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Chapter Four

Elena

I hear my father before I see him.

“Where is she?” he asks. “Elena!”

“Dad! Daddy!” I haven’t called my father ‘daddy’ since I was five. I rattle the chain against the handrail. “I’m in here!”

Multiple footsteps storm towards the bathroom and the door is wrenched open. Finn shoves my father into the room.

“Oh, Elena.” He rushes to my side and cups my face. “You’re alive. Are you hurt?” His eyes rake over me. “What are you wearing? What has happened to you?”

“We haven’t even touched her,” Finn mutters, grabbing my father’s shoulder and yanking him away from me. “Yet, anyway.”

I’ve never seen my father’s face contort into so much rage until now. “You will not touch her. I give you my life. Let her go. I will pay for my crimes against Dante. None of this has to happen.”

“I like that you said that.”

My eyes find Aiden, who’s hovering in the doorway. Why doesn’t he stop this? It seems like this is all Finn’s idea. He could do something about this. He could save the day.

And yet, he doesn’t. I don’t have any reason to believe he would. He’s a hitman just like his brother. Evil incarnate.

“Just let my daughter go. Then you can kill me.”

Finn narrows his eyes. “We already have you, Ivan. Why would we let your daughter go?”

“Please,” I beg.

“Quiet,” Finn snaps. “You know begging will get you nowhere.”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” my father snaps back. “My Elena is innocent. Don’t put her through this. Don’t make her watch-,” he stops himself.

But I know what he was about to say. Don’t make me watch as they kill my own father right before my eyes.

“I want to have some fun first. Aiden, bring Ivan into the living room.”

“What are you going to do?” Aiden asks, grabbing Ivan’s shoulders and pushing him out of the bathroom.

“I’ve got Elena.”

“Finn,” he warns.

“Aiden,” he mutters with an eye roll. “I’ve got this. I’m not going to rape the girl if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Aiden catches my eye and there’s something in it that makes hope flare in my chest. But then he leaves the bathroom, taking any hope with him.

Finn yanks on my chain, sending pain shooting down my arm. I cry out.

“Don’t hurt her!” Father shouts from the hallway.

“Oh, piss off, old man.” Finn smiles down at me but it’s not a happy one. It’s filled with pure darkness. “We’re going to have some fun before I kill your father. How does that sound?”

“I hate you,” I hiss.

“I didn’t expect anything else. But you brought this on yourself.” He taps my nose. I jerk my head back. “You tried to hurt my brother. You tried to escape. This is on you.”

“No. You’re the one with hate in his heart. Your own boss has put aside his anger to make peace but you can’t. You’re the problem. Not me.” I have no idea where any of this bravery is coming from. I guess a life and death situation is all it took to bring it out of me.

Finn sneers as he unlocks my cuff and tugs me from the room. Aiden is holding my father at gunpoint, keeping him pinned to the couch. Finn forces me to sit down next to my father.

“Dad,” I gasp.

He wraps his arms around me. “I was worried I’d never see you again.”

“No touching,” Finn snaps.

“We can give them a chance to hug,” Aiden says. “I mean, you are about to kill her father. It’s the least you can do.”

Finn motions between him and his brother. “ We’re about to kill her father.”

“I’m only doing this to keep you from getting yourself killed. I don’t agree with this. You’re going to bring a war down on our heads.”

It’s shocking to hear Aiden speak like this. I never would have guessed it from someone who makes a living killing people. But then, I guess he kills people in the shadows, whereas now, he’s out in the open because of his brother’s actions.

My father holds onto me tighter. “You be brave,” he says into my ear. “I’m going to make sure you get out of here.”

“Dad.” I cling to him. I can’t lose him. Not the one steady force I have in this world. I have my friend, Inessa, but she’s dealing with her own family problems. My father is the only one who truly makes me feel safe.

If he dies then…

“Please,” I say to Aiden. “Don’t do this. You just said it yourself. You don’t want a war. Just let me and my father go. You’ll be seen as a hero.”

Aiden’s eyes go blank. “That’s the thing. I don’t care about being a hero. I don’t really care what happens to you or your father. I’m just trying to keep my brother alive.”

Despair punches me in the heart. Why would I ever think a hitman would have any empathy? Aiden is as cold as ice.

Finn lets out a laugh that sends a simmering anger coursing through my body. “Let’s have some fun.”

Instead of grabbing my father like I expected, he grabs the chain locked to my handcuff and yanks me towards him. I land on my knees. Finn takes my hand and forces it onto the coffee table.

“Let’s see how far Ivan is willing to go to save his daughter.” Finn pulls out a knife.

“Finn, what are you doing?”

“Having fun,” he says to his brother. He lines the knife up to my pointer finger. “How many fingers will it take before Ivan does something to save his daughter?”

Icy fear shoots through me. “Don’t! Don’t!”

“Just kill me,” my father screams. “Just kill me! Let her go!”

Finn presses the knife against my finger, drawing blood, but not cutting through the bone. Yet . I wince from the pain.

“Finn,” Aiden warns. “We don’t have to mutilate her. That’s not our style.”

“It is mine.”

“Well it’s not mine. If you want Ivan dead, then just kill him. Let’s be done with this. You’re already pissing everyone off. Don’t make it worse by mutilating the girl. You’re just asking for every Bratva man to find you and torture the life out of you.”

Finn gives each of my fingers a small cut. Blood immediately pools from my skin, but they’re all shallow cuts. When will he actually start cutting my fingers off?

“It hurts,” I whimper.

“Don’t be a baby,” Finn snaps.

“Don’t talk to her like that! Just kill me! Kill me!”

Finn sighs and walks over to my father and promptly punches him in the face. He falls back onto the couch, going silent. “There. God, you were annoying me.”

“Dad!” I lunge towards him. My bloody fingers leave a mess behind as I cup my father’s face. “Stop torturing us. Please. Have some humanity.”

Finn grabs the back of my hair and pulls me towards him, making me cry out. “Who ever said I had any humanity?”

“Finn,” Aiden says.

“What?”

“What are we doing? We don’t torture people. We kill them. So let’s either put them out of their misery or let them go.”

“You don’t care,” Finn snaps back at his brother.

Aiden’s eyes meet mine and there’s a tiny bit of compassion in them before his usual blank stoic expression takes over. “You’re right. I don’t care. But I find their screams annoying. So either shut them up or let them go.”

“You do it.”

He stands up straighter. “Do what?”

“Kill Ivan.”

“No. It was your idea. You do it.”

Finn pulls me in closer to him and dangles the knife near my throat. “You seem to be wavering, brother. I don’t like that. So prove to me that you’re on my side. That you’re in agreement with what I’m doing. So, kill Ivan. Kill him right before his own daughter’s eyes.”

“Or what? You can’t force me to do anything. You’re not going to kill me. You have no leverage over me.”

“I could kill the girl.” Finn tightens his hold on me.

Aiden goes quiet for a beat before scoffing. “I don’t care about the girl.”

“Maybe not. But then again, you did make her another sandwich when you didn’t have to. Do you have a slight soft spot for her? I won’t kill her if you kill Ivan.”

None of this is good. It either ends with my death or my father’s and I’m not sure which one is worse.

Aiden turns to my father and presses his gun to his head. Ivan whimpers. The sight of my sweet, caring father who has always been strong for me in tears breaks my heart. I can’t hold back my own tears.

Finn wipes at my cheek and puts his finger in his mouth. “Your tears taste sweet. I love revenge. Nothing tastes better.”

I’m expecting the sound of gunfire any moment…

But it never comes.

Aiden meets my eyes again. His expression still doesn’t tell me what’s on his mind. What is he thinking? Is he going to be the man to murder my father or…

No. I can’t even go there. This man is evil. He is not the one who’s going to save me.

After a long moment, Aiden lowers his gun. “No. I will not have you force me to do something I don’t want to do. Kill him yourself.”

“Fine.” Finn pushes me away and rips the gun from Aiden’s hand and points it at my father.

My father and I lock eyes; his tell me to be strong. “I love you,” he says.

Before I can say the words back, Finn shoots my father in the head. The sound is excruciating to my ears. Blood splatters from my father’s head, staining the wall behind him.

He slumps onto the couch. All the life leaves his eyes.

Just like that, I’ve lost my father for good.

“No!” The scream that wrenches from my throat is pure pain. I scramble towards my father but before I can reach him, Finn yanks on my chain and grabs my hand, forcing it back onto the coffee table.

He raises his knife high. “How about we lose a couple of fingers for good measure?”

I can’t even feel any fear over his words. All I can see is my father dead. All I can feel is a slow numbness creeping in.

Finn lowers his knife to my fingers.

“Stop.” Aiden’s voice cuts through the numbness rushing around in my ears.

“No,” Finn snarls.

Aiden grabs his brother and pushes him away. “I said stop.”

“Who gave you authority?”

“Who gave it to you?”

The brothers stare each other down, neither one moving. I could try to escape but what’s the point? My hand finds my father’s. There’s no life to his touch. No warmth.

“You killed him, Finn,” Aiden says in a softer tone. “Let’s just return the girl and move on. Dante is going to be pissed. You’re going to have to go into hiding to prevent getting killed. You know all of this.”

“So let me go down with a bang.”

“Don’t cut off the girl’s fingers. It’s pointless. It’s just torture for torture’s sake and I hate that shit. Kill with a reason, whether that reason be passion or money. But torture is just pain for no reason.”

Finn lets out a deep sigh before taking a step back. “I have to go deliver the body to Erik. He needs to see that I killed one of his closest allies.” He levels his gaze onto me. “Don’t go too soft on her.”

He shoves my father’s body off the couch.

“Don’t!” I shout, throwing myself on top of my dad. “Don’t take him. Please.”

“Get off.” Finn drags my father’s body away and I scramble after them but Aiden grabs me around the waist, preventing me from following. I have no choice but to watch Finn carry my father’s body out of the house.

I’ll never see him again. Never hear his soft voice. Never feel his comforting arms around me. Nothing. It’s all gone.

Aiden lets me go and all the fight leaves me. I slump to the floor and sob with everything my body has left. This is the sort of grief you’re not sure will ever go away. It feels unmovable.

“Why?” I sob. “Why?”

“Because Finn is out of control. He wanted revenge. It wasn’t anything personal. It was only because of your father’s actions.”

“Don’t blame this on him,” I snap, pushing myself to my feet. “Don’t blame my father for getting murdered. Your brother did this. You didn’t stop him.”

Aiden’s eyes turn sad. “Why would I have stopped him? Your father means nothing to me. You mean nothing to me.”

“Because you didn’t want a war and now one is going to happen because of what Finn just did.”

“It’s not ideal but we’ve been through worse.” He nods towards my hand. “Come on. Let’s get your hand cleaned up. You’re bleeding all over the floor.”

My eyes find the blood splatter on the wall. My father’s blood.

My own fingers seem like nothing in comparison but I let Aiden walk me back into the bathroom.

He gets a first aid kit from the bathroom counter and wipes down my cuts with an alcohol wipe. It stings. When I flinch, Aiden doesn’t comment on it. He only keeps his eyes glued to his work.

Within a minute, all my fingers have been bandaged.

“The cuts will heal cleanly.”

“How can you know for sure?” I hold my hand to my chest. My fingers throb from the pain of the cuts.

“I know wounds. I’ve had my fair share of them. Those are nothing.”

“Ok.” At least I don’t have to worry about losing my fingers. That is if Finn doesn’t come back and chop them off.

“You must be upset.”

“Of course I’m upset,” I snap. “My father was just-,” I can’t even finish the sentence.

“Finn was reckless. He never should have done it.”

“Then why did you help him?”

“So he wouldn’t get killed by any of your father’s guards.”

I step away from Aiden. Being so close to a man like him is intimidating. “You chose to protect your brother over everyone else. You’re selfish.”

He shrugs. “I’ve been called worse things in life.”

“You have no empathy. You don’t care about anything. What is wrong with you?”

“When you’ve been raised how I was raised, you learn to stop caring about anything. Or anyone. It’s just easier.”

“But you care about your brother.”

Aiden averts his eyes. “To my own detriment, I’ll admit.”

“What have you been through in life that’s made you this way?” I ask in horror.

“That’s a story for another day. Now, come on. I’m taking you home.”

I stand up straighter. “You’re…”

“Taking you home. There’s no point in keeping you any longer. Finn wanted to kill your father. Now he’s dead. There’s no need for you. I don’t have any desire to keep you hostage. That just means more work for me.”

“I can really go home?” I don’t even want to let myself believe. It hurts too much.

“Let’s go.” Aiden doesn’t show any signs that he’s lying as he leads me past the living room where my father’s bloodstain resides and out of the house.

Everything is surreal. I’m not sure if I’m in a nightmare or real life. I hope when I return home, I’ll wake up in my bed and learn that all of this was a terrible nightmare. That my father is alive.

That I’ll be ok.

Dante

The sight of Ivan Romanov’s dead body on Erik’s doorstep turns my blood cold.

I came over earlier to Erik’s place to discuss business and ways to get Elena back. What I hadn’t been expecting was this.

Erik and I stare down at Ivan’s lifeless body for a moment before Erik spurns into action. “We need to get this inside before anyone else sees. Make sure Anya or Nadia don’t see.”

“What do you want me to do? Lock them up?”

Erik shoots me an annoyed look. “Just let me get his body down to the basement.”

“Then let me help you.”

“You’ve helped enough,” he snaps.

I point at Ivan. “I had no part in this.”

“But your men did. This is those fucking hitmen’s work. Your men.”

“Let’s just move Ivan’s body and then we can fight. All right?”

Erik grumbles under his breath but otherwise goes quiet as we carry Ivan’s body down to Erik’s basement. Hopefully Nadia will be none the wiser. This will only frighten her.

“What the fuck?” Erik turns on me the second we place Ivan on the ground. “How did this happen?”

“I don’t know. I told Finn and Aiden to return Elena. I didn’t know they’d go after Ivan like this. If it’s anyone’s work, it’s most likely Finn’s. He’s always been more reckless.”

“Does he know what this means? War. You have to find him and kill him or every single Bratva member is going to come for you and I won’t be able to protect you.”

“But our alliance-,”

“Is only a promise. It’s not ironclad. There are Bratva men who still want justice for Sergei’s death. Your man, Matteo, still hasn’t paid the price for it. Finn and Aiden worked for you and now they’re responsible for Ivan’s death. How can I protect you, Dante? I don’t even like you. We tolerate each other for our wives’ sakes. We made peace for them. But your men keep fucking up. If you don’t want to die, then you need to find Finn and Aiden and kill them.”

That’s the last thing I want to do. Aiden and Finn are my friends. They’ve stuck by me when I didn’t have much. Sure, I paid them but they still stayed by my side.

And now, they’re fucking everything up for me.

I don’t give a fuck about Ivan. Truthfully, I’m sort of glad he’s dead. He did try to kill me and now justice has been served. But this will only upset Nadia and put me at risk, which will upset her even more.

That’s what hurts the most. I just want to protect the woman I love.

And now, because of these fucking hitmen, I might not be able to do that. Because every single Bratva member will be coming for my head.

“Are you going to tell anyone about this?”

“How can I not? News will spread fast. Find them before anyone else can. I’ll try to keep things quiet for a few days to avoid a frenzy but I won’t be able to hold it back forever. Do this Dante and you’re forgiven. I’ll know I can truly trust you.”

“Fuck you, Erik. You act like you’re the one in charge here. I can’t fully trust you either.”

His eyes narrow. “Then I guess we’re in the same boat. Fix this before it plunges us into another war.”

“You do know what that will mean, don’t you? Nadia and Anya will be on opposite sides of that war. You love your wife. I know you don’t want her to suffer. So fucking help me.”

“Fine,” he growls. “If I find Aiden and Finn before you do, I’ll kill them. That’s how I can help. But this only ends with their deaths. Remember that.”

I roll my eyes. Erik can be so fucking dramatic sometimes.

But I know this isn’t a laughing matter.

A lot is at stake right now and I’m on a balance beam trying to keep myself from falling over.

Elena

The sight of my house doesn’t make me feel any relief. Not when I can only feel numbness creeping through me.

“What happens now?” I ask.

“You return to your life.”

“Just like that?”

Aiden nods like it’s easy. “Just like that.”

“Have you ever lost someone you loved?” I force myself to look at him. He’s not the one who killed my father. Aiden is not to blame.

But he’s just as bad as his brother and I cannot forget that.

“Yes. My father.”

I blink, then a hysterical laugh comes out of me, except it’s not one of amusement. It’s pure pain. “Then you know how this should feel. How dare you tell me to just move on with my life.”

“I wasn’t close with my father. In fact, I barely knew him. He died when I was a kid. Raised by a single mom.” There’s no emotion in his voice as he says this, almost like he’s reciting a script.

“Where is she now?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

I frown. “Why not?”

“I don’t share personal information with anyone. Who knows what someone will use against you?”

“You’re so cold,” I whisper. “Your brother just murdered my father. Show some compassion.”

For a moment, Aiden’s eyes soften. Just for a moment though. “I know you must be hurting. And yes, my brother was stupid for doing what he did. And I am sorry for that. But it has happened. There’s no taking it back. So, you might as well return to your life and be grateful that I’m letting you go. This is your second chance.”

“I hate you.”

He doesn’t say anything as he leans back in his seat.

With no other choice, I get out of the car and approach my family’s brownstone. Aiden drives away before I even knock on the door. Good riddance. I hope I never see him or his brother again.

No one answers the door, not even after I knock a few times.

“Mom? It’s Elena.”

The door quickly whips open and my mother’s frantic face appears before me. “Elena?” Shockingly, she pulls me into a hug.

In the past, I would have hesitated to hug her back, but now, I don’t. Now, the only one I have to comfort me is my mother.

“Elena. You’re alive. Those men who took you also took your father. They killed all of our guards. They had the audacity to strangle me until I passed out. So tell me. What happened?” She ushers me inside. I’ve never seen my mom look so unkempt. Her hair is a frizzy mess. Her makeup is smeared. Her eyes are tired like she hasn’t slept all night.

There’s only one thing I can say to her. “Father is dead.”

She rocks back on her heels and catches the wall before she falls down. “He’s…”

I nod.

“How?”

“Finn killed him. Shot him…”

She puts her hand over her mouth. “Oh my god. Oh my god. We’re going to be destitute. We won’t have any money coming in anymore. I won’t be able to buy new dresses. The other Bratva women will judge me.”

It takes me a second to realize what my mother is saying, then it hits me like a pile of bricks. “Wait. Are you worried about money right now? Dad is dead.”

“Yes I am worried. And you would be too if you were in my shoes. You’ve always been sheltered. You’ve never had to worry about money. So don’t judge me for worrying. Money is the only thing that will keep this roof over our heads so don’t be a brat about it.” Her eyes rake me over. “What in the world are you wearing? It’s so ugly.”

I’m still wearing the t-shirt Aiden gave me. I honestly forgot all about it in the chaos of everything.

I look at my mom and I realize, that despite my dad’s death, she hasn’t changed at all.

Even though I’ve come back home, I don’t feel any happier.