped spreading.
It wouldn’t be clean or quick. But it would be final.
And I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was ready.
I closed my eyes, breathing him in, letting the solid warmth of him ground me. His fingers threaded through my hair, holding me there as if he could shield me from the world just by keeping me close.
