Lina shakes her head. “No, you are the strongest person I know.”
She stands, smoothing her coat. Walks over to us.
I stand automatically, legs barely supporting me.
She looks at me. “I need you to understand something. My son just threatened to kill his father for you. He would have done it without hesitation. That means you matter more to him than anything else in his life. More than family, more than survival. Do you understand the weight of that?”
I nod, throat too tight to speak.
“Good. Don’t waste it.”
She moves to the door. We follow, my legs shaking with each step. At the door, she cups Alexei’s face and says something soft in Russian. He closes his eyes and nods. Then she glances at me one last time before walking out.
The door clicks shut behind her.
Chapter 25
Alexei
Iturn from the door, adrenaline still burning through my system. Blood still drips down my neck. Kelly launches himself at me, legs wrapping around my waist. I catch him, arms locking around him on instinct. Burying my face into his neck, his shoulder, his hair. Kissing him there without thinking, just needing to feel that he’s real and safe.
The gun felt right in my hand. Pressed against Father’s temple. Finger on the trigger.
I was going to do it. Kill my own father in my house, in front of his guards, with my mother watching. And the only thing I felt was calm.
Not anger. Not fear. Not even regret about what it would mean. Just cold certainty that if he made one more move toward Kelly, he was dead.
Should probably feel something about that. Guilt, maybe. Horror at how close I came to committing patricide. But nothing. Just the clinical assessment of how I’d have done it. Where the bullet would’ve gone. How fast the guards would’ve reacted. Whether I could’ve gotten Kelly out before they shot me.
Probably not. Didn’t matter.
Better to die with Kelly than live without him. Simple math. I’d have torn my own heart out with my bare hands and pressed it into Kelly’s while I still had breath left, made sure he knew he was worth dying for. Father saw it in my eyes. That’s why he didn’t push further. He knew I meant it. I did mean it. Still do.
“Are you okay?”
“I was about to ask you that,” I murmur into his skin, breathing him in.
He kisses me, soft but urgent. “I’m proud of you,” he whispers against my lips. “What you did was huge. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. This isn’t wrong. Who you love, none of it is wrong.”
I close my eyes and nod once. There’s too much lodged in my throat to speak.
He stays wrapped around me the whole walk to the bedroom.
When I lay him on the bed, I don’t let go. Follow him down and pull the covers around us, then wrap myself around him. Arms locked across his chest. I press my face into the crook of his neck, just needing to feel him breathing. He’s here. I didn’t lose him. Not over this. Not today.
Mikhail was right about one thing. Our father was always going to find out we killed those cops without permission. But I don’t regret it. Not for a second. After what they did to Kelly, I’d do it again without hesitation. Over and over. I’d carve that bastard up a thousand different ways. He deserved worse than what I gave him.
This will spread like wildfire through our world.
Every family we work with will smell weakness, start circling like vultures.
These aren’t new rules I’m breaking. They’re the foundation everything was built on. But lines are drawn now. I know exactly where everyone stands. Father wanted me to choose, so I did. Kelly’s with me, and anyone who wants to challenge that can try.I’ve been killing for this family my whole life. Time to see what I can do when I’m killing for something I actually give a fuck about.
The worst part was the look on my father’s face when he saw Kelly in that room with me. Pure disgust. I’ve never seen him look at any of us like that before. Not even after the worst stunts me and my brothers pulled growing up. Nothing came close to how he looked at me in that moment. Like killing me would’ve been easier than having to see what I’d become.
When he said I wasn’t his son anymore, he meant it.
“Alexei …”
