“Maybe not. But someone had to.” I sit forward, bracing my elbows on my knees. “When I was fifteen, she left. Just… disappeared one night. No note. No goodbye. We woke up, and she was gone.”
“Where did she go?”
“We didn’t know. Didn’t care, honestly. We were just relieved. No more screaming. No more beatings. For a few months, things were almost peaceful.”
“What happened after a few months?”
“My father happened.” I scrub a hand over my face. “He blamed us for her leaving. Said we drove her away with our constant demands, our constant needs. He started drinking more. Getting angrier. And eventually, he started hitting us, too.”
Kirsten’s breath catches, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“By then, I was bigger. Strong enough to fight back, at least a little. I took most of it so the others wouldn’t have to. But I couldn’t be there all the time. I couldn’t protect them from everything.” I pause, swallowing hard. “When I was nineteen, he found out where she was. She’d been living in another city, started a new life, a new name. He tracked her down and had her killed.”
“He… what?”
“He had her killed,” I repeat. “Hired someone to do it. Made it look like a robbery gone wrong. I didn’t find out until years later, when one of his old enemies told me the truth.”
“His enemies?”
“My father made a lot of them over the years. Bad business deals. Broken promises. People he cheated or betrayed. About a year after my mother died, one of them caught up with him.” I meet her eyes. “They killed him in his own home. Shot him six times in the chest while we were at school.”
Kirsten stares at me. I can see her processing it all, trying to fit the pieces together.
“After that, I raised my siblings,” I continue. “I was nineteen with four kids to take care of. No parents, no support, nothing but the money my father left behind and a whole lot of anger I didn’t know what to do with.”
“That’s how you ended up in the Bratva.”
“That’s how I ended up in the Bratva,” I confirm. “My cousins—Konstantin and the others—they took us in. Gave us a place to belong. A family that actually functioned. I threw myself into the business because it was the only thing that made sense. The only place where my anger had a purpose.”
Silence settles between us. I watch Kirsten’s face, waiting for the judgment. The disgust. The moment when she realizes exactly what kind of damaged goods she married.
Instead, she stands up and walks toward me.
Before I can react, she wraps her arms around me and pulls me into a hug.
I freeze. I don’t know what to do with this. Physical comfort isn’t something I’m used to receiving. Giving, maybe. But not receiving.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles against my shoulder. “I’m sorry for what you went through. And I’m sorry for judging you the way I did.”
“You had every right to judge me.”
“Maybe. But I should have given you a chance to explain before I decided you were the villain.” She pulls back just enough to look at me. “Bratva equals bad guy. That’s been my default since all of this started. I couldn’t see past it.”
“I am Bratva. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”
“I know. But you’re also the man who saved those women. Who dismantled an entire operation to protect your sister and people you’d never even met.” She reaches up and touches my face, her fingers gentle against my jaw. “I grew up thinking the world was divided into good guys and bad guys. Heroes and villains. Black and white.”
“And now?”
“Now I think it’s a whole lot more gray than I ever realized.”
“What made you change your mind?”
She’s quiet for a moment, considering. “I had a pretty normal childhood, all things considered. Two parents who loved each other. Stable home. Enough money to get by. Nothing like what you went through.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“No, it’s not. But it made me naive. I thought people who did bad things were just… bad. I didn’t consider that maybe they had reasons. That maybe they were trying to protect someone, or fighting against something worse.” She drops her hand from my face. “My dad always told me the world was simple. Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things. Stay away from the bad ones, and you’ll be fine.”
