Chapter 11: Filthy Lies: Chapter 11

I kiss Sofiya’s forehead one last time before I leave.

“I’ll be back tonight,” I tell Rowan. She’s propped up against the headboard, our daughter tucked in her arms. “The security team has explicit instructions. No one enters without my authorization.”

Rowan’s eyes—tired but alert—find mine. “Where are you going?”

I could lie. Make up some bullshit about supply runs or security sweeps. But we promised no more half-truths between us.

“To see my father.”

Her body tenses immediately. “Vince⁠—”

“It needs to be done.” I check my weapon and slide it into its holster. “This can’t wait.”

“He tried to have me kidnapped while I was in labor.” The tremor in her voice betrays the trauma still lurking beneath her calm exterior. “Are you sure this is wise?”

No. I’m not fucking sure of anything anymore.

Not since finding her blood on our marble floor.

What I am sure of is that someone must pay. And payment starts with the man who organized this in the first place.

“If I don’t address this now, he’ll see it as weakness,” I explain, sitting on the edge of the bed. “And weakness invites more attempts.”

She squints as she studies my face. “You’re going to kill him.”

“I’m going to do what’s necessary.”

Rowan moves Sofiya to her other arm, wincing slightly. She’s still healing, still raw from childbirth. The doctors said it would take weeks for her body to recover.

But we don’t have weeks; we have hours. Minutes, maybe. Mere fragments of safety before the next storm comes fucking plowing in to upend everything.

“Just… goddammit, Vince, just come back to us,” she says finally. “That’s all I ask.”

I lean forward and kiss her softly, breathing in the scent of her—milk and soap, velvet and purity.

“Always,” I promise.

As I drive toward my father’s estate, I try to organize the chaos in my head. Every cell in my body screams for retribution. Blood on white marble, but this time, it will be his, and there will be rivers of it, oceans of it, enough to drown him and every man who ever helped carry out his bidding.

But the rage is tempered with something I’m far less familiar with.

Responsibility.

I owe things to people now. I have promises to uphold. And that complicates everything.

Because the man Rowan believes in wouldn’t murder his own father in cold blood.

But the man I’ve been for thirty-one years wants exactly that.

Which man wins?

The gates of my father’s estate—my childhood home—swing open as I approach. The guards recognize my car. They’ve been instructed to let me pass no matter what.

They don’t know that this might be the last time their boss draws breath.

I park in front of the main house and shut off the engine. For a moment, I just sit there, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles bleach white.

For Rowan. For Sofiya.

Carve those words into my fucking bones—they’re all that matters now.

The house is oddly quiet as I enter. No staff visible. No security inside. Just the hollow echo of my footsteps across marble floors I’ve walked since I was a boy.

My father is waiting in his study, of course. Where else would he be? The same place where he’s delivered every disappointment, every punishment, every lesson in what it means to be an Akopov.

I don’t knock.

He looks up from his desk as I enter. His silver eyebrows lift in mock surprise. “Vincent. What an⁠—”

“Save it,” I say, closing the door behind me. “You know exactly why I’m here.”

He leans back in his leather chair, studying me. He doesn’t appear worried.

Either he’s very confident or very, very stupid.

“I assume this is about your wife’s unfortunate… adventure.” He reaches for his crystal tumbler of whiskey, taking a leisurely sip.

My gun is in my hand before I consciously decide to draw it. The barrel points steadily at his forehead.

“‘Unfortunate adventure’?” My voice, when it emerges, is dangerously soft. “You had her kidnapped while she was in labor.”

He sighs, as if I’m overreacting. “Put the gun away, son. Let’s discuss this like civilized men.”

“There’s nothing civilized about what happened.” I take a step closer, gun still raised. “She could have died. Our daughter could have died.”

“But they didn’t.” He sets down his glass. “They’re both safe now, aren’t they?”

“No thanks to you.”

“On the contrary.” His eyes—the same cold blue as mine—glint with something like amusement. “Everything went according to plan.”

The statement is so absurd, so detached from reality, that I almost laugh. Instead, I take yet another step closer, pressing the barrel of my gun against his temple. His pulse beats steadily beneath the skin, unhurried.

“What fucking plan?” I hiss. “Explain it to me, old man. Explain how orchestrating my wife’s abduction while she was in labor was part of any rational plan.”

He says nothing for several long ticks of the grandfather clock on the wall. Just stares at me, the same dead-eye gaze he’s worn since my mother died.

“The plan,” he begins carefully, “was to prove a point.”

“What point?”

“That you need the family. All your talk of going legitimate, of breaking away, of doing things your own way—it’s a fantasy.” He doesn’t shy away from the gun. “I was going to have my men bring her here, where she’d be safe. Protected. And then I was going to wait for you to come for her.”

“And?”

“And when you arrived, desperate and furious, I would show you that only the Akopov family—only our way of doing things—could have kept her truly safe.” His voice finally begins to fray at the edges. “Proof that all your new ideas, your American wife with her corporate strategies and legal niceties, were inadequate.”

The gun trembles in my hand. Not from hesitation—from rage.

“You risked her life. Our child’s life. For a fucking lesson? An I told you so?”

“The lesson was necessary,” he insists. “You’ve been slipping away, Vincent. Abandoning what made us strong. What made you strong.”

“But you fucked up, didn’t you?” I snarl. “Maybe I’m not the one who needs lessons, Otets.”

A flash of something—not quite guilt, not quite regret, but something adjacent to both—crosses his face. “The Solovyovs weren’t part of the plan. They intercepted my men. Things went wrong.”

“‘Things went wrong,’” I echo flatly. The mere presence of those words on my tongue is repulsive beyond measure. “Do you have any idea what she went through?”

“That was unfortunate.”

“She gave birth in a filthy factory surrounded by men who wanted to use our baby as leverage. She nearly died. And all you can say is ‘unfortunate’?”

My finger tightens on the trigger.

One squeeze. That’s all it would take.

One squeeze and thirty years of Andrei Akopov’s toxic influence on my life would end. One squeeze and Rowan would be safe from his manipulations. One squeeze and I could fulfill the promise I made to myself when I found her blood on our floor.

But Rowan’s face flashes in my mind. Her voice.

Come back to us whole.

Would I be whole if I executed my own father? Would that be the kind of man who deserves her? Who deserves to raise Sofiya?

And beyond the moral question lies the practical one. My father’s death—now, under these circumstances—would trigger chaos within the Bratva. Power struggles, vendettas, blood on floors not just here but across the entire city, country, world. Precisely the kind of instability that would endanger my family further.

I lower the gun slowly.

“You miscalculated,” I tell him, my voice frigid. “For the first and last time.”

He watches me warily. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that, as of this moment, you are no longer in operational control of the Akopov organization.” I holster my weapon. “You will retain your title. Your public position. Your place at the head of the family table. But every decision, every order, every movement of men or money or resources will go through me first.”

He barks a laugh. “The council would never agree to this.”

“The council already has.”

His eyes widen fractionally. “What?”

“While you were orchestrating your little demonstration, I was securing their loyalty.” I give him a cold smile. “They know about Costa Rica. They know about the shipping contracts. They know how you’ve been systematically sabotaging our legitimate business ventures.”

“Those ventures are a mistake⁠—”

“Those ventures are the future,” I cut him off. “And the council sees that now. They understand what you refuse to get through your thick fucking head: We must adapt or die.”

He stares at me. “And if I refuse this arrangement?”

“Then I finish what I started just now.” I gesture to the spot where my gun had been pressed against his skull. “And not one man alive will mourn your passing.”

Silence yawns between us. The grandfather clock in the corner ticks away seconds that feel like hours. Outside, rain begins to fall, pattering against the windows in a gentle rhythm at odds with the tension in the room.

Finally, my father nods. Once. Curtly.

“Very well.” He reaches for his whiskey again. “I accept your terms. For now.”

“No, not ‘for now.’ Forever.” I lean in close enough to see the broken capillaries in his eyes, the bloody remnants of a lifetime of power and fear. “And understand this, Father: if you ever—ever—make a move against Rowan or Sofiya again, our blood relation won’t matter. I’ll end you without hesitation or regret.”

He studies me, searching for weakness. He finds none. “You really would kill me for them, wouldn’t you?”

“In a heartbeat.”

He looks utterly pleased with that. “You truly are my son.”

“No.” I straighten, buttoning my jacket. “I’m better than you ever were.”

I turn and walk toward the door, our business concluded.

“Vincent,” he calls after me.

I pause but don’t turn around.

“The Solovyovs won’t stop. And if Grigor Petrov discovers who your wife really is⁠—”

“I’ll handle it,” I interrupt. “All of it.”

“We could handle it together.”

At that, I do turn. I look back at him, this man who has shaped so much of who I am. Who taught me to kill, to lead, to command respect and fear in equal measure. This man who nearly got my wife and daughter killed for the sake of a lesson.

“Not anymore,” I tell him. “Those days are over.”

The rain has intensified by the time I return to my car. I sit behind the wheel for a long moment, letting the water drum against the roof, drowning out the chaos in my head.

Part of me—a large part—is disappointed. My father deserves worse than this compromise. He deserves pain for what he put Rowan through. What he put our daughter through.

But the other part—the part that’s growing stronger each day—recognizes that this is the wiser path. For now, at least.

I start the engine and head back to the safe house.

Back to my family.