Page 134 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

“No,” I say flatly. “No, I refuse. Fuck that.”

Gennady stands silently in place and watches me melt down.

“I can’t go back, Gennady. Not after what he’s done. Not after what he’s shown he’s willing to do.”

“He’s trying to make things right, Arya.”

“How is he going to do that?”

He takes a big breath and then finally delivers the line he’s clearly been waiting to say since he first appeared here. “He’s going to give it all up.”

I freeze. I can’t possibly have heard him right. “What?”

“Everything,” Gennady explains. “The Bratva, the city, his legacy. His life, if necessary. He’s going to give it all up, rather than cross the line in the sand he swore to you—and to me—that he’d never cross.”

“You’re lying,” I accuse.

But one look in his eye says he’s telling the whole-hearted truth.

“Ilyasov will kill him.”

Gennady nods. “Probably. That’s usually how these kinds of things work.”

I look down at Lukas in my arms. My son looks back up at me with his father’s fire in his eyes. That smolder that’s so uniquely Dima is right there. We made him. We made this little slice of perfect. It was an accident and maybe it was a mistake, but Lukas is perfect and I will never, ever regret the things that delivered him to me.

I’ve said it since the beginning: I’m all he has now.

But I’m wrong about that. He still has Dima—for the time being, at least. And I owe it to my son to keep Dima in his life for as long as possible.

I glance over Gennady’s shoulder to my mother’s gravestone. I didn’t have her. Even before she died, the drugs took her away from me in all the ways that mattered. I never had a chance at a happy ending.

But Lukas did. Lukas does.

So for his sake—for my son’s sake—I’ll go stop his father from walking into a suicide trap.

“We have to go stop him, Gennady,” I whisper.

He nods. “Glad you agree. I’ll drive.”

49

Dima

I drive back to the mansion. Vera is in the backseat, still bound at the wrists and too weak to fight, so I’m not worried about her attacking me and running us off the road.

I’m distracted enough that I might do that even without her help. My mind is fucking racing. With guilt. With memory. With anger. With the acceptance that the decision I’ve made might mean the end of my life.

I quit.I roll the words around in my head again and again.

I never thought I’d say them. Especially not to my brother, and especially not at a time like this.

But it’s the only option left. The only honorable way forward. I’ve made so many fucking mistakes in the last days and weeks and months. If quitting can erase even one percent of them, I owe it to everyone in my life to do that.

As soon as we get back to the mansion, I’m going to call Ilyasov. I’ll hand Vera back over to him and I’ll concede. If he kills me, so be it. It just means my time has come.

A few minutes later, we pull up in the courtyard. “We’re here,” I say quietly.

Vera seethes and says nothing as I let her out of the car. She walks behind me, proud and haughty, as I go up the stairs and reach out to grab the handle.

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