Page 68

Aleksei

I leave the pool with the image of my shattered sister still playing in my head, her hunched shoulders a reminder of the damage our father inflicted.

Damage that time hasn’t healed, that power and wealth haven’t erased.

As I move into the building, each step feels heavier than the last. My body, loose and energized from the workout this morning, now tightens with a tension I haven’t felt in years. My jaw locks. My shoulders stiffen. My hands curl into fists at my sides.

The physical responses of a child preparing for pain.

I’m no child anymore, but my body remembers.

The reaction angers me. That boy is long-gone, replaced by a man who has pushed away any signs of the weakness that he used to prey on. Still, I don’t want to see him. The thought hammers through my mind with each footfall. I don’t want to see him. I don’t need to see him. I could send Sasha and Kostya to remove him. I could have him transported back to Siberia without ever laying eyes on his face.

His face. My face.

The resemblance has always been my curse. Same height. Same build. Same sharp jawline and heavy brow. When I look in the mirror, I see him looking back— the man I’ve spent my life trying not to become.

The corridor stretches before me, elegant and endless. Original artwork lines the walls, Persian rugs muffle my footsteps, crystal sconces cast warm light across imported wallpaper. All the trappings of wealth and power I’ve accumulated to prove I’m nothing like him.

Yet with every step toward that spare bedroom, I feel the years and achievements falling away.

Memory rises once more— the smell of vodka on his breath. The sound of his belt sliding through the loops of his pants. The weight of his fist connecting with my ribs. The sharp crack of my head against the wall when he threw me across our small kitchen.

I was nine the first time he broke one of my bones. A simple fracture of the wrist, easily explained away as a childhood accident. I was twelve when he cracked three ribs for spilling his drink. Fifteen when he dislocated my shoulder for looking at him “disrespectfully.”

Diana tried to intervene once, throwing her small body between us. He backhanded her so hard she lost consciousness. I carried her to our shared bedroom afterward, applied cold compresses to her swollen face, promised her I’d never let him hurt her again.

A promise I couldn’t keep. Not then.

Our mother tried to protect us too, in her quiet, desperate way. She’d draw his attention when his mood darkened, accepting the blows meant for us. She’d slip into our room after he passed out, tending our wounds with gentle hands, whispering that things would get better.

Until the day she disappeared.

I reach the halfway point of the corridor, pausing as nausea rises in my throat. Thirteen years since I last saw him. Thirteen years of nightmares, of flinching at sudden movements, of Diana’s panic attacks. Thirteen years of building an empire partly to ensure he could never touch us again.

Yet here he is. In my home. Near my children.

Not a fuck!

The thought of Bobik and Polina sharpens my focus. Whatever weakness my father’s presence brings out in me, I cannot afford it. Not with my son hidden away, vulnerable in his wheelchair. Not with my newborn daughter sleeping peacefully in her nursery.

I force myself forward, steps quickening with renewed purpose. I am not that frightened boy anymore. I amPakhanof the Tarasov Bratva. I command men who kill without question. I move weapons that topple governments. I have built something from nothing, rising from the ashes of that broken childhood.

Yet with each step closer to that spare bedroom, my heart pounds harder against my ribs. Sweat beads at my temples despite the manor’s perfect climate control. My mouth goes dry.

The most terrifying part isn’t what he might do now— I’m physically stronger, surrounded by men loyal to me— but how easily he makes me remember what I once was: helpless.

Vasya escaped the worst of it. Our older brother was already away at school when our father’s drinking worsened, returning home only for brief holidays. He saw the bruises, the fear, but never witnessed the full extent of the violence. Never understood why Diana and I cling to each other with such fierce protectiveness.

How could he? No one who hasn’t lived under the constant threat of unpredictable rage could understand how it reshapes you from the inside out.

I reach the end of the corridor. The spare bedroom door remains closed, no sound coming from within. Perhaps he’s still sleeping. Perhaps Diana was mistaken, and this really is some elaborate hallucination brought on by stress.

The childish hope disgusts me.

AsPakhan, I’ve ordered men’s deaths without blinking. But facing the man who made me— who broke me— requires a different kind of courage.

I stand before the door, hand hovering over the knob. Time seems to slow, each second stretching into painful awareness. I hear my own breathing, too shallow and rapid. Feel my pulse throbbing in my temples. Taste the metallic tang of fear I thought I’d left behind years ago.