Page 24 of Reign of Four

“Enough, Valenti—” My grandmother suddenly wheezes, her eyes bulging from their sockets. Her mouth opens and closes mutely, while we wait for her to finish her sentence.

An unexpected rush of fear freezes me in place. “Grandma? What’s wrong?”

Her bony fingers scratch at her throat as her face continues to darken, shifting from red to damn near purple. She stands, knocking her chair to the ground, and takes shallow, rattling breaths. Her eyes drift from me to Liam, her expression shifting from panicked surprise to rage in a heartbeat.

The man is smirking at her.

“I chose this wine especially for you, Katya, as a thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” He taps the edge of his glass. “I know how much you love a vintage red. Has a bitter note at the end, doesn’t it?” He swirls his glass, but puts it down without taking a sip. “It’s like you said, zhena. We Dolohovs have a fondness for testing our product, and we’ve been working on some of our most potent batches for years. This one, I’m particularly fond of.”

I unwrap my hand from my own wine glass and swallow on instinct.

Liam rubs my thigh under the table. “Not to worry, love, she’s been given a special bottle for the evening. It won’t spoil your appetite.”

My grandmother continues to cough, a dry, harsh sound that sends goosebumps down my arms and winds knots of dread in my stomach. No one at the table says anything. None of the guards move a muscle, either—not even as my grandmother slams her fists on the table, knocking her wine glass over. The chosen vintage sloshes towards me, bleeding into the white satin tablecloth. It spreads quickly, a burgundy stain that matches the color painted across my lips.

Liam’s favorite.

Katya Dolohov-Baranova sways. Time slows to a crawl as her eyes meet mine, and for the briefest moment, all the animosity between us fades away. I see the woman who helped raise me, who sheltered me five years ago when I ran out of that chapel with a broken heart, who helped me get back up on my feet again.

For that one, small moment, my heart breaks.

She takes a final breath, and with it, she claims what little love remains between us. It’s as bitter as the poisoned wine spreading across the tablecloth towards me, tainted and harsh and cruel.

When her body slumps onto the table, all that’s left in the hollow silence is a vow between witness and sinner.

A vow of silence. A vow of loyalty.

Liam squeezes my thigh tenderly, reminding me of one other promise now sealed in blood.

A vow of love.

Chapter 9

Andrei

What most people don’t know about me is that I never once woke up one morning and decided to become pakhan. As a child whose parents went missing before the age of five, the idea of planning for anything other than tomorrow was completely foreign to me.

Become a leader of one of the most notorious mafia families in the country?

It was never something I set out to do.

Some would say that it makes me complacent. If I never fought for the position, do I truly care about the duties it holds or the people it protects? But the other piece that most people don’t know, is that everything changed the moment I met Valentina Baranova.

She was innocent. One hundred percent pure of heart and mind, like freshly fallen powder snow blanketing the city at sunrise. Pristine and shimmering and full of light. Something I’d never seen before—something so beautiful that it was meant to be treasured.

For a while, I was convinced that Valentina was put in my path to give me a purpose. I’d done well for myself since officially joining the Bratva—Ezra and I were making a name for ourselves with each new task we conquered—but everything was fragmented. Run these drugs for a hot meal tonight. Stake out this office and report back so that you earn your bed for the week. Nothing mattered besides the day-to-day living, and Ezra and I were good at living by the hour.

But when I saw Valentina, a pretty girl in a delicate pink dress hugging the pakhan right before my very eyes, I knew not only that I had to have her, but that if I could charm Tolkotsky well enough, he would give her to me.

I was proven right when he made the offer to give me the Bratva and a bride if I continued to impress.

But the jobs required to climb the ladder to the top became dirtier the higher Ezra and I climbed. Drug running turned into retaliation. Stake outs turned into assassinations. Money pick ups turned into laundering schemes.

If I continued down the path as written, when I’d finally become pakhan and embrace Valentina, I’d ruin her in the same way the Bratva ruined me. So I decided to change the organization from within, one piece at a time. That way, when I held my darling wife, I wouldn’t drip blood on her shiny white shoes or stain her powdered nose.

As I stare at the poisoned wine spreading across the tablecloth towards Valentina, I imagine her soul looking much the same. Satin white, with patches of deep crimson bleeding through, tainting her just like the rest of us. It’s hard to say when her innocence was first ruined, but in the end, the timeline doesn’t matter.

Now I can hold my wife without fear of damaging her innocence. If she’s just as stained as the rest of us, then I will make her shine as brightly at midnight as she did at dawn.

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