Page 11 of Ivory Oath

We both know he’s right.

Alyona was an exception I allowed myself. The rest of my life would belong to the Bratva, but I carved out a sliver of normalcy with them and pretended I could keep it secret, untarnished, untouched.

“First, it was Alyona. Then, Viviana.”

“Viviana was strong enough,” I spit. “She was strong enough to kill a future pakhan.”

He continues on like I haven’t said anything. “I could see Viviana was becoming a distraction. It’s why I came to you with that evidence. With the tape of Viviana walking out of?—”

“I know what was on the fucking tape, Otets.”

The footage has replayed over and over again in my head since the moment I watched it. I close my eyes and see Viviana smiling nervously on Trofim’s front stoop. He pushed the door open for her and she slipped inside. The next clip showed her walking out through the same door, her hands now covered in blood.

“I needed you to see that she was your last weakness. The Bratva needed you to be able to get rid of her so you could focus on what is important,” he implores. “Because Trofim will come back some day and you need to be ready to defend against his attack. You can’t do that with his ex-fiancée on your arm and a bastard as your heir. You need to be focused on fortifying your position.”

I can physically feel my mind buffering. I blink at my father as his words sink in and register.

“Trofim is—He can’t come back.” I grab the front of my father’s shirt, holding onto him as much as I am holding myself up. “He’s dead.”

I watch realization dawn on my father’s face. His eyes go wide as he understands what he said.

What he revealed.

“Viviana stabbed him,” he says, nodding too aggressively. “I showed you the video. You saw it.”

“And she killed him. That’s what you told me. Trofim is dead.”

He regretfully meets my eyes, a weary sigh loosing from his chest. “Not… exactly.”

I throw him back against the wall hard enough that he bounces. “You told me he was dead. A coroner told me he was dead! He is dead.”

He shakes his head. “He would be… if Viviana had been able to stomach the job. But she couldn’t finish it. She stabbed him and ran. Twenty seconds after the tape I gave you cut off, Trofim came stumbling out with his hand over a wound on his stomach. He called a doctor and?—”

“You lied to me!” I roar, driving him back into the wall. A frame rattles free of its nail; the glass shatters on the floor. “You manipulated me to get what you wanted.”

“I was the only one who told you the truth,” he fires back. “Viviana was a distraction and I was the only one who could see it. I had to make the hard call, the same way I did when I ended the war with the Colombians.”

“That wasn’t a hard call. The cartel murdered my family—an innocent woman, an innocent baby. You had to retaliate.”

He nods slowly. “I did. All of our allies were outraged. Almost like someone masterminded the whole thing to drum up sympathy and rally our allies behind the cause.”

Suddenly, I’m back in that bullet-riddled house. I can smell gunpowder everywhere. I see the trail of blood leading from the panic room to the bodies of my wife and child.

“You… you let them die,” I breathe, still not really believing it. “You left Alyona and Anzhelina vulnerable on purpose.”

I expect him to deny it. But my father points to the pakhan’s signet ring on my finger. “The reason you are wearing that today and Trofim isn’t is because I removed the obstacles in your way. I helped you become the ruthless leader you needed to be. You wouldn’t be here if you were trying to balance being pakhan with being a husband. You can’t be both—not the way you wanted to do it. You can only be loyal to one. You have to choose.”

I let go of his shirt and step away. Everything I thought I knew is shifting around me. The foundations of my life are collapsing like wet clay.

Every day since Alyona and Anzhelina were murdered, I’ve blamed myself. I thought I should have done more to protect them. I felt naive for believing the Colombians wouldn’t target them.

Now, I know the truth. The Colombians wouldn’t have targeted them…

Unless my father put a bullseye on their backs.

And I could have done everything to protect them and it still may not have been enough—not if my father was going to bring the full might of the Bratva down on them. He orchestrated the single worst moment of my entire life… and now, he’s telling me it was for my own good.

My father reads my shock as a good thing and moves closer. He dips his chin to meet my eyes. “Mikhail the family man never would have survived this world. You would have died years ago trying to save your wife and child. But the man in front of me? This Mikhail?” He gestures to me with both hands like I’m the final prize in a game show. “You kicked your child’s mother to the curb because she lied to you. You put the Bratva over everything. And because of that, I know you’ll survive.”

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