Page 1 of Bought By Sin

1

LEV

Green lines showed a roller coaster on the black screen. Other numbers on the monitor gave the vitals for the man sleeping in the bed, the only occupant in this private wing of the Volkov mansion.

His weak blood pressure was listed too. His pulse. Respirations. It demonstrated that an old heart and a pair of lungs were still working, but Dmitri Volkov no longer resembled the person I used to know.

The leader I followed and respected.

The uncle I trusted and loved.

The Pakhan who had stepped in as the only fatherly figure I’d had for the majority of my life.

How can this be the end?

Why did you keep your cancer diagnosis a secret?

Why do you have to go now?

I hung my head, resting my elbows on my knees as I failed to reconcile that this sleeping man was the same boss and uncle I’d always been so close to.

He wasn’t dying right this minute. Life—or death—couldn’t be that cruel. Or it wouldn’t be that merciful.

My cousins and I struggled with how inhumane this could be, keeping him alive in this coma until his body would decide that enough was enough. My older brother, Alexei, had debated with our eldest cousin, Adrik, whether this was just. whether it was right for us to keep him alive, just barely, like a shell of a man stuck in bed until his heart stopped.

I glanced up at Alexei as he stood next to this chair that I’d claimed to the right of Uncle Dmitri’s bed. Like always, my only brother stayed put with his emotionless yet somehow peeved stare on the nurse who checked on our uncle. Maybe she was taking too long and he wanted her gone while we visited. Or perhaps he was standing there and wondering how just this was to let Uncle Dmitri stay hopeless and helpless, trapped in his failing body and never likely to have another lucid moment again.

But it’s what he wants.

It’s in his living will. His demands are that we’d let him go naturally.

“He’s as comfortable as he can be,” the nurse said quietly, sounding slightly nervous with us watching over her.

I nodded once, just to have mercy on her in this tense, awkward moment of a visit. Alexei and I weren’t here to hover over any nurses. There were too many coming and going for the specialized and personalized private care that we’d arranged for Uncle Dmitri. I’d come to visit and Alexei had just tagged along with me.

It wasn’t up to us to determine if keeping him stable in this coma was right or wrong. He’d clearly and sanely written his expectations in his living will, and we always followed and obeyed his orders.

Even in death.

Or almost death.

Despite my obedience to the one man who’d always been there to love and guide me through life, I couldn’t turn off this greedy voice in the back of my head, that nagging insistence that suggested it was a really bad twist of timing for him to not be able to lead us while his brother would seemingly come back from the dead to antagonize us.

The nurse stood and stepped back from the bed. She dipped her chin in a demure nod, and it was the only farewell or gesture that she seemed ready to give us. Without another word and taking her tablet that she used to record vitals, she left the room.

I waited until the door closed with a definitive click.

“Of all times for him to not be able to guide us,” I griped.

“I imagine that any time he chose to let himself die, it would be too soon.” Alexei shifted his weight on his feet and crossed his arms.

“But right now. With our…” I scowled, twisting to look at the wall and unable to utter the word in Uncle Dmitri’s presence. He wasn’t conscious and likely couldn’t hear us, but merely speaking that one word felt like a transgression I couldn’t allow.

Father.

Gregori Volkov ceased being my father since the day he planned to plant a bomb at a large meeting for crime family bosses. The day he plotted to kill my uncle. The day he succeeded in taking out my grandparents.

He was no father to me.