Possibly by his own hand.
“When I see you,” the man whispered, “I see death.”
Pavel stilled in place. “Why?”
“Doesn’t death always offer a kind hand before he pulls you to the other side?” Swallowing hard, the man said, his voice tired and raspy, “Your kindness only hides what you’re here to do. You will use that same kind hand that you use to feed me and help me, to kill me someday, won’t you?”
“I—”
“You are the Zhatka—the Reaper.”
Pavel hadn’t realized it, then, but conversations always traveled in the chambers. This man hadn’t been the only one to hear that nickname. He wouldn’t be the last one to use it, either.
It was not a name Pavel wanted.
Not one he needed.
And yet, as the days melted into months, and then into years … he found being Zhatka in the chambers was easier than being Pavel. He even started to forget who Pavel was.
1.
Present day …
“YOU CANNOT stay here forever, Viktoria.”
Truer words had never been spoken. Of that, Viktoria was most sure. Not that she needed to tell her father that—she was sure the man already knew, like he always did.
That was the thing about Vadim Boykov … he was far too intuitive for his own good. He simply needed to look at her, the same way he had done time and time again during her life, to know she was struggling in her mind and heart. On the outside, she appeared cold and calm. Nothing new for her. Inside, she was a ball of blackening human, dying and disappearing.
Vadim only needed to look at her to know.
She wished, often, that wasn’t the case.
“Are you pretending to be deaf now?” her father asked. “I’ve spent twenty-four years helping to raise you, I know you can hear me.”
She sighed, and glanced away from the window overlooking the private property, which was surrounded by a rather large stone fence. Despite being Russian, she wasn’t fond of the Russian countryside. Perhaps because she much preferred the cement and noise of a city. There, it was always cold and distant.
A lot like her.
Here, the countryside was none of those things.
She couldn’t connect.
Vadim arched a brow at the same time she did, when their eyes met. That was probably the only thing that she took from her father—her expressions and her ability to seem indifferent to everything and everyone. Even if she was anything but …
Everything else, she’d taken from her dead mother. From her platinum blonde hair, to the ice blue of her gaze. Her angular features, soft lips, and wide eyes all came from her mom, too. She wished she remembered the woman better, but she’d been a bit young when her mother passed. All she was left with were the stories her brothers shared, and the occasional memory her father liked to tell when he was a little too drunk and free with his tongue.
Vadim, on the other hand, looked nothing like Viktoria. He was as big as a barrel in his chest, his face mean and weathered with age. Thin lips and a strong jaw that set off his roughened features.
The two of them didn’t look alike at all, but they were more similar than she cared to admit.
“I know I can’t stay here forever,” she said.
Vadim smiled a bit, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. To be fair, the man rarely smiled, anyway, and when he did … something bad was sure to follow. No one was exempt from that rule, not even his children. He had never hurt her. She wasn’t stupid enough to think that he wasn’t capable, though.
“Then, why are you still here?” Vadim asked, coming over to take a seat on the bench near the window with her. “You don’t even like Russia, girl.”
When she opened her mouth to lie and deny his statement, Vadim grinned and chuckled.
“Don’t bother with lies, yes? I know how you feel about the country.”
Of course, he did.
She wasn’t quite sure what he wanted her to say, though. The truth about why she hadn’t gone back to Chicago, where her brothers were waiting and reorganizing the Bratva that had once belonged to her father, was not as simple or as clean-cut as Vadim would like it to be. Or maybe it was Viktoria who didn’t think her answer was easy to understand.
After all, it was wrapped up in her father.
Vadim had been exiled to Russia—for good reason—by her older brother, Konstantin, after he’d taken over the Bratva. And while, sure, Viktoria had her brothers and a handful of friends in Chicago, it didn’t feel the same without her father.
Viktoria was the favorite.
The favored.
And still, she knew her father lied and hurt those she cared about, herself included. She was still struggling to connect the man who she knew had done terrible things to her brothers and the man she adored.
Because that was the thing about daughters and their fathers, wasn’t it?
Daughters adored their dads. Daughters saw their fathers as kings on unmovable thrones; as men above other men; as Gods among mortals. They put their fathers on a pedestal, and when they crashed down, it was always the daughters breaking the fall at the bottom.
Or rather, their misguided hearts and beliefs.
Squashed and shattered.
She was not exempt to the rule. If anything, she had been willing to pretend the bad parts of her father and the things about him that scared her the most hadn’t existed until she no longer had a choice but to face them head-on. By then … it was already too late.
She hadn’t been able to get
