“The car is out back,” Sergei says, evidently not comfortable with this, but going along with it anyway.
I follow him through the kitchen—past the sizzling grill, the clatter of dishes, the curious stares of the cook and two waitresses—out the rear door into a narrow alley. A black SUV waits there, engine already running from the remote start. Sergei opens the rear passenger door for me without a word.
I slide inside. He gets behind the wheel. The doors lock with a soft click and we drive in silence across the city.
I stare out the tinted window as familiar streets slide past—neighborhoods I grew up in, storefronts I used to walk past holding my father’s hand, corners where deals were made and lives ended. Everything looks the same and completely different at once.
I know this could end terribly.
My father might still see me as a liability. He might decide the cleanest solution is to finish what Viktor started. Or he might listen. He might realize I’m not the little boy he tried to keep safe and separate anymore. I’m the one who survived a kidnapping, outran a hit order, and walked back into the lion’s den of my own free will.
Either way, I’m done being a pawn.
When we pull up outside the restaurant, the one that’s been my father’s unofficial headquarters since I was in diapers, the front windows are dark, the CLOSED sign still hanging even though it’s barely past lunchtime. Sergei parks in the alley behind the building. He kills the engine.
“Stay here,” Sergei says.
He gets out, disappears through the service door.
Five minutes later he returns.
“He’ll see you.”
I step out of the car.
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingertips.
Sergei leads me through the back kitchen—empty except for one dishwasher who doesn’t look up—past the walk-in cooler, up a narrow staircase, through a heavy door that opens into the private dining room on the second floor.
My father sits at the far end of the long table.
He looks older than I remember. The lines around his eyes are deeper, the silver in his hair more pronounced. He’s wearing acharcoal suit, no tie, top button undone. A glass of vodka sits untouched in front of him.
My father doesn’t stand when I enter.
He just watches me.
I stop three feet from the table.
“Papa,” I say.
His eyes flick over me—head to toe—searching for wounds, for weakness, for proof I’m real.
“Artyom.”
I lift my chin.
“Well... I’m alive. But I’m done hiding,” I tell him. “I’m done being your secret weapon you’re too afraid to use. You wouldn’t pay the ransom. Wouldn’t negotiate. Wouldn’t save me. Fine. I get it. You can’t show weakness. But I’m not weak.”
He doesn’t speak.
I take one step closer.
“I wantin,” I say. “The family business. The real one. Not the clean shell company you tried to groom me for. I want a seat at the table. I want to learn. I want to fight. And I want you to forgive yourself for being willing to let me die… because I’m going to make sure no one ever thinks the Galkin line can be cut again.”
Silence stretches.
Then my father stands—slowly, deliberately.
