Page 121 of Deceptive Vows

My mouth goes dry as everything starts to make sense.

I’m part of the reason his parents broke up, and he views me as part of the reason his mother killed herself. I was told she had a heart attack.

He would have blamed my mother, too, and hated my sister.

But, this is in the past, and wouldn’t explain why he would want them dead now.

It would, however, be a part of the reason.

My father is right. There are so many secrets and lies.

I rest my elbows on my knees and slouch forward as his words continue to sink into my head.

“Your mother and I got married a few months before you were born.”

“Who else knows the truth?”

“Just Ivan and Sophia. I’m sorry, Mikhail. I couldn’t take these secrets to the grave with me. I guess I might have seemed to favor him over you in some respects, but that wasn’t the case.”

“I have never thought that.”

“I guess you wouldn’t have been at the age where it might have mattered for you to think it. But you are now. When I decided to retire, I realized I couldn’t simply follow tradition. More than that, I didn’t want to. You work hard, Mikhail. Ivan does, too, but he took comfort in the fact that the oldest son usually gets to be the Pakhan. There’s a difference between what the two of you have done.”

Something pinches my heart. “Is this your way of telling me you’ve chosen him to be Pakhan?” If it is, I’d have a hard time laying down my own truth for him about Ivan. Especially when I have no evidence.

“It’s not, son, but I wanted you to be the first to know how I changed everything else, including my will. I changed everything for everybody.”

“Everything?” This might answer the big question.

“Everything. Unlike when the inheritance passed to me twenty years ago, I felt there was enough wealth to share equally. That means the controlling interest in the company wouldn’t just lie with the Pakhan.”

“What did you do?”

“I gave Sophia the diamond company and split the ownership of Dmitriyev Ltd. four ways. I split it between you, Ivan, your mother, and sister. So, it will be the first time the company would have equal ownership with a horizontal line of inheritance. Meaning if something happened to one party, their shares would then be divided equally amongst the remaining beneficiaries.”

And that’s reason enough to want my mother and sister dead.

And reason enough to want me dead, too. This is it. The answer.

It has to be.

With us out of the way, Ivan would have inherited all of it without any problems.

As it stands now, it’s down to him and me.

Shit.

I also don’t think he’d be that worried about the diamond company as he would Dmitriyev Ltd. Dmitriyev Ltd makes billions a year. That fucking contract was just about it, nothing else so Sophia should be safe.

Who knew this was going to happen? Father would have only told someone he trusted.

“Did you tell anyone you were going to do that to Dmitriyev Ltd.?”

“Your mother. No one else, not even the estate lawyers. They’ll see my wishes after the leadership changes. I also didn’t tell Sophia because I didn’t want her arguing about the diamond company. She’s very humble and wouldn’t want to keep something like that to herself, but she deserves something she can call her own.”

So Mother must have told someone about the plans for Dmitriyev Ltd.

“As for the leadership, one of you will be the next Pakhan. The Pakhan gets everything else.”