Chapter 12: Filthy Lies: Chapter 12

Rowan is feeding Sofiya when I return, propped against pillows in our bed, looking exhausted but radiant. She glances up as I enter. Her eyes are immediately searching my face, my clothes, my hands for signs of what happened.

“You didn’t kill him,” she concludes after a moment.

“No.” I remove my jacket and holster, setting them aside. “I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

I sit on the edge of the bed to watch our daughter nurse. Her tiny fist rests against Rowan’s breast, milk-drunk and at ease. “Because the man you believe I can be wouldn’t do that,” I answer honestly. “And because his death right now would create more problems than it solves.”

I explain the arrangement I’ve made with my father. How he’ll retain his symbolic position while I take control of operations. How the council has backed my play. How this uneasy détente gives us breathing room while maintaining the stability of the organization.

With each word, Rowan’s expression grows more troubled.

“So he just gets away with it?” she finally asks, voice trembling with constrained fury. “After what he did to us?”

“No. He doesn’t get away with anything.” I reach out to stroke Sofiya’s pillow-soft head. “He loses the one thing he truly values: power. And he lives knowing that his next misstep will be his last.”

“He orchestrated my kidnapping, Vince.” She swallows hard. “While I was in labor. He put our daughter at risk before she even took her first breath.”

“I know.” The rage I’ve been suppressing threatens to surface again. “And believe me, Rowan, I wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in his head. To make him suffer for what he did to you both.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

I consider my answer carefully. “Because that would have been the easy choice. The expected choice. What my father would have done in my position.” I meet her eyes. “And because you’ve shown me there can be another way.”

Sofiya detaches from Rowan’s breast with a small sound. Rowan automatically lifts her to her shoulder, patting her back gently to burp her.

“I’m not asking you to forgive him,” I continue. “I haven’t. I won’t. Fuck knows I’ll never do that. But this arrangement protects us from the chaos his death would trigger right now. It gives us time to strengthen our position, to secure our territory, to fully prepare for what comes next.”

She’s silent for a long moment. “And what is next, Vince?” she finally asks. “Where does this lead?”

“To a day when we don’t have to look over our shoulders anymore.” I reach for her hand. “When Sofiya doesn’t need a security detail to go to the playground. When we can build something that isn’t founded on blood and fear.”

Rowan sighs and her chin droops to her chest. “I want to hate this compromise, you know.”

“I know.”

“But I understand why you made it.” She squeezes my hand. “I don’t like it. But I understand it.”

I nod, looking down at Sofiya’s face. She yawns, tiny pink lips forming a perfect O. My chest inflates with a feeling I still don’t have a name for—this mixture of love and terror that threatens to overwhelm me every time I look at her.

“I’m trying to be worthy of you both,” I whisper. “I swear to fucking God, I’m trying.”

Rowan places Sofiya in her bassinet, then crawls into my lap. She takes my face between her palms. “You did the right thing.”

I close my eyes and savor her smell—milk and blood and life.

I want to believe in what she’s saying.

But she’s wrong.

The right thing would’ve been slitting my father’s throat. Watching him drown in his own blood. Taking what’s mine by force, not compromise.

And that’s the fucking problem.

I’ll always be torn between the monster they created and the man I want to be.

For now, this fragile peace buys us time.

But blood always demands more blood.

Always.