Page 74 of All The Darkest Truths (Second Sons Duet #2)

VESPER

"Drop your weapons, Mikhail," Victor snarls, pressing the gun harder against my head. "Or watch your precious granddaughter's brains paint this holy ground."

My heart hammers against my ribs as I stare down at Oscar and Zaire sprawled on the chapel floor. Blood pools beneath Z's shoulder, spreading across the marble like spilled wine. Oz lies motionless, his chest barely rising with each shallow breath. Their bodies, broken because of me.

"Look what you've done," Victor hisses in my ear. "All this unnecessary death. All because of you.”

Mikhail stands twenty feet away, his weapon trained on Victor. His face reveals nothing.

“You always had a flair for the dramatic, Victor,” Mikhail calls out, his voice slicing through the smoke-filled chapel. “Taking hostages, making threats. The same tired tactics for forty years.”

Victor’s arm tightens around my waist, the barrel of the gun digging harder into my temple. “And yet, here we are. You, about to lose another woman you claim to love. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.”

I scan the room in a panic, searching for Luca and Alex. Through the haze and debris, I spot movement near the side entrance. Talon crouches behind an overturned pew, shielding my brother with his body while Alex lays down cover fire. Relief floods me. alive. At least, for now.

“Put down your weapon, Mikhail,” Victor demands again. “Or I swear I’ll kill her where she stands.”

My grandfather’s thin lips curve into something that might be a smile. “Go ahead.”

The chapel goes still. Even the gunfire halts, the moment hanging thick in the air as Victor stiffens behind me.

“What did you say?”

“I said, go ahead.” Mikhail’s voice is eerily calm, his focus unmoving. “Kill her. One less liability for me to manage. So long as her son is still alive, I’ll still achieve my goals.”

Ice floods my veins as the meaning of his words sinks in. My own grandfather is willing to sacrifice me and has perhaps intended this all along.

"You heartless bastard," Victor breathes, genuine shock coloring his voice. "Even I wouldn't?—"

“What? Sacrifice your family? You killed your daughter-in-law, Victor. It seems you’re not above anything. You were forcing your own son to re-marry the woman responsible for his wife’s death within hours of it happening. Is her body even cold?”

“That's different. Bianca was?—”

“A pawn. Just like Vesper. Just like your son.” Mikhail takes a deliberate step forward, his weapon never wavering. “The only difference is that I'm honest about it. I learned long ago that blood is just blood. Useful only when spilled for power.”

The gun at my temple trembles slightly as Victor processes my grandfather's betrayal. I feel his chest rise and fall against my back, his breathing accelerating with disbelief.

“She's my weapon,” Mikhail corrects him coldly. “As was her mother before her. As was her brother until he proved too weak. All a means to an end. Your end. So kill her, and when I kill you, I still get what I want.”

All this time, the promises of family, of revenge shared—nothing but manipulation to position me exactly where I stand now.

My heart would shatter if I hadn't anticipated this moment.

The cold calculation in Mikhail's eyes, the casual way he dismisses my life, it confirms what I've suspected since our first meeting.

My grandfather never saw me as family, only as a tool to be wielded against his enemies. A disposable one at that.

“You're both the same,” I spit. “Two old men playing games with lives that aren't yours to take.”

Victor's grip falters for a fraction of a second—just enough.

I drive my elbow backward with every ounce of strength I possess, catching Victor in the solar plexus just as Talon had taught me.

His breath explodes from his lungs as he doubles over, the gun jerking away from my temple.

I twist in his grasp, my hand already reaching beneath my skirts for the weapon strapped to my thigh.

“You think I didn't know?” I hiss, my fingers closing around the cold metal. “That I didn't see exactly what you both are?”

Mikhail's expression shifts almost imperceptibly.

“Clever girl,” he chortles. “But still just a girl playing games designed by men.”

“No,” I counter, my voice steadier than I feel. “A woman ending games that should have died with your generation.”

I wrench free from Victor’s grasp as I stumble backward. My gun is already in hand, aimed squarely at his chest. His eyes widen, not with fear, but disbelief. For a man who thrives on absolute control, it’s my rebellion that cuts deepest.

“You won't shoot me.” Victor straightens to his full height despite the pain in his abdomen. “You don't have the stomach for it.”

“I killed Mario Rossi,” I remind him, my finger steady on the trigger. “What makes you think you're different?”

A commotion to my left pulls my attention for a split second—just long enough for Victor to lunge.

His hand clamps around my wrist, twisting hard until pain shoots up my arm.

The gun jolts in my grip but I manage to hold on as we struggle, locked in a vicious rhythm amid the wreckage of what should have been my wedding.

“Vesper!” Talon's voice cuts through the chaos. He's moving toward me, Alex and Luca close behind, their faces contorted with determination.

“Stay back!” I shout, knowing Victor or my grandfather will not hesitate to kill them.

“You think you're so clever,” Victor snarls. His grip tightens around my wrist as he forces my gun hand toward the ceiling. “But you're just another foolish girl who thinks she can change the world.”

His other hand shoots toward my throat, fingers closing around the diamond collar he gifted me. The pressure cuts off my air as he uses the necklace like a leash, dragging me closer with vicious intent.

“This is what happens to little girls who bite the hand that feeds them,” he hisses, spittle flying from his lips as madness overtakes calculation.

“I’m not a little girl,” I rasp, voice strained through Victor’s chokehold.

My body shifts—just slightly, just enough. A twist of my hips, a lean into his hold that disguises the motion of my free hand slipping to the torn bodice of my dress. My fingers find the blade Z stashed there when he cut me loose.

In one smooth, desperate motion, I drive the steel between Victor’s ribs. It slides in with sickening ease, the resistance barely a breath.

His gasp catches mid-snarl. The pressure on my throat weakens as a bloom of red spreads like a stain across his immaculate white shirt.

“Impossible,” he breathes, eyes wide as he staggers back a step.

“Very possible.” I twist the blade. “Bleed for me, Victor. Like all the other women your family destroyed.”

The crimson blooms across his chest, staining the silk like a violent flower unfurling. His knees buckle. I catch him as he collapses, lowering him to the marble floor of the chapel.

I kneel beside him. His breaths come in wet, ragged pulls, lungs filling with the price of his legacy. I lean in, my voice a low hiss against the chaos still thundering around us.

“Tell me where my son is,” I demand. “Tell me, and I’ll protect him from my grandfather with my dying breath.”

Victor’s focus shifts to me. For a heartbeat, there’s something almost human behind it. Blood bubbles at the corner of his mouth as he lifts a trembling hand, his fingers brushing my cheek with a gentleness that feels entirely out of place.

“My hunting lodge.”

I press my palm against the wound in his chest, not to save him but to ease his passing. For all his cruelty, for all the lives he's destroyed, in this moment, he's just a dying man trying to save his grandson.

"I'll find him," I promise. "And Mikhail will never touch him."

A ghost of a smile touches Victor's bloodless lips. “You are...stronger than I...gave you credit for,” he manages, each word a struggle.

His hand falls away from my face as the light fades from his eyes. Victor Petrov—the man who built an empire on fear and violence—dies with my name on his lips. With Victor’s death, it only leaves my grandfather and me.

I rise from Victor's lifeless body, picking up my discarded gun near his body. My dress and skin painted like a bloody war bride.

"You worthless, manipulative bastard," I snarl, stepping over Victor's corpse toward Mikhail. "You were going to let him kill me."

Mikhail's thin lips curl into what might pass for a smile on another man's face. “But he didn't. And you proved yourself worthy of your bloodline after all.”

The gun in my hand feels like an extension of my body as I level it at his chest. "Worthy? You think this was about proving myself to you?"

"Lower the weapon, granddaughter." He speaks as if addressing a petulant child.

I keep my gun trained on Mikhail's chest, my finger steady on the trigger. "I'm done taking orders from you."

"Fine, we'll do this the hard way."

He snaps his fingers, and suddenly his men surge forward.

Three of them grab Luca, who thrashes wildly, landing a solid punch before they wrench his arms behind his back.

Talon drops two of Mikhail's men with brutal efficiency before someone smashes the butt of a gun against his temple, sending him to his knees.

Alex fights like a cornered animal, breaking one man's nose before four others overwhelm him.

"Stop!" I scream as they force my brother and the others to their knees.

Mikhail's expression remains impassive. "Lower your weapon, or I'll give my men the order to kill them all. Starting with your precious brother."

One of his men presses a gun to Luca's temple. My brother's eyes meet mine, fierce and unafraid despite the blood trickling down his face.

"Don't you dare give in to him, Vesper," Luca calls out. "He'll kill us anyway."

I think of Z and Oz, bleeding on the chapel floor. Of Victor's final words. Of my son, waiting at a hunting lodge I've never seen.

"Five seconds," Mikhail says coldly. "Four.