What remained was this.
It was almost pointless—he would die in this basement regardless, and when he did his son would emerge from wherever he was hiding to claim whatever inheritance he imagined was owed to him. The strategically useful move was to kill Sergei now and deposit the body somewhere it would be found, sending a message to the son before he had time to consolidate.
But I enjoyed watching the life drain from him. Day by day. The excruciatingly slow variety of death—the kind that left the mind intact long enough to understand exactly what was happening.
I leaned forward and blew smoke slowly over his head.
“I have a child now,” I said, my voice conversational.“There is nothing you or your son can do to stop Konstantin or me. You had your window, uncle, and you wasted it on greed and the Chechens.” I drew on the cigarette again, letting it sit.“We will find him. Eventually the Bratva closes ranks and he will be presented to me. That’s simply how this works.”
He said nothing.
“Your bloodline ends in this basement,” I continued, the smoke billowing out with each word.“And your son’s body will be scattered across Chernograd in pieces too small to identify.”
The quiet whimper was exquisite.
Chapter 61
Iskra
After pouring my heart out to my son I lay on his grave, sobbing gently into the cold earth.
I had thought his loss had broken me. A double loss was incomprehensible—a word I had never expected to need twice.
My breasts ached against the cold ground. A cruel and indifferent reminder that somewhere across this city Runa was missing every timed feed, her small body searching for something that wasn’t there, her mouth finding nothing familiar.
When everything felt hopeless this was where I came. But today there was little peace here—only a brief window of something close to comfort in being beside my son again before the events of the last two days came crashing back down.
I would beg him.
Agree to anything.
He couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t be this cruel.
But deep within me I knew he was capable of so much worse. He had never fully directed his malevolence toward me. Not like this. Not with this precision and this patience and this complete indifference to what it cost.
He had always had a reason before—the contract, the hierarchy, the heir. This was something else. This was punishment.
I had to try. I wouldn’t give up.
My eyes closed as silent tears rolled down the side of my face and dripped onto Makari’s grave.
The peace came.
But at a cost.
I knew what I had to do.
I turned and kissed the grass that had grown since I had left him, then sat up to say my final words to Makari.
??????
I heard the car before I saw it—the low growl of an engine and then the slow groan of the gates beginning to open. I tried to run through before they parted wide enough. The men grabbed me, dragging me back, pushing me to the side as the SUV nosed its way out. Black, sleek, tinted windows that gave nothing away.
I scrambled to my feet as it turned onto the road and ran after it, screaming his name, begging for Runa, my voice breaking apart in the cold air. The vehicle picked up speed. I couldn’t reach it. I couldn’t reach it.
My knees hit the tarmac.
