Page 149 of Bratva Butcher

“Tikhiy!”Quiet!I yelled at him, and he snapped his mouth shut, his jaw clenching.

Yekaterina stepped closer to me, the look on her face begging me to see reason.“Don’t ruin your chance at happiness, Dima. Don’t do this. Please. I’m begging you.”

I ignored her and embraced the guilt smothering me. That horrible feeling swam inside me, drowning me. I let it fill me because I deserved it. I deserved to feel it, no matter how much it hurt.

A coldness settled over me. “Everything that happened between us was amistake. A big, fat, giant fucking mistake that I regret more than anything else in my life.”

“Stop! Stop now!”Yekaterina pleaded.

I won’t. I can’t.

“My heart does, and always will belong to Yekaterina.My wife.Not some random woman who doesn’t even know what it means to love someone.”

Autumn stared at me, what looked like tears welling in her eyes. Yekaterina’s shoulder’s dropped, her head hanging forward. Then she disappeared, her image swirling away as fast as it had arrived.

A different kind of guilt started worming its way into my heart at the sight of Autumn. That look of hurt in her eyes. The light she’d had when I’d first met her was…gone. Bit by bit, sheseemed to shut down in front of me, and I hated it. I hated that I was the cause of it.

I hated myself.

“I see,” she said, voice devoid of emotion. She cleared her throat and stood taller. “I guess we have nothing else to talk about, then.” She went to walk away and then hesitated. “Oh, by the way, I didn’t come here for some midday booty call. I came here to tell you that the man who hired me to kill Dominik made a mistake. Dominik was never the intended target.Youwere.”

What?

She flicked the folder in her hands and it landed at my feet. The wind blew a page open, and I looked down to see a picture of me.

“That man’s name was Sergei Volkov,” she finished.

My father hired her to kill me?

And instead of doing it, she’d told me. Warned me.

My eyes moved back to her, but she was already walking back down the driveway. Every part of mescreamedto go after her. To apologise. To explain the guilt consuming me made me say all of those horrible things, but I couldn’t move. I just stared after her, one hundred percent sure that my heart was leaving with her.

Lukyan shuffled his feet behind me. “Father, I—”

My brain exploded with fury. I spun so quickly that he gasped as I shoved him up against the wall with a forearm at his throat. “This is allyourfault,” I snarled in his face.

Lukyan choked, eyes wide open with fear. He struggled against me, but I kept him pinned. “I-I—”

“Why do you have to sayevery stupid thingthat pops into your fucking head?” I sneered, applying more pressure.

He wheezed, scratching at my arm and kicking his feet. The fear in his eyes, I’d never seen it before—not from any of my children, and it made me feel worse. It wastruefear. As if he wasafraid I was going to kill him. My stomach churned at the sight. It all piled onto the horrible emotions already taking over me, and yet, I couldn’t stop.

“Why couldn’t you for once—just for once—keep your goddamn mouth shut? Why?Why?!” I roared, shaking him.

“Father. Enough,” Aleksandr demanded.

I didn’t listen. I kept shaking him and shaking him, over and over again. “Why, Lukyan?! Why?! Why?!—”

“I saidenough!” A hard body rammed into me from the side, and then all of a sudden, it wasmebeing held up against the wall, Aleksandr’s hands clutched around the lapels of my suit jacket. Protectiveness shone in his eyes. “This isn’t Lukyan’s fault. It’syours!” he snarled at me. “Yousaid those words. Not me. Not Lukyan.You!Youdid this. You cut that woman down. Insulted her. Made her feel worthless. All because you’re too much of a goddamn coward to admit what we all already know!” Disgust washed over his face.

I froze, unable to move. He was right. Oh, God, he was right. What had I done? Shame engulfed me, taking over my limbs one by one. I slid down the wall, almost collapsing on the floor as if my legs could no longer hold me up. The only thing keeping me from falling was the fact that Aleksandr was pinning me to the spot.

“Aleksandr.” Drea was standing in the foyer, her face soft and voice calming. She reached a hand out to him.

There was a brief moment of hesitation before my son shoved away from me and retreated back to stand next to his wife. I fell, landing harshly on my ass. I didn’t even have the strength to stop myself.

“I told you not to do this. I warned you not to throw away your chance at happiness, but you did it anyway,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “If you want someone to blame, Father, look in the fucking mirror.” He moved and helped Lukyan to his feet.Lukyan massaged his throat, that fear still blazing in his eyes. He looked at me like I was some sort of wild animal, about to strike. I recognised the look. It was the way I used to look at my own father.

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