Page 136 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

“You forfeit?” he asks slowly. “After everything you’ve gone through?”

“I’m done with this fight. I’d rather lose my Bratva than my soul.”

Ilyasov hesitates for a moment and then laughs, throwing his head back. “Good God, the dramatics! Since the moment you stepped into my office, you’ve been insufferably philosophical. You’ve done worse things than this, brother. We both have. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”

He isn’t wrong. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I haven’t been for a long time. Not since I met Arya.

“People change, brother.”

“So what now?” Ilyasov asks. “You forfeit and I trust that you mean it? I let you walk away and expect that you will hand over the Bratva to me?”

“You don’t need to trust me. I won’t be around to trust.”

He raises a brow. “You’re planning to give this all up for Arya, then?”

Vera shakes her head. “They broke up. She left him. I heard him admit it.”

Ilyasov’s mouth opens, and he looks truly amused now. “Oh my God. This is all over a broken heart? This is what a sad Dima is capable of—throwing away his Bratva and running off because his poor little whore won’t suck his cock anymore. Holy shit. This is good. Well, you’ve made my job easy.”

“It’s all yours, Ilyasov,” I say. “Everything you’ve ever wanted.”

“You’re more right than you know, Dima,” he croons. He glances down at Vera, who’s gone quiet with her face buried in his shirt. “I have my sons. I have my birthright. I have my arrogant brother groveling at my feet. I just have to tie up a few loose ends and then a decade of planning will finally be at its end.”

I stand proud. “Pull the trigger then, Ilyasov,” I sigh. “You win.”

He nods slowly, sagely. Like he understands something I don’t.

Everything that happens next happens so goddamn fast.

Ilyasov rips Vera’s hands off his shoulders and gives her a hard shove. She cries out in shock and stumbles backwards. Whirling, he takes the gun away from my face, points it at her head, and pulls the trigger.

There’s a bang.

And I swear that for a single moment, she’s still looking at me. Eyes hazy and confused.

Then she drops.

“Fuck!” I jump back, back pressed against the door. “What the hell, Ilyasov?”

My brother just smiles at me, no sign of the atrocity he just committed on his face. “Like I said, just a few loose ends to handle.”

“She was your wife, for fuck’s sake!” I roar.

“She was a means to an end,” he snaps in the coldest tone I’ve ever heard from another human being in my whole goddamn life. “She served her purpose. And now her purpose is complete. It’s a nice thing I just gave her. Closure, you know? A neat ending.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I say. I’m flaming with anger and shock and a million other emotions I can’t name.

Mostly, though, I’m staring into my brother’s eyes and wondering when he became this monster—or if he’s been this way all along, and I’m only just now noticing.

Ilyasov stalks closer. The gun is loose in his fingers, casual and nonchalant. “Ten years ago, we committed a horrible crime,sobrat.We both did it. We both have the blood on our hands. But we took different lessons from that night. It weakened you, yet it strengthened me. I saw what had to be done to take the throne. To run an empire. I’ve never forgotten that lesson. You, on the other hand, have forgotten everything our father taught us. You don’t deserve what you have. So now I’m here to take it all from you. Your empire is mine now. Your home is mine now. And who knows? Maybe, when my men find your backstabbing little whore, I’ll make her mine, too.” He grins, and it’s the most sickening shit I’ve ever seen.

One thing is clear now: the boy I knew is gone.

The brother I loved is dead.

There’s just a walking nightmare in his place.

When I stepped into this room, I did it knowing full well that I’d probably never step out. But the math has changed on that now. Vera was far from innocent, but she deserved a better ending than what she got.

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