Page 3 of Devil’s Night (The Shadows of Darkness Universe #3)

Chapter three

Spare The Rod, Kill The Romanov

Katya

“ T hank you,” I say flatly to the taxi driver, barely mustering the energy to sound polite.

The exhaustion from training clings to me like wet cloth, heavy and suffocating.

My muscles ache beneath my uniform, skin raw beneath the layers.

I press my spine against the seat for one final moment of stillness before forcing myself to step out onto the gravel path leading to my father’s home.

I expect quiet. Darkness. Maybe one of the guards at the gate and nothing more.

But instead, three of my father’s men are waiting for me on the front steps, their silhouettes sharp under the exterior lights.

Their posture is off. Too stiff...too alert.

Glancing around instinctively, I half-expect to see him standing with them, arms crossed, ready to issue a cold critique on whatever bruises I’ve brought home this time.

That’s usually the routine. He meets me after class, assesses the damage I couldn’t avoid, then adds his own punishment to the tally.

When he’s satisfied, I’m sent home to lick my wounds in silence. It’s methodical. It’s familiar.

Tonight is not.

“Where is my father-” I start as I climb out of the cab, adjusting my bag higher on my shoulder despite the burning ache in my muscles.

“Your father and mother have requested your presence immediately. It’s urgent,” one of the guards replies without hesitation.

His tone is clipped, rehearsed. My stomach knots.

My father never sends men to retrieve me, not unless something has gone horribly wrong.

He’s always warned against displays of force that draw attention, saying discretion is what keeps us alive.

But now, not only have his men been sent to fetch me, they’re on edge.

Their hands hover near their weapons, fingers twitching like they’re expecting a shootout on the doorstep.

As I limp across the foyer and into the house, I try to find my footing.

The pain in my ankles are sharp and constant, radiating from beneath the blood-stained satin of my shoes.

Every step reminds me of today’s failures, of Maria’s blade slicing across my cheek, of Mrs. Pavlov’s rod snapping down again and again.

I ache everywhere, and the last thing I want is to be dragged into some family crisis.

“Has Isaac made it home yet?” I ask, hoping for something normal. My voice cuts through the silence, but none of them answer. Not even a glance in my direction. Just more quiet.

“Is that a no?” I push again, but the silence holds.

I clench my jaw, resisting the urge to scream. All I want is to sleep, soak in a hot bath, and maybe feel human again for five minutes. But the way they’re guiding me now, tight formation, watchful eyes, it feels like I’m being led into something much colder.

For a long time, I let Isaac carry the weight of our legacy.

He was always the one to sit at the table, to issue the orders, to dirty his hands in front of the family while I bled behind closed doors.

I’ve tried to play my part, quiet, obedient, efficient.

Not a daughter. Not a sister. A tool. A weapon they could shape into whatever the Romanov name required.

I’ve never fooled myself into thinking we’re good people.

Our empire is built on blood, drugs, guns, hitmen, women sold and silenced.

There are truths I know, and others I’ve trained myself not to look at too closely.

Still, I was born into this life. I didn’t choose it. No one gave me the option to be anything else.

Reaching for the handle of my father’s study, my hand trembles slightly—not from fear, but from sheer physical exhaustion. The doors swing open, and immediately, the temperature shifts. The air is warm from the roaring fireplace, but everything else feels frozen.

My father stands with his back to me, staring into the flames as if they’ve spoken some private revelation. My mother is seated in his chair, her posture stiff, her gaze distant. She doesn’t turn to look at me. She doesn’t blink.

Lining the room are men I know too well, my father’s closest confidants.

The fathers of the girls I train with. Business partners.

Men who have orchestrated empires of violence from behind polished mahogany desks.

Each of them clutches a glass of bourbon like it might shatter in their grip. No one speaks. No one acknowledges me.

Something is wrong. “Right this way,” one of my father’s men whispers, his voice barely audible over the pounding in my ears.

Following without a word, the air in the estate grows heavier with each step I take.

The deeper we move into the house, the more suffocating it becomes, like the walls themselves are pressing in around me.

The low hum of murmured conversation dies as I step into the study, the room thick with tension and the scent of aged liquor and woodsmoke.

One of the maids approaches quietly, a glass of dark red wine already in her hand. Without waiting for permission, she presses it to my lips.

“Drink, Ms. Katya. You will need,” she urges in a hushed accent, her voice trembling as if she already knows what I’m about to see.

She tilts the glass until the bitter liquid spills past my lips, forcing me to drink until the wine trickles down my chin and stains the front of my shirt. I wipe my mouth with the back of my sleeve, blinking away the sting of alcohol and confusion.

“What... what is this?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “Dad?”

At the sound of my voice, the entire room turns in eerie unison. The heads of every man seated around the room, my father’s most trusted associates, the same men who have watched me grow from girl to weapon, shift to look at me.

Their expressions are unreadable. Cold. Their silence louder than any scream.

My father stands behind his desk, hands braced on the polished wood, knuckles pale. He doesn’t speak immediately, and when he finally does, it’s without warmth.

“Come here.”

His voice is low and stern, meant to be obeyed. The tap of his finger against the desk is sharp, final. There is no room for hesitation.

Slowly moving toward him, each step is more reluctant than the last. My gaze drifts to my mother seated beside the fire. She hasn’t moved. Her face is a stone mask, eyes locked on the dancing flames as though they’re the only thing keeping her anchored.

“Mom,” I whisper, “what’s-”

The words stop.

A scream builds in the back of my throat, but it dies before it ever reaches the air. My breath catches violently, torn into ragged fragments as my vision tunnels in on the nightmare before me.

There, sprawled on the floor beside my father’s desk, is Isaac.

Or… what’s left of him.

His face is frozen mid-expression, eyes wide, clouded over with death.

A perfect, round bullet hole is bored into the center of his forehead, the wound so precise it almost looks surgical.

But the mess around it isn’t. Blood pools beneath his skull, soaking into the Persian rug.

His nails are jagged, torn as if he clawed at something, or someone, before the end.

His arms are bent at unnatural angles. Bones protruding from his wrist like white shards of porcelain.

I can see inside his skull.

And the worst part is that no one is moving. No one is weeping. No one is yelling.

This is… expected. Controlled.

My knees buckle. I turn away, bile racing up my throat as my stomach twists violently.

Don’t vomit. You’ve seen a dead body before. This isn’t new. You’ve seen worse. You were trained for this.

But it’s Isaac.

Oh my god. It’s Isaac.

Don’t vomit. Don’t-

My body betrays me. I double over, retching hard, the acidic burn clawing its way up my throat. The contents of my stomach splash across my bloodied ballet shoes, the sharp scent of wine mixing with vomit and sweat.

Gasping for air, I brace a trembling hand on the wall, my vision blurring with tears I refuse to let fall.

“Jesus Christ,” I choke out, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth, my voice raw. “What the hell is going on?”

But no one answers.

And the silence, again, is louder than anything else.

I barely register the sound of my father’s men stepping toward me. Everything is muffled now, distant, like I’m underwater. The only thing that cuts through the haze is his voice, cold and clipped, void of anything resembling comfort.

“Let her deal with it,” my father commands, waving off the instinctive movement of his men. “Do not coddle her.” His tone is sharp, each word slicing through the air like a blade. “She needs to see it. She needs to see what they did to her brother.”

Terror swells inside me, flooding every inch of my chest. “What the fuck happened?” I rasp, my voice shaky with rage and disbelief. My hands are trembling, my knees threatening to buckle again. My heart is pounding so loudly I can barely think.

My father doesn’t answer with words at first, only action.

He tosses back the last of his drink, the clink of glass echoing through the silent room.

Then, with a fury barely restrained, he marches toward Isaac’s body, crouching low like he’s about to discipline a child instead of mourn a son.

He grabs Isaac by the hair and lifts his head, holding it up like a trophy gone to rot.

“Your brother was careless ,” he barks, giving the body a violent shake. My mother sobs behind him, but he doesn’t even flinch. “Your brother was ignorant ,” he snarls, before spitting directly onto Isaac’s slack, bloodied face. He lets go, and Isaac’s head hits the floor with a sickening thud .

I want to scream.

I want to reach for him, not my father , but Isaac. The brother who once swore he’d never let this life touch me. The brother who promised he’d carry the Romanov name so I wouldn’t have to. But now he’s nothing more than a body in my father’s study, discarded like garbage.

From his coat, my father pulls a bloodstained envelope and shoves it into my chest, pressing it there until I have no choice but to take it. His breath reeks of liquor, rage rolling of him in waves.

“And now,” he says, voice low, eyes wild, “we all have a common enemy.”

Staring down at the letter, my fingers trace the familiar emblem on the front. The blood has dried around the edges, leaving a crusted border that flakes beneath my touch. My stomach turns violently.

I know this symbol.

I’ve seen it before.

“Catalyst,” I whisper, nausea clawing its way back up my throat.

“Catalyst,” my father confirms, the word bitter in his mouth.

“The same Catalyst your brother was supposed to have handled. A job he assured me was finished. That their CEO had been taken care of. That there were no loose ends.” He gestures toward Isaac’s broken corpse, lips curling.

“Well, I suppose this is the loose end now.”

The room falls silent again, but this time, every eye is on me. Waiting.

I swallow hard, bile still thick in my throat. “Now what?” I ask quietly, hating how fragile I sound.

My father steps closer, eyes narrowing with a look that could shatter glass. “Now,” he says, almost in a whisper, “you don’t fuck up.”

He turns to his men, his voice rising again.

“She goes nowhere alone. She attends every lesson. She misses nothing. I want her involved in every family decision from this moment forward.” Stepping close, he grips my chin tightly between his fingers, studying me like a puzzle he doesn’t trust to stay intact.

His eyes are filled with expectation. Fury.

Fear, maybe, but it’s buried beneath so many layers of control it’s impossible to reach.

“Don’t disappoint me,” he murmurs.

He nudges my chin away like I’m something disposable, and I turn back toward Isaac. My brother’s lifeless gaze meets mine again. My father’s spit still glistens on his face.

“I want him in the crypt,” my father growls. “Not that he deserves it.”

Glancing toward my mother. I wait for her to speak up. To cry out. To say something.

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t even look at me.

“You’re excused,” my father mutters. “You have a busy day tomorrow. Go home.”

I don’t say a word. My legs move before my mind catches up, guiding me toward the door. As I step out of the study, I nearly slip on my own vomit, slick, sour, still fresh from the horror of earlier. The door shuts behind me with a deep, final thud, sealing the room, and everything inside it, away.

Standing there, frozen, I struggle to catch my breath. It’s the first real inhale I’ve managed since I entered this godforsaken house. But it doesn’t feel like relief.

It feels like drowning.

My father’s men are already waiting in the hall, their expressions unreadable, their eyes hollow. They’ll drive me home, like always. Pretending nothing happened; pretending the world hasn’t just shifted beneath my feet.

And as I stare past them into the darkened hallway, the weight of it all settles over me like a second skin.

All I want to do is scream.

But I can’t.

Not yet.