“How touching,” a voice spat from the end of the hallway.
I didn’t let go of Mila, but I shifted, putting my body between her and the sound. I looked up, my eyes narrowing into slits.
Enzo Moretti stood thirty feet away.
“You should have stayed in the city, Lobanov,” he shouted, his voice cracking. “You think you can just take what you want? You think we’re just going to let the Petrov name be swallowed by you?”
I stood up slowly, keeping Mila behind me. I didn’t raise my gun. I didn’t need to. The sheer weight of my presence was enough to make him stumble back half a step.
Movement flickered in the shadows behind me. I saw Lev from the corner of my eye.
“Put it down, Enzo,” Petrov said. His voice was rough, like gravel under a boot.
Enzo’s eyes widened, flitting between her father and me. “You? You’ve just walked into your own funeral, congrats!”
That was when Volkov emerged, standing beside Enzo like it was a position he’d always taken.
“Volkov,” I said, not turning away from Enzo.
“Son, you’re on the wrong side,” Lev warned, his voice tired but firm.
“This isn’t a fucking reunion!” Enzo uttered. “It’s retribution. Death for you fuckers.”
He raised his gun and, just as I did the same, Lev’s gun rang out. He was faster, throwing himself in front of Mila to shield her. The bullet hit him in the side, but he shot back, hitting his son square in the chest. Volkov’s body hit the floor instantly with a thud as he choked on his own blood, but Lev slid slowly to the concrete floor, blood soaking through his coat.
Mila screamed, the pain in the sound making me clench my teeth.
I caught her as she tried to rush forward. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her back against my chest.
“Don’t look,” I commanded, my voice harsh with protection. “Mila, look at me.”
But she pushed against me, her strength surprising me.
Petrov looked up at her. The hardness in his eyes was gone, replaced by a lucidity that only comes when the veil is thinning.
“Mila,” he wheezed, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth.
Petrov reached up, his fingers touching her hair. “I wasn’t a good father,” he whispered, his voice barely a rasp. “But I never… I never wanted this for you. Not the blood. Not the running.”
She held his hand as he spoke, tears flowing down her face.
Then he took one more shuddering breath, and his hand went slack around hers.
I stood above them, the silence of the warehouse returning, heavier than before.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mila’s POV
The silence that follows a massacre is different from any other kind of quiet.
The snow had stopped falling by the time we returned to the estate. Now behind us, the Red Hook warehouse was nothing but a memory of fire and death. Alexei’s men had moved with the efficiency of a surgical team, scrubbing the earth of our existence.
The brother I never knew I had was gone before the first light of morning. Alexei didn’t tell me where they took his body, I didn’t want to know. Some fires are better left to burn themselves out in the dark.
My father was now buried. It was a small, nameless affair in a corner of a cemetery where the headstones were weathered, and the grass grew long. He was buried under an assumed name, a final act of erasure that felt more like a mercy than a punishment. He had no legacy left—no empire, no fortune, no sons.
He only had me. The daughter he had tried to save at the end.
