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I gripped the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turned bone-white, the engine growling as I tore through the rain-slicked streets.

Red lights didn’t matter. Horns blared. Tires screeched. I didn’t care. All I could hear was the nurse’s voice over the phone, shaky and breathless.

“She’s in labor, Mr. Yezhov. It’s early. You should come now.”

When I got to the hospital, I barely parked. I didn’t feel the rain anymore. I sprinted inside, barking her name at the front desk. They knew me. We’d frequented the hospital for Irina’s checkups.

But the look on the nurse’s face stopped me cold. She didn’t need to say it. I saw it in her eyes.

“Mr. Yezhov.” A doctor stepped in, with young, tired eyes behind thin glasses. “We did everything we could, but she lost a lot of blood. Irina…she didn’t make it.”

It was like someone poured concrete into my chest. It wasn’t grief at first, but shock. Like the world stuttered and forgot how to spin.

What Irina and I had was…great rhythm, a good partnership, and she was a wonderful companion.

She was sharp, too smart for her own good, with a mouth that never backed down and a laugh that could disarm a goddamn firing squad.

We’d called it a marriage, even if it leaned more toward mutual respect than love or fiery passion.

Still, she was mine once. And more than that, she was to be the mother of our child.

“No,” I said simply. As if saying it would undo it.

He kept talking. Internal bleeding, other complications. I heard every word and none of it.

I wasn’t a man who cried. I had buried friends, enemies, and family. But this one hit home. For a second, just one, the sting cut deeper than I expected.

Irina’s laugh echoed somewhere in my skull, stubborn and full of fire. She’d haunt me with it, I knew. She’d never let me forget.

“She was a good woman,” I muttered to no one. My throat was tight. “Better than most.”

The doctor hesitated. “Would you like to see your daughter?”

That word hadn’t felt real until that moment.

I paused, reconsidering for just a second, before reminding myself that the Bratva honored the family code at all times. The circumstances ushering her into the world might not have been pretty, but it wasn’t her fault.

But I almost said no. What the hell did I know about raising a child? My life was blood, secrets, and deals made in the dark. What kind of father could I be?

Regardless, the days and nights Irina had spent preparing for her coming urged me forward.

I let the doctor lead me forward.

The room was quiet. Soft lights, beeping machines. And there she was.

So small. Swaddled in white, pink-faced, and angry at the world. Her tiny hands clenched like she already had something to fight for.

And I felt a silent collapse inside my chest.

She opened her eyes, and they were mine. Angry, feisty, and blue.

I stepped closer, breath shaky. My hand hovered, then touched the blanket. Moy Zakya. Our little bunny that popped out unexpectedly, at the oddest hour of the day, after Irina shocked me with a text message telling me she just found out she was pregnant.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered, the words falling from a place deeper than my bones. “You’re not alone.”

This little girl was mine now.

“Katya,” I said. The name tasted like something sacred. “Your name is Katya Yezhov.”

She cooed and surprised me with a warm giggle, almost like she gave a silent approval.

And I swore, with everything I had left, that I would never let the world touch her. Not while I still drew breath.

***

The room they threw Jason in wasn’t meant for redemption. It was a foreboding sign of imminent death. No prisoner went in and stepped out alive. He wasn’t about to be the first to break that record.

The shadows and haunting ghosts lurking there were enough to scare the soul out of a body, and the stench of mold and dried blood was a good reason to reject any meal offered. If meals were offered.

I wrapped a cloth around my nose before joining Fedor inside the room.

A single, swinging bulb buzzed overhead. The floor was concrete, cracked and wet with whatever fluids had seeped through from past incidents.

Chains rattled occasionally from the corner. Not that he had the strength to reach them anymore.

He was slumped in the chair like a rag doll someone had grown bored with.

His face was a canvas of purple, yellow, and blue bruises.

One eye was swollen shut. Blood, dark and crusted, lined his split lip.

His T-shirt had been white once. Now, it was stained red and brown, clinging to his skinny body.

For six weeks, I’d let him rot in here with barely enough food and water. His family didn’t know where he was, and the general public believed he’d gone into hiding after what he did.

I wanted to watch him wilt away before putting the final end to his miserable life.

I stood in the doorway for a long while before stepping into his cell, and he looked up when he heard my shoes scrape against the floor, flinching like a beaten dog. I didn’t blame him. My men had done their job well.

“Please,” Jason croaked, barely. “Please…I swear I didn’t mean to hurt the girl. I swear it!”

Fedor dealt him a blow with closed fists, and I scrunched my nose at the string of bloody saliva that drooled from his mouth.

“No one believed it when I asked my man here to come bail you out. But I told the police I forgave you,” I said calmly, crouching down so we were eye to eye—or as close as his swelling would let us be.

“Do you remember what you said to them that night? When they asked if you knew what you’d done, because you were too fucking drunk to be coherent? ”

He swallowed hard. His throat made a clicking sound. “It was…it was an accident. I didn’t mean to—”

“She turned twenty-two the previous night.” My voice came out steady. Cold. “And the day you came along, she was about to make the biggest break in her career. Did you know that?”

He blinked, confused. Or maybe concussed.

“Of course, you didn’t. You were too busy getting high on the fucking road.” I stroked his hair, smiled, and whispered, “You don’t get to mean anything anymore. You don’t get to breathe and pretend it was just an accident.”

I rose, brushing imaginary dust from my coat. My suit was pristine, my hands clean. My heart, though—it was colder than ice.

“Please, forgive me, sir. I’m so fucking sorry. I swear I’ll run away and not look back if you let me go. I’ll disappear.”

“Forgiveness was the lie I told the law,” I said, stretching my hands to Fedor, who gladly handed me the Marakov—a gift from my father with a Yezhov crest on it. It had killed men in alleys, in mansions, in deserts. And now, it would kill one more.

Jason looked beyond petrified. I thought we both saw his life flash before his eyes.

His breathing was shallow now, tears ran down his bruised cheeks, and his whimpers were loud and fucking irritating.

“You want to know my truth? Here it is,” I added, eyes locked on his trembling form. “That’s the difference between people like you and people like me, Jason. You never intend to cause hurt and pain, but you do it anyway. But me….”

I reloaded the chamber and thoroughly assessed the old gun.

“I’m very intentional about causing hurt and pain, when and where necessary.” I raised my gun, aiming it at his forehead.

“No…no…no!”

He gazed at me, and I stared through him.

“For more than a month, you’ve suffered anyway. Maybe I should let you go. Maybe you’ll disappear. But…I’ll do it anyway.”

“No—”

The shot cracked like ice breaking underfoot. One second, he was breathing. The next, he wasn’t. His body slumped sideways, a streak of crimson painting the concrete floor beneath him.

His eyes, still open, stared into nothing.

I stared back, waiting for the relief that should have come, and instead, I felt anger.

Hot and wild beneath my ribs, coiled like barbed wire. I didn’t feel peace. Just the slow burn of rage that never seemed to die, no matter how many bodies hit the floor.

“Get Roman to clean up this mess,” I said and walked out of the cell, feeling nothing but the fire.