Dmitri’s smile falters as Roman tenses, his hand moving slightly toward his jacket pocket.
“Samson was a fool,” I continue. “He thought I would mourn him instead of cleaning up his mess.”
Dmitri tries to bluff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Samson was your brother. It’s a tragedy?—”
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” I cut him off, the air temperature dropping ten degrees. “I know about the payments. I know about the coded communication from your cell to his private burner. I am aware of the promise of the Volkov territories. You were going to try to legitimize your claim through my death.”
Roman’s eyes flash with fear, realizing I know everything. He starts to move, but he’s too slow. Before he can clear his weapon, Evgeny unleashes two shots, silenced and accurate, dropping the two drivers instantly. The sound of the bodies hitting the floor is flat, swallowed by the shadows and the emptiness of the warehouse.
Dmitri freezes, his face pale and slack.He’s an animal caught in a trap, realizing too late that the hunter is already inside the cage.
“You tried to use the oldest trick in the book, Dmitri.” I wander a few steps closer and look down at him, a man I have tolerated for years because he was useful, but now he’s simply an obstruction. “You tried to replace my family with your own ambition, and you failed. You backed the wrong horse. You signed your own death warrant when you allied yourself with Samson.”
“Matvei, please,” Dmitri pleads, his voice thin and pathetic. “I had to try, didn’t I? That’s what we do. That’s our game. That’s our world. You can’t hold it against me.”
I feel no pity, because pity is a weakness I cannot afford, not when the lives of my children and Sonya, the continuation of my empire, depend on this absolute finality.I reach into my coat and pull out the weapon I favor, the one I will put away for good once this is done.
“The spoils are not for dividing, Dmitri,” I tell him. “The Volkov Bratva is done with division. We’re done with the underground. You and Roman represent the last of the old rot that holds us to the shadows. As long as you breathe, the old scores are still pending, and the path to the future remains closed.”
I raise the weapon. Roman, finally understanding there is no escape, lunges toward me with a guttural cry in an attempt to save his son. I shoot him first. The bullet takes him high in the chest, and he collapses without a sound, a puppet whose strings have been suddenly cut.
Dmitri screams, a high-pitched sound of terror and grief that echoes off the warehouse walls. I turn the gun on him and look him straight in the eyes, seeing the realization of a wasted, criminal life in the last instant before he closes them.
“This is for the future,” I whisper.
I pull the trigger once. Clean. Final.
The silenced gunshot is soft in the vast space, yet it is the loudest statement I have ever made.
I stand there, the weapon heavy in my hand, looking at the two fallen figures. The last two heads of the Abramovich Bratva. The final, necessary sacrifice for the new empire. The smell of gun smoke mingles with the warehouse, a brutal cleansing agent.
“It’s done,” I say to Evgeny, holstering the weapon. “Clean the mess. Make sure the message is unmistakable—they died fightingeach otherover a botched deal. Let the rest of the families assume the Abramovich empire is now up for grabs. They will descend on the scraps and destroy themselves. The Volkov Bratva is officially out of that game.”
As we drive away, the fog seems to lift, the lights of the city appearing sharper, cleaner. The threat is gone. TheVolkov Bratvais now an uncontested power. The other minor families will fall in line, not through force, but through economic necessity. They have no choice but to operate within the lines I have drawn, lines that lead away from the violence and toward the vast, protected wealth of the legal world. I am now free to sign contracts, to shake hands with politicians, to build.
I open my phone and look at the last photo Sonya sent me: the twins, together in one crib, smiling toothless smiles up at the camera.I did this for them. I killed my brother, I neutralized his psychopathic accomplice, and I destroyed the last enemy standing in the way of a new, secure dynasty.
I arrive home just before dawn. I take off my coat and remove the gun from its holster, storing it away far back in my cache of weapons. I wash my face until the cold water stings.
I am Matvei Volkov,King of the Chicago Bratva, and now, a new kind of father. I walk back up to the nursery. The twins are stirring, hungry.
I lift my son, holding his small, warm, squirming body against my shoulder. His life, my daughter’s life, Sonya’s life… those are the only lives that matter now.
The ghosts of Samson and the Abramovich family are just collateral damage, dust motes settling in the wake of the necessary bloodshed.
As the city begins to wake, when the twins are fed and back in their cribs, I seek the warmth of my bed. Sonya is still asleep, and I kiss her precious face once, twice, until her eyes flutter open and she smiles sleepily up at me.
“Where were you?” she asks, yawning.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I answer, which is the truth, even if it’s not the whole truth. From the way her mouth quirks, Sonya knows it, too, but she doesn’t ask. And even if she wanted to, I cut off any further conversation with a kiss that swiftly ignites the fire always simmering between us.
The rhythm between us is as simple as it is explosive. I know her body and she knows mine, every spot that makes her cry out, shiver, and arch her back, every move that has me entirely at her mercy.
Our bodies, hearts, and souls entwine in a way I never thought was possible, in a way I never thought I’d experience. I worship Sonya with my body and my words, with my kisses and my attention. I make sure she knows just how much she means to me, just how much she has changed my life, just how desperately I needher.
Afterward, when Sonya is lying in my arms, I reach over and take the ring box from my bedside table drawer. I ask the woman who is the love of my life, the unexpected force of nature who has owned my heart since the moment I stood behind her in line to board the plane, to be my wife. She has healed me on the deepest level, given me the life I always strove for but never believed I deserved.
There is a great deal of squealing, kissing, and laughter, and even a few tears. Sonya says yes, beaming as I slide the ring onto her finger.
