Page 183 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)
Before Viktor can react, Josiah is on him, wailing and screaming and grabbing for Ozol’s gun.
“No!” I bellow. If Ozol fires…
I try to lunge towards them. To grab my son away, to knock the gun out of Viktor’s hands—anything I can do to protect my boys. But my body is too broken from the days of torture. I make it only one step before my leg collapses beneath me and I fall towards the grimy stone floor.
I can only watch helplessly as Viktor and Josiah struggle back and forth, back and forth…
And then a gunshot goes off.
Elyssa screams. I roar. Josiah and Viktor both emit banshee cries of their own…
And then Josiah slumps to his knees with blood gushing from his stomach.
Elyssa moves before I can. She leaps forward, withdrawing a knife from her belt, and plunges it into Ozol’s neck. It catches him by surprise. The gun falls clattering from his hand. It skitters across the floor right into my reach.
I grab it, aim, and fire—and the guard holding Theo grunts as he falls to the ground.
Silence resumes, punctuated only by the drip of blood hitting concrete. I force myself to my feet. Every inch of me is in bleeding, broken agony. But I don’t care. This is what matters.
Elyssa has scurried over to Theo and scooped him up in her arms, crying and clutching him close. Yuri is standing still, shell-shocked and immobile.
I want to go to him.
But I need to make sure the devil is dead first.
So I limp over to Ozol. He’s still twitching, one hand clapped over the knife in his neck. But those pale eyes are fading to nothingness.
“Rest in hell, motherfucker,” I whisper.
Then I turn my back on him forever.
Next to him, Josiah is still sputtering. There’s no hope for him to survive the wound. But he redeemed himself at the end—as much as it’s possible for a man like him to ever be redeemed.
I may never know what changed his heart. I suppose it doesn’t matter. We’re all a little good and a little evil. It’s what we choose in the ultimate moments that defines who we are. Josiah chose right.
As I watch, he takes one more shuddering breath and then stills. I close his eyelids.
Then, with that business done, I go to Yuri and kneel in front of him with a pained wince. “Yuri, my son…” I murmur.
He looks at me like this is all some dream. Five years of nightmares and this is how it ends? I’d have a hard time believing it, too.
So I tell him the simplest truth possible: “I’m here. We’re here. I never stopped searching.”
A long silence stretches out. The most painful silence of my life. Is he too broken to be saved? Am I? Is there hope?
And then he says the one word I’ve been waiting five long years to hear. “Papa?”
I wrap him in my arms and hold my son close. My heart hurts, but by God, it is so full.
Elyssa meets my gaze over Yuri’s head. Theo reaches out to touch her chin as she gives me a shaky smile.
I nod. We have a long road to walk towards healing, all of us. But that’s okay—we’ll do it together.
Epilogue: Phoenix
Six Months Later—Outside Of Wild Night Blossom
I find Matvei skulking in the shadows, smoking a cigarette.
