Chapter 48: Mikhail

“You poor, blind fool. You’re just like your fucking father. You think because you have power, you can hurt people and get away with it. You think because you say something, we should live by your rules like mindless automatons.” Sophia’s face contorts with rage as she shakes her head. “Ivan’s mother was my best friend. We grew up together. She was like a sister to me, and your father cheated on her with your whore of a mother. Your whoring mother worked into their home, saw they had a child, and thought she’d destroy their family by spreading her legs for your father. My best friend killed herself, and her little boy found her dead in the bathtub. All because of your father.”

My God. This is about the past. The sins and the secrets of the past. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to say because it was wrong. Nothing about it can be right.

All I can speak for is the present, and it looks like there was never any time in my life when she didn’t wear a mask. This is her true face.

“You waited all this time, Sophia?” I balk.

“It’s called waiting for the right opportunity, my dear nephew. When you are weak, that’s all you can do. Wait and watch and plan. Your father trusted me with everything. He thought I would support his disgusting idea to marry the woman responsible for my best friend’s death. Like I could ever be okay with that. Then you came along and trusted me, too. Trusted me more than he did.”

“I did trust you.”

“Which is what made me the best spy. I knew the day would come when Sergei would have to make a choice between his two sons. It was logical. I just never thought he would go as far as changing the leadership selection rules.” Again, she shakes her head. This time with disgust.

“You thought we should all suffer because of the past and the change!” My voice comes out heavy and weak at the same time.

“It’s like spitting on Tatiana’s grave and her son’s legacy. That’s all he had to look forward to as some form of redemption for what happened to his mother. We both knew your father was going to choose you. That’s why he changed the rules. He would only do something like that to sidestep what he wasn’t man enough to do.”

Shit, she’s starting to look blurry. My head slumps to the side, and my body leans with it, crashing into the wooden arm of the chair.

The fucking poison is taking effect and weakening me.

I can’t move.

My hands and legs feel heavier now. But I’m going to keep fighting to stay awake.

I have to get out of here.

Natalia needs me.

“Then, to add insult to injury, my dear brother decided to split the company four ways so Ivan wouldn’t get the ruling shares and I’d get no part of the company my forefathers built from the ground up. It was your mother who told me your father’s plans, breaking his confidence because she thought we’d become such good friends.” She hisses. “Like your father, she thought I’d be happy to get the diamond company. She didn’t know she was opening Pandora’s Box. Sergei thought the diamond company would be a sufficient inheritance for me. That bastard.” She laughs, a crude horrible sound, or she just sounds that way because my heart is thumping in my ears. “Dmitriyev Ltd. was not meant to be split between Sergei’s whore of a wife, his bastard son, his little bitch of a daughter, and the only son he should have had. It was too much. Someone had to make him pay.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

I’d be more inclined to believe the poison was screwing with my hearing and my sight over thinking what I’m hearing my Aunt Sophia say is the truth. But it is, and I never saw this coming.

“And that person had to be you?”

“Indeed. I took matters into my own hands. I knew Ivan would agree with me. I knew all his secrets and his flaws. I knew who would join forces with me to achieve the goal. Raul was at the top of the list because he didn’t like the control your father had over his cartel. He was always in some disagreement with him, so he was easily swayed when we approached him with an offer he couldn’t refuse— shares in Dmitriyev Ltd. once the ownership passed, and freedom from our control. He was the only person strong enough to take you down. The others were just the masterminds.”

“Others?” I rasp.

“Investors who would take the company to new heights in the grand vision I have for the future of Dmitriyev Ltd.”

It makes sense now why people like Barabbas Ponteix got involved.

“What my parents did was wrong, but what you did is wrong, too. How could you think it was okay to kill them?” When I think of Talia, my soul trembles. “My sister, what was her crime?”

“Her mere existence, my dear nephew. Her existence was her crime, and her fucking love for ballet reminded me of how your mother enticed my brother. It was me who set up her sale to make sure she died in the worst way possible.”

More laughter sounds, showing how truly evil she is. She made Talia suffer the way she did.

“How could you do that!”

“Her suffering and death were an extension of what I wanted to do to your mother.”

“You sold my sister to sex slavers who killed her. How dare you think she deserved such a fate!”

“Well, Mikhail. I couldn’t exactly sell your mother. The sale for a woman over thirty in the flesh trade is practically non-existent. I wanted that bullet in your mother’s head for the same reason I wanted to poison my brother.”

“What the fuck reason was that?”

“They both had to be taught a lesson. With Sergei, though, I gave him a chance. He was dying anyway, and I’d accomplished the mission of taking away what he loved most. I decided I wouldn’t kill him, and I’d allow him to die the way he wanted if he chose Ivan to be Pakhan. I felt what he decided to do with the company was one thing, but the Bratva is who we are. That was his last chance. He blew it when he chose you.”

I blow out a ragged breath as my lungs constrict. I’m finding it harder to breathe, harder to focus. And she can tell.

“Everyone got what they deserved, Mikhail,” she says, like she’s always had the right to decide everyone’s fate. “Unfortunately, you survived that night, and I couldn’t kill you while you were in the hospital because my fucking brother guarded you with the best of the best. It’s fine, though. Your survival took Raul out of the game once you were able to identify him, and his death tied up the risk he represented of blowing the whole operation. The goal was still achieved, and now we own the cartel.”

Natalia.

They’re going to use her. Just like I thought. Jesus. Everything I thought was right. Everything Now Sophia is going to take my wife.

“Leave my wife out of this.”

“If I were you, I’d worry about myself.”

“You two-faced bitch.”

“Yes, I am. Don’t you know it’s the quiet, sweet ones you have to look out for? They’re the silent killers. The ones with all the good ideas. How else would a little old lady take down the new Pakhan of the Baranov?” She grins, wide and proud. “How else would a little old lady kill the last Pakhan? How else would a little old lady kill the lieutenant of one of the deadliest cartel leaders known to man? I was the one who stabbed José Diaz in the neck when I caught that fool taking pictures of Ivan while he met with Barabbas Ponteix. Me. I did it all.”

“Not going to give me any credit, my love?” says a voice from outside the room that makes this moment so much worse.

Aleksander steps in, and I feel my mouth drop and the knife in my heart twist.

“You bastard,” I grate.

“Sorry, Mr. Dmitriyev. Everyone has to look out for themselves and those they love,” he answers, and to my surprise, he leans forward and plants a kiss on Sophia’s lips.

“Of course, you helped, Aleksander. You kept me well informed of my nephew’s daily activities and came up with the idea to slit José’s throat.”

“The two of you can rot in hell!” I shout.

“Maybe we will, maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll see you there, dear nephew. You might have as much as six hours to live.”

“Six … hours?” I stutter.

“Six hours to be trapped in your mind and feel helpless. You will die in that helpless state, unable to save your pretty wife. It’s the worst kind of death for a man like you. The paralysis is taking you now. Then your mind will go. When your organs start shutting down, that’s it. Game over.”

Game over.

She fades from my sight, and my soul screams as the helplessness takes me.

I think I hear gunfire somewhere in the back of beyond. It sounds like it’s coming from outside.

I feel myself fall, but it’s like my brain disconnects from my body.

As I hit the ground, my last thought is of the beautiful woman I stole because she wore a wedding dress that didn’t belong to her.

But she belonged to me.

I promised her life would be better.

Now it’s not going to be, and there’s nothing I can do.

I will love you always, Natalia. I’m so sorry.