Page 98 of Obsessive Vows

"Nothing critical." Her dismissal of evident injuries speaks to her courage. "We need to move. Markov initiated the facility self-destruct sequence when your breach was detected. I think we only have nine minutes before complete structural collapse."

The information triggers immediate action, the strike team already moving with renewed urgency toward the extraction corridor as Anastasia dashes behind them.

For one moment—brief yet eternal—our eyes lock across the chaotic space between us. No words necessary, no touch possible, yet connection surges with intensity that transcends physical contact or verbal confirmation. I see in her eyes the same fierce determination burning in my chest: to end this, to protect Sofia, to forge future beyond Bratva violence and generational bloodshed.

"Strike teams to sublevel four," I command, voice steady despite the hurricane of emotions raging within me. "Breach the security door. Blow it up. Start the cover formation delta for our primary approach."

We move together through the burning facility, descending deeper into Markov's domain. Ours is a partnership beyond an arranged engagement or alliance. Two people united by something more powerful than vengeance or justice.

United by Sofia. By a future beyond Bratva politics or criminal empires or generations of violence in pursuit of power, influence, money.

The final security door appears through the smoke-filled corridor, a massive, reinforced barrier. Markov's last line of defense.

"Ready?" I ask, though the question carries weight beyond a confirmation of movement.

Anastasia nods, determination hardening her features as she checks the weapon acquired during her escape. "Family matters, after all."

The words—echo of Bratva philosophy perverted through generations of violence—reclaimed now for a purpose beyond criminal empire or organizational loyalty. For something worth fighting for beyond vengeance or justice or advantage.

For our daughter. For our future. For the family we've become against all odds.

For what we've built together in the ruins of what Mikhail Markov destroyed.

27

ANASTASIA

The secure room's sterile light casts harsh shadows across my father's face, highlighting the angles of the man I've feared and obeyed my entire life. Blood pounds in my ears as I stand before him, weapon steady in my grip despite the tremors threatening my composure. He looks smaller somehow—not the towering figure of my childhood nightmares but just a man. A dangerous, calculating man who's built an empire on blood and terror, but still just flesh and bone.

"Did you really think I wouldn't know?" he asks, voice surprisingly gentle as he watches me. His eyes—so like my own—flick briefly to the door where Viktor waits, then back to me. "My own daughter plotting against me? After everything I've built for you?"

"Everything you've built on top of others," I reply, keeping my voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through my system. My finger hovers near the trigger, not quite touching. Not yet. "The Baranov family. The Sokolovs. My mother."

His expression flickers at the mention of my mother—the only genuine reaction I've seen from him in years. Something raw and almost human crosses his face before the mask slides back into place.

"Your mother was weak." His voice softens with what in another man might be regret. "She would have turned you soft, made you vulnerable. Everything I did was to make you strong, Nastya. To prepare you for this world. To prepare you to continue our legacy. Your birthright through blood."

The use of my childhood nickname lands like a physical blow. I haven't really been "Nastya" to him since I was twelve—since the day he first made me watch an execution to "understand the family business."

"You mean to control me," I counter, memories flashing of birthday parties interrupted by business calls, of ballet recitals attended by bodyguards, of a childhood spent learning the price of disobedience. "To shape me into the perfect asset."

"To protect you!" Real emotion breaks through his mask now, anger mixed with something that might almost be hurt. He stands abruptly, hands splayed on the desk between us. "Do you think I enjoyed the methods? The necessary lessons? This world devours the weak, Anastasia. I made you a predator instead of prey."

The argument is familiar—the justification he's used to explain every cruelty, every manipulation, every moment of terror he's inflicted. For years, I half-believed it myself. The necessary education of a Bratva princess.

"Is that what you told yourself when you murdered Viktor's family?" I ask, voice steadier than I feel as the facility trembles around us, destruction sequence continuing its countdown. "That it was necessary? That wiping out his siblings was just business?"

His eyes flick to the door where Viktor waits, coldness replacing momentary vulnerability. "The Baranovs made their choice when they challenged Markov authority. Their bloodline was a threat to ours. To you."

I feel Viktor's presence stepping closer to me without turning. The energy in the room shifts immediately, tension crackling like electricity before a storm.

"She was eighteen," Viktor's voice cuts through the room, controlled rage beneath professional detachment. "My sister. Still in school. Planning university applications the day you put a bullet in her head."

My father's expression doesn't change, but I see the calculation behind his eyes—the assessment that defined his decades of power now working against impossible parameters.

"War has casualties," he says simply, as if discussing business over dinner. "The children of enemies become enemies themselves. You proved that quite effectively, didn't you, Viktor Baranov?"

The world seems to slow as understanding crystallizes in my mind—my father shaped me through terror while claiming protection, eliminated rivals while claiming necessity, destroyed families while claiming strength. A lifetime of justifications for simple, brutal truth: he did it for power. Nothing more.

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