Boris laughs, breath hot against her hair. “You’re not in control here.”
“No?” I tilt my head. “Then shoot her.”
Kira stiffens in his grip, her breath stalling, Lucas letting out a strangled sound, and Vladimir shifts slightly behind me, not comfortable with how quickly I went there.
“Go on,” I say quietly. “Pull the trigger. See what happens before the bullet even leaves the gun.”
Boris’s hand shakes once. He tightens his grip instead, ready to drag her away, but that one shake is all I needed, the smallest crack in his certainty, and Kira feels it too because she stops struggling for one second, her body going still as if she trusts me to read the moment correctly.
I move, slamming my foot into the gravel, pushing forward, forcing Boris’s arm higher, despite the pain my wounds cause, using his own grip on her as leverage to twist his wrist until the gun shifts just out of alignment, and then I bring my elbow down hard on his forearm, the crack so loud it echoes off the stone path.
He screams as the gun fires once into the dirt.
Kira drops, rolling out of his grip, and I catch her by the jacket before she hits the ground, pulling her behind me as Boris stumbles back, clutching his ruined arm.
I don’t give him time to recover. I slam my knee into his stomach, catch the gun before it hits the ground, and twist his wrist back until the bone snaps clean. He collapses.
His scream stops abruptly when his head hits the bench. Vladimir finally steps back, realizing that this is not the moment to push further.
I point the gun at him without hesitation. “You meddle again,” I say, my voice steady and low, “and I end your life before you can finish the sentence. I don’t care, I really don’t”
Kira gasps behind me, her hand grabbing my arm, her voice breaking. “Artyom—no. Don’t. Please. He’s your father.”
“He stopped being anything to me the moment he did this to you,” I say, not taking my eyes off Vladimir.
Something in his face tightens—pride, resentment, maybe even a flicker of fear—but he lifts his hands slowly and nods at the unconscious heap that was Boris.
“We’re done here,” he says and signals some of his men.
He turns and walks away, cold and quiet, Boris dragged behind him.
Which leaves Lucas. The gun is still in my hand when I turn to him, slow and deliberate, and he takes a step back immediately, his hands shaking, his breath coming out in broken bursts.
Kira grabs my wrist. “Artyom.”
I don’t look at her. “He was part of this.”
“No,” Lucas says quickly. “I didn’t know they were planning to kill her—I swear, Kira, I didn’t?—”
“Yet, you agreed to work with them and take her away, didn’t you,” I cut in.
He pales. “Please—just listen?—”
“I’m done listening.”
He takes another step back, panic in his eyes, and I lift the gun.
Kira moves in front of him, standing there with her shoulders straight and her breath steady even though her hands are shaking.
“I’ll handle this,” she says.
It stops me cold. She turns to Lucas, and her voice—soft, cracked, breaking but still steady—is unlike anything I’ve ever heard from her.
“I have carried you long enough,” she says quietly. “I have begged, and worked, and sacrificed, and tried to save you from everything, even from yourself. But this… this is where it ends.”
Lucas shakes his head, tears already in his eyes. “Kira—please—don’t?—”
“I can’t believe you went behind my back, Lucas. You are not my family anymore,” she whispers. “If you want to live, you disappear. Right now. And you never come back.”
