Page 73 of Bratva Butcher

But at that moment, IwantedNikolai to see it all. To see everything I felt. The sadness. The hopelessness. The desperation. And most importantly, the love I had for him.

“We all agreed,” he whispered softly. “If only one of us can get out of this place alive, it’s Illayana.” There was no resentment in his voice. No anger or distress. Just conviction. And it made me feel ten times worse.

I could never pick between my children. I loved them all equally. I might favour Illayana a tiny bit because she was my little girl, but that didn’t mean I loved my boys any less. They wereallmy everything. Every single one of them.

But if, worst case scenario, Talon decided to make us fight each other to the death—something none of us were capable of doing—we all decided to sacrifice ourselves so that Illayana would be the last one standing.

I’d flat out refused the idea when Aleksandr first suggested it. How could I possibly let that happen? How could I just stand by and let my sons die? But none of the other solutions I’d managed to come up with would ever work.

So, the plan was simple.

Autumn had agreed to end my sons’ lives, quickly and painlessly. Then, I would killher. She wasn’t privy to thatspecific detail of the plan, though. It was something Aleksandr, Nikolai, Lukyan and I had discussed while she was asleep. In Russian, just in case she happened to wake up and overhear us. After she was dead, I would slit my own throat, leaving Illayana as the sole survivor.

It was a horrible plan for a thousand different reasons, one of which being that the idea of killing Autumn made my stomach churn. Made me feel so sick I felt like I would throw up. But I had no choice.

I could never kill my children.Never. And I already knew from experience that if I refused to fight, Talon would just kill us all anyway. So, after Autumn took care of my sons, I would take care of her so that at least one of my children would survive.

I leant forward and rested my forehead against Nikolai’s. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath in. Images flashed behind my eyes. The day he was born. His first laugh. The first time he’d called me “Dada”. Him running around the house at two years old, giggling and smiling.

“YA tebya lyublyu,” I love you,I whispered.

He stared at me, completely dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open, and it made me feel like the worst father in the world.Does he not know that I love him? More than anything?

Before he could respond, I moved away, leaving him to stare after me in complete shock. I had two more sons to talk to, and I was even more determined than ever to make sure they knew exactly how important they were to me.

“Aleksandr.”

My eldest son straightened from his stretch, standing tall with his hands behind his back, posture perfect. My little soldier. God, the guilt smothering me... I could hardly fucking breathe.

I stared at him, wondering where to even begin. There was so much to say. So much I felt he needed to hear. That hedeservedto hear.

One thing, though, stood out from all the rest.

“I’m sorry.”

He whipped back in shock, eyes wide.

I continued on like I didn’t notice. “I put a lot of pressure on you. Was tough on you. Expected more from you than anyone else. Blamed—” I sucked in a harsh breath, finding it hard to voice my next words. “Blamed you for things that weren’t your fault, and I am so sorry. You deserved better. You all did. I struggled with what happened to your mother, but that doesn’t excuse my behaviour. I never should have treated you the way I did all those years after her death.”

I remembered it vividly as if it only happened yesterday. The way I ignored him whenever I called the house to check on things. They way he would try to talk to me, and I would just shut him down. He held everything together when I left to avenge Yekaterina, and I never thanked him.

Aleksandr swallowed, visibly upset by what I was saying, as was I. But I had to keep going, no matter how much it hurt me to acknowledge what a terrible father I had been all those years.

“I treated you unfairly. Said things I regret. That I wish I could take back. I can’t change the past, but I want you to know, I couldn’t be more proud of you,moy syn, my son.”It took everything I possessed to keep my voice steady. “You’re everything I wish I was and more, and I love you with every fiber of my being.”

His whole mouth dropped open at my revelation, much like Nikolai’s had done. He spluttered, completely at a loss for words, and that was okay. I wasn’t sure I was prepared for whatever he would say, anyway.

So, I gave him a small, sad smile and moved on. I wished I was stronger than I was, but the truth of it was that I was fucking coward. Aleksandr was the type of man who would forgive me for my sins, despite the fact that I didn’t remotely deserve it.He would do it because family meant everything to him, and he constantly put those he loved before himself.

Lukyan looked at me when I approached, pausing in his movements of sparring with an invisible opponent. “Don’t worry, Father,” he said, coming to a stand. “I know the plan. I won’t let you down.” His face was a mask of complete and utter seriousness, absolutely no sign of the jokester personality he possessed.

It was a side of him that rarely made an appearance. My youngest son was carefree by nature. He liked to laugh. Make other people laugh. Crack jokes during awkward and inappropriate times. He always saw the best out of bad situations and never let anything drag him down. He was wholly himself, every second of every day, and he didn’t give a fuck if people didn’t like it.

The truth of it was… I admired him. He was everything I was not.

He deserved to know that.

“You know, I always wished I was more like you.”

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