Page 47 of The Bratva's Sextuplets
“I don’t want to be my father.” The words come out flat and matter-of-fact, but there’s darkness and sadness underneath. “I won’t let my wife become another casualty of the violence that built this empire.”
“What do you mean, another casualty?”
Tigran is quiet for so long that I begin to think he won’t answer. When he finally speaks, his voice is grim, and his expression suggests he’s sharing something he’s never told anyone. “My father killed my mother when I was nine years old.”
The statement makes me recoil in shock. I knew his mother was dead, but I never imagined this.
“The official story was she was caught in crossfire during a failed assassination attempt on Nicky,” he says, his voice steady despite the magnitude of what he’s revealing. “It was structured as a tragic accident where an innocent woman died because of her husband’s dangerous lifestyle.”
A lump of emotion lodges in my throat. “That wasn’t what really happened.”
“No.” He moves his hand from my face to rest on my shoulder as though anchoring himself. “She was arguing with him about expanding the drug operations into elementary schools. She said it was bad enough that teenagers were dying from overdoses, but recruiting children as young as eight to run packages crossed a line she couldn’t accept.”
My stomach turns as I imagine a mother trying to protect children she’d never meet, standing up to a man who built his power on fear and violence. She wasn’t involved in the daily business at all, so it must have taken tremendous courage to try to stand up to Nicky.
“She threatened to go to the police if he didn’t shut down the school operations immediately.” His tone is flat, as though he’s reciting something rather than remembering. “She told him she’d rather see him in prison than watch him destroy innocent lives for profit.”
I place my hand on his shoulder for meager comfort. “So he silenced her.”
He nods. “With a single bullet to the back of her head while she was packing a suitcase to leave him.” The clinical detachment in his voice doesn’t hide the pain beneath. “Then he called his Sovietnik, who was Boris Levnov then, to help stage the scene. They fired a shot through the window to break it and added evidence of a struggle that never happened.”
The brutality of it steals my breath. Not just the murder itself, but the cold calculation required to cover it up, to transform a domestic execution into a martyrdom story that would generate sympathy rather than suspicion.
There’s only one way he could know all the details. “You saw it happen.” My heart breaks for the little boy he was.
He nods once. “I was hiding in the closet of their bedroom. She’d told me to pack my favorite toys while she gathered her things.” His gaze focuses on something beyond my shoulder, lost in memories that’ve shaped every decision he’s made since. “When I heard him coming, I hid in the closet. When he entered, I didn’t cry out a warning to her. I watched him put the gun to her head and fire, all the time remaining mute. I was too frightened to cry out and warn her..
“I’m so sorry.” I want to hug him, but I don’t reach out yet. He’s still walled off. “You did what even most adults would do, Tigran. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to get in the middle of it and be killed too.”
He shakes his head. “I acted like a coward and will never do so again.”
“Could she have fought him off? Was she trained in self-defense and weapons?”
He pauses but shakes his head.
“Unlike me, your mother had no training to protect herself. A warning might have bought her seconds, but she couldn’t have saved herself, and you couldn’t have saved her.” I speak passionately, trying to breach the distance he’s imposing.
He doesn’t reply to my reassurances. Instead, he continues reciting what happened. “I watched him arrange her body to support his story, and he practiced his grief before he called for help.”
The image of a nine-year-old child witnessing his mother’s murder and father’s subsequent horrifying actions makes my chest ache with sympathy and rage. “Did he know you were there?”
“Not until years later, when I was old enough to understand the value of keeping his secret.” Tigran’s laugh is bitter and empty. “He used my silence as proof of my loyalty and my willingness to prioritize family interests over moral concerns. He didn’t realize I was too scared to speak up then.”
“You know the truth, and you did nothing of which you should be ashamed. In all these years, you never forgot what you saw. You did that for her.”
He hesitates, nodding. “I never forgot what she stood for, and what she was willing to die for.” He meets my gaze again, and I see the truth written clearly in his expression. “I swore over her grave that I’d never become him. I’d never silence a woman for having the courage to speak truth.”
The parallel between his mother and me is impossible to ignore, with both of us challenging the methods of powerful men, refusing to stay silent when it matters. The difference is that Tigran chose protection over violence when he backed me up that day in the meeting. “Is that why you listen when I argue with you? Why you don’t punish me for speaking my mind?”
“Partly.” He slides his hand down my arm to capture my fingers. “It’s mostly because I’ve learned the strongest women are the ones who refuse to be silenced unless the silencer resorts to barbarity. I need a strong woman beside me if I’m going to reshape this organization into something better.”
The conviction in his voice eases some of the anger and sadness inside me lingering after hearing what he went through. “I’m sure your mother would be proud.”
“I hope so. I want to leave something our children could inherit without shame.”
The casual reference to future children makes my pulse accelerate. “You think about the legacy we might leave behind?”
“I think about it constantly.” He brings my hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to my knuckles. “I think about raising sons who protect instead of dominate and daughters who speak up instead of being hidden away.” He looks down at me. “I never want them to know we were forced together by a contract instead of choosing each other.”
