Page 22 of Inevitable Endings
The deal was simple: I let him reign over his own small kingdom, a sliver of Russia’s underworld, insignificant in the grand scheme but enough to keep him satisfied. A few key cities, a network of traffickers, gunrunners, and enforcers that operated under the Bratva’s larger shadow. He got to rule, to play the part of a king in his own domain, as long as he understood one thing; he answered tome.
For years, the arrangement worked.
Petrov was a businessman as much as he was a killer. He had ambition, but he was smart enough to know where the lines were drawn. He built his empire within the cracks of mine, expandingjust enough to thrive but never enough to provoke. He paid his dues. He kept the Bratva’s shipments moving through his territories without question. He cleaned up his messes before they ever became my problem.
And when men like him got ideas, when they thought they could take a little more, stretch their reach just beyond what was allowed, I reminded them of the balance.
One night, I had met him in a quiet warehouse outside Yekaterinburg. No guards, no weapons between us. Just a conversation. A warning.
‘‘You’re good at what you do, Petrov,’’ I had told him. ‘‘But don’t mistake my patience for weakness. Step beyond your station, and I’ll bury you myself.’’
He had laughed, that sharp, wolfish grin of his flashing in the dim light. ‘‘I’d expect nothing less from you, Aslanov. You’re just like your father.’’
I hated that sentence. Hated the way it settled into my bones, the way it felt like a ghost rising from the past to haunt me.
Petrov meant it as a compliment, or maybe a provocation, something to test my reaction, to see if I would bristle, if I would lash out. But I gave him nothing. No flicker of emotion, no sign that his words had reached deeper than the surface.
Because I didn’t want to be like my father.
He was a legend in the underworld, a man who built an empire from nothing and ruled it with bloodstained hands. Brutal, ruthless, cunning, everything a leader needed to be. But he was also cruel in ways that went beyond necessity. He had no loyalty, no restraint. He broke men for sport, crushed families for the smallest perceived slight. His hunger for power was insatiable, his paranoia endless.
He broke me, my mother and my sister.
Petrov had served under him, long before I took the throne. Their agreement had been forged in blood and mutualconvenience, an uneasy truce between two predators. My father let Petrov exist because he was useful, and Petrov, for all his pride, had accepted the arrangement because he knew my father. He knew that if he ever reached too far, if he ever became more trouble than he was worth, he wouldn’t be given a second chance.
I had always wondered how many times Petrov had thought about eliminating him. How many times he had weighed the risks, measured the odds.
But my father had died before that could ever happen.
And I let him choke on his own blood.
Now, here we are.
Two men, stripped of their power, reduced to knocking on walls like caged animals.
I tap another message.Why are you here?
The response takes longer this time.
Petrov is thinking. Weighing his words.
Finally, the answer comes.Same as you, he wants my part of Russia too.
Petrov wasn’t taken because he was weak. He was taken because he refused Nick something. Which means, for all his brutality, he still has some lines he won’t cross.
That makes him valuable.
I lean my head against the wall, my fingers pressing into the cold concrete.
Piece by piece, tap by tap, we shape the beginnings of a plan.
Chapter 13
Mirrors of Darkness
Isabella
The night wraps around me like a damp, heavy blanket, the air thick with the earthy scent of rain yet to fall, mingling with the faintest trace of gasoline. It’s the kind of night where everything feels soaked, not just the pavement, but the very atmosphere itself, as if the world is holding its breath. The streets are slick, gleaming under the pale, flickering glow of streetlamps that struggle to pierce the inky darkness. The sky overhead is an unbroken sheet of deep indigo, heavy clouds hanging low, threatening but not quite delivering the storm.
