Page 35 of Betrayal and Vows (Bratva Vows #2)

“Should have been mine,” I repeat. “I wouldn’t take a damn thing from you. You’re the coward, not me. A real man would handle murder himself. I do. I kill my enemies. You order it done. You ordered the murder of your wife and child.”

"A bastard born from my whore wife's affair,” Vadim snarls. “Your mother was a whore. I long suspected you weren’t mine. And then I watched you grow, and I began to believe maybe you could be mine. I waited and watched.”

I’m watching him, but Natalia looks scared.

Why?

"You could have stood at my right hand," Vadim continues, his voice rising with each word. "You could have claimed your birthright! Instead, you crawled back here like a snake, pretending to be someone else. Playing games. Lying to your own father!"

His fury fills the warehouse, bouncing off the concrete walls. I can feel the heat of his rage from across the room.

"You are weak," he spits. "Pathetic. A coward who hides behind false names and borrowed identities. This is what my blood produced? This sniveling pretender?"

Mikhail's grin spreads wider with each insult Vadim hurls at me. He's practically vibrating with glee, finally hearing what he's always wanted—that he's the superior son.

"You see, brother ?" Mikhail taunts. "Even our father knows you're nothing. A disappointment. A mistake he should have corrected years ago."

"He's not your brother," Natalia suddenly shrieks, her composure finally cracking. "He's supposed to be dead! You told me he was dead!"

She whirls on Vadim, her face twisted with fury. "Kill him! Kill him now! He'll destroy everything we've built!"

But Vadim holds up a hand, his eyes never leaving mine. "No one touches Anton."

"What?" Natalia's voice cracks like a whip.

"I said no one kills him." Vadim's smile is cruel, calculating. "Death would be mercy. And my son doesn't deserve mercy."

The way he says “son” makes my skin crawl. There's no love in it, no acknowledgment of blood ties. Just ownership. Possession.

"Instead," Vadim continues, "he's going to watch. He's going to watch Mikhail marry his precious little princess. He's going to watch them consummate their union. And then he's going to watch Mikhail put baby after baby into her belly."

My vision goes red. Every muscle in my body screams to lunge forward, to tear Mikhail's throat out with my bare hands. But Dmitri's grip on my arm tightens, holding me in place.

"That's your punishment for thirty years of deception," Vadim says, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "You'll live with the knowledge that everything you touch turns to ash. Everyone you love suffers because of your weakness."

Lena makes a sound—half sob, half growl of pure rage. "I'll kill myself before I let him touch me."

"No, you won't," Mikhail says, his grin turning predatory. "Because if you do, I'll make sure Anton dies slowly. Very slowly. I'll keep him alive for weeks while I carve pieces off him."

"You fucking animal," I snarl, finally finding my voice.

Elena lifts her head.

“It wasn’t Vadim who ordered the hit,” she says quietly.

Everyone goes still.

Elena steps forward. Her chin is raised and she’s staring directly at Natalia. “It was Natalia. She had Irina and Alexei killed.”

Vadim blinks. “What?”

Elena keeps going. “Irina never cheated on you. Anton is your true heir. Natalia manipulated everything.”

Natalia gasps, doing a shitty job at pretending to be shocked. “Lies,” she spits. “All lies!”

Elena smirks. “Mikhail isn’t even your biological son.”

It was like time itself stopped. I felt everyone draw a collective gasp. No one moved. Breathed. Blinked.

Mikhail’s face goes bone white.

“What?” he whispers.

“Natalia was sleeping with one of your men,” Elena says. A slow smile creeps across her face. “Natalia told you the baby was yours because she wanted power.”

Vadim turns to Natalia. “Is it true?”

She hesitates too long.

“Is. It. True?” Vadim’s voice is calm now. All traces of anger are gone.

“I have proof,” Elena says.

Mikhail stumbles backward like she’s hit him.

“No,” he mutters. “No, no, no?—”

The silence stretches for what feels like an eternity. Then Vadim lets out a sound I've never heard from him before—a broken, animalistic wail that echoes off the warehouse walls.

"Thirty years," he whispers, staring at Natalia with something beyond rage. Beyond hatred. "Thirty years I believed that bastard was my blood."

Natalia backs away from him, her composure completely shattered. "Vadim, please, let me explain?—"

"Explain?" His voice rises to a roar. "You murdered my wife! You murdered my son! For what? So your whore's spawn could steal his birthright?"

"I did it for us!" she screams back, desperation making her voice shrill. "Irina was going to leave you! She was going to take everything and run! I saved your empire!"

"You destroyed it!" Vadim pulls his gun, pressing it against her temple. "Everything I built was for my blood. My legacy. And you fed me lies while my real son grew up thinking I tried to kill him."

I watch this unfold like it's happening to someone else. Thirty years of believing I was unwanted, disposable, a mistake to be corrected. And it was all orchestrated by this woman who wanted to secure her bastard's position.

Mikhail is having his own breakdown. He's collapsed to his knees, staring at his hands like they're covered in blood.

“I’m the heir!” Mikhail says. “This is mine!”

"You're worse than nothing," Vadim snarls, turning the gun toward him. "You're a pretender. A fraud who's been living in my true son's place."

"Wait," Mikhail scrambles backward on his hands and knees. "I didn't know! I swear I didn't know! She never told me!"

"It doesn't matter what you knew," Vadim's finger tightens on the trigger. "You exist. That's crime enough."

The first shot takes Mikhail in the chest. He flies backward, blood spraying across the concrete. The second shot catches him in the head.

Just like that, the man who tormented me, who was going to rape and torture Lena, is nothing but meat on the warehouse floor.

Natalia screams, but Vadim backhands her so hard she hits the wall and slides down, leaving a smear of blood on the concrete.

And then, to my complete surprise, he turns the weapon on her.

Bang.

She doesn’t even have time to scream before she takes her last breath.

"Thirty years," he says again, his voice hollow now. "I threw away my real family for your lies."

He turns to me, and for the first time in my life, I see something that might be regret in his eyes. "Anton. Alexei. My son."

“I am not your son. I will never be Alexei. Your whore killed him.”

Vadim seems to mull that over.

I wait.

We all wait to see what happens next.

Will he kill me? Order his men to finish me?

He killed the only heir.

And then as if in slow motion, we all watch as Vadim turns the gun on himself and pulls the trigger.

Sixty seconds.

Three bodies fall.

An empire dies.

For a beat, no one moves. No one breathes.

Then chaos erupts.

Gunfire blasts from behind us. I dive, grab Lena, roll us behind an overturned table.

“Popov,” Dmitri snarls.

Lenoid screams from across the room. He’s running.

Too late.

One shot catches him in the chest. Another between the eyes.

He falls ten feet away from where we’re hiding.

She shrieks.

I pull her to her feet. We have to run. The crossfire slams all around us.

A bullet slams into my chest. Hot, sharp. It steals my breath. I stumble, fall into her.

Blood soaks her shirt.

“Anton!” she screams, voice ragged.

I want to say something.

Anything.

But the world goes sideways.

My knees hit the ground.

I collapse into her arms.

My blood stains her skin. Her hair. Her heart.

She holds me, sobbing, shouting for help that doesn’t come.

And I can’t hold her back.

Because I’m slipping.

I’m dying.

As darkness pulls at me, I take comfort knowing my enemies are dead.

They won’t get their hands on Lena.