His whole body goes rigid. Hot spurts of cum paint my stomach, my breasts, my throat. He aims each pulse deliberately, marking me, claiming me, covering me with his release.
I watch every second, mesmerized by the way he falls apart above me, his face contorting with pleasure, emptying himself onto my skin. Branding me as his.
When he’s done, he collapses beside me, both of us shaking and breathless.
After a moment, he carefully removes the plug, then pulls me against him, not caring about the mess coating my skin.
His face is wet with tears, his whole body trembling.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, holding him as tight as I can. “You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again.”
He buries his face against my shoulder and finally lets himself shatter.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
KIRILL
Slide,barrel, recoil spring, frame.
The Glock comes apart in my hands, each component laid out in perfect order on the safehouse table. I’ve done this a thousand times, the movements automatic and familiar, requiring no thought. Something that keeps my hands busy so my brain can’t spiral into the black hole it’s been circling since yesterday.
My father killed my mother.
The words don’t feel real yet. They sit in my chest like shrapnel I can’t dig out. I keep waiting for the rage to hit, for the grief, for something that makes sense. Instead, there’s only this cold, hollow certainty settling into my bones.
Fuck bratva loyalty. I’m putting a bullet in his head.
First, I deal with the Ghost. And once that threat is neutralized, I deal with Ruslan.
I haven’t told my brothers yet, or Katya. It’s too close to the mission. They need to stay focused, and dropping this on them now would fuck with their heads. But they deserve to know, even though I’m sure it will destroy them like it destroyed me.
It’s not that I looked up to my father. That respect died when I was thirteen, but I understood him, in a way.
Old-school bratva patriarch, raised in a world where duty came before everything, where sacrifice meant making hard choices. I didn’t agree with his methods, but I could see the cold logic behind them.
This, though? Murdering his wife, the mother of his newborn daughter, so he could force another woman into marriage? Watching his children grieve at her funeral, knowing he’d caused all this pain.
There’s no logic to that, only cruelty. He’s a narcissist who destroyed anyone who stood in the way of absolute power.
Revenge isn’t about justice. Nothing can bring my mother back. But it’s going to feel damn good to dispatch him to hell, where he belongs.
I reassemble the Glock, chamber a round, and check the safety before reaching for the Sig Sauer. The ritual of preparing weapons before war has always calmed me—the precision, the focus, the proof that I’m ready for whatever comes next. I move through my arsenal methodically: two backup pieces, spare magazines, the knife I keep strapped to my ankle. Each one cleaned, checked, loaded.
The safehouse we’re using as mission HQ is a mafia-owned three-story house outside of Long Island City. Dinara and her team will be working out of here while the rest of us are in the field. It’s perfect for what we need: reinforced doors and bulletproof windows, a sophisticated security system with motion sensors and cameras covering every angle, multiple exit routes including a tunnel to the adjacent building, and a generic location.
Dinara’s been holed up in a back room since we arrived this morning, building out her system with carefully selected tech people from each family. Every time I’ve checked on her, she’sbeen surrounded by monitors and cables, her face lit by screens running code. She looks excited, like she’s in her element.
We haven’t talked about last night. Barely had time to process that our mothers’ fates were intertwined in the ugliest of ways. But that’ll have to wait.
I check my watch. We need to leave for the final coordination meeting with the other heirs, but there’s something I want to do first.
I pull out my phone and call my sister.
“Kirill!” She answers right away, her voice pitched high with excitement. “Oh my god, I have the best news!”
The pure joy in her voice catches me off guard, loosens the knot in my chest. “Yeah? Tell me.”
