Chapter 4

The final confrontation erupted two days later.

Lev had become increasingly agitated and volatile. The dark circles under his eyes were clear signs of extreme sleep deprivation.

His obsession with finding me was eating away at him like a parasite.

He decided it was time to break the only person who could put up a real fight: my brother, Dominic.

Dominic was waiting for him in the ruins of our family's old speakeasy.

A week prior, the Syndicate had raided the place, smashing the mahogany bar and shattering the mirrors.

Dominic stood dead center in the wreckage.

He was twenty-eight, built like a middleweight boxer, and possessed the deadly, cold precision of a master sniper. In his right hand, he gripped a customized 1911 pistol.

Lev walked in alone, locking the heavy oak doors behind him. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, revealing the shoulder holster beneath.

"You're a dead man, Tarasov," Dominic growled, aiming his pistol squarely at Lev's chest. "I should have put a bullet in your skull the day my father dragged you out of that alley."

"We fed you, put clothes on your back. I treated you like a brother, and we covered for you! And this is how you repay us? Torturing an old man and butchering my mother?"

"Your mother made her choice," Lev roared back, his eyes wild. "Covered for me? Bullshit! You all looked down on me. I was just a stray dog you kept for amusement. And your sister... to save her own skin, she sold me out to The Commission the second things got hot."

"You arrogant, ignorant son of a bitch!" Dominic bellowed. "You don't know the first thing about Clara."

"Then enlighten me!" Lev screamed, drawing his own weapon with lightning speed.

The gunfight was deafening, bullets tearing through the remnants of the speakeasy.

Dominic was a dead-eye, but Lev fought like a man with a death wish. Once their magazines ran dry, the shootout devolved into a brutal, primal brawl.

They crashed through overturned tables, trading bone-shattering blows.

Dominic landed a heavy right hook that shattered Lev's nose, but Lev swallowed the agony and drove his knee fiercely into Dominic's ribs. Lev had spent five years clawing his way up through the bloodiest corners of the Russian underworld; his fighting style was purely lethal.

Grappling on the floor, Lev managed to draw a tactical karambit knife from his belt. In one horrifyingly precise arc, he slashed deeply into the tendons and muscle of Dominic's right arm-his shooting arm.

Dominic screamed in agony, his weapon clattering to the floor.

The blade bit down to the bone, leaving him permanently crippled.

The arm was practically severed.

He collapsed back against the splintered bar, clutching his ruined arm as blood pulsed rhythmically onto the floorboards.

Lev stood over him, chest heaving, blood streaming from his broken nose. He wiped his face, staring down at my brother with absolute contempt.

"Pathetic," Lev spat. "You used to be the untouchable Dominic Moretti. Look at you now. You can't even protect yourself, let alone your family."

Lev snapped his fingers toward the back door.

The heavy iron door swung open, and Yuri walked in, dragging a small figure by the hair.

It was Mia. My eight-year-old baby sister.

She was in her pajamas, barefoot, and covered in grime. Her face was bruised, her eyes wide with sheer terror.

She was crying hysterically, screaming Dominic's name.

"No! No! Leave her out of this!" I shrieked, flying across the room to place myself between Yuri and my little sister.

But I remained entirely unseen-a phantom made only of memories.

"Let her go!" Dominic rasped. Dragging his profusely bleeding arm, he tried to crawl forward, but a Syndicate thug kicked him right back to the floor.

Dominic screamed in pure rage, "Lev, you coward! She's a little girl! She loved you! She used to draw pictures for you, you sick bastard!"

Lev's face twitched.

He looked at Mia, and for a fraction of a second, I saw profound disgust flash in his eyes. He hated what he was doing.

But his trauma, his desperate, clawing need to force me out of hiding, overpowered his humanity.

Lev crouched in front of Mia. He extended a large, bloodstained hand and slowly wrapped his fingers around her slender, fragile neck. He didn't squeeze, but the threat was unmistakable.

Mia gasped, freezing like a trapped rabbit.

"Call her," Lev told Dominic, his voice low and blood-chilling.

"I know you have a way to reach her. Call Clara. Make her come out of hiding. Make her walk through those doors right now, or I swear to God, Dom, I will snap this little girl's neck."

Mia whimpered, struggling to breathe as Lev's thumb pressed against her windpipe. Her face began to flush red.

"Tell him, Dom!" I screamed, dropping to my knees beside my brother, phantom tears streaming endlessly down my face. "Break the promise! Please, just break it! Save her!"

Dominic stared at Mia's panic-stricken face.

He looked at the monster Lev had become. In that agonizing moment, he realized there was no reasoning with a man driven completely insane by grief and perceived betrayal.

"Fine!" Dominic's voice was hoarse with pain, desperation, and utter defeat. "Fine, you want her?! You want the truth, you psycho?! Let her go, and I'll tell you!"

Lev's eyes widened slightly. He loosened his grip on Mia's neck, letting her gasp for air, but he didn't pull his hand away. "Where is she, Dom?"

Dominic slumped against the bar, tears mixing with the blood and sweat on his face.

His chest heaved as he prepared to deliver the killing blow that would utterly destroy Lev Tarasov.

"She's not in hiding," Dominic choked out, his voice a guttural rasp. "She didn't run off to Europe. And she didn't sell you out to The Commission."

"Stop stalling with your lies-" Lev began.

"Listen to me!" Dominic roared, slamming his good hand against the floor.

Lev's mouth twitched, and he fell silent.

"When The Commission found out you were Sergei's bastard son, they put a million-dollar bounty on your head. Clara found out."

"She knew you would never leave without her. She knew if you stayed, you were a dead man. So she staged that fight. She said those vicious things to break your heart, just so you would get on that boat to Moscow and never look back."

Lev froze.

The air seemed to instantly vanish from the room.

The arrogant posture of the mafia boss evaporated, replaced by a chilling, deathly silence.

"What are you talking about?"

"She knew The Commission wouldn't stop until they had a body," Dominic wept, his defenses utterly shattered. "They were waiting at Pier 39."

"So, after she chased you away... she put on your leather jacket. She took your wallet. She got into your Chevy, and she drove to the docks."

Lev's hand slipped completely away from Mia's neck.

He slowly stood up, his face draining of all color until he looked like a corpse. His lips parted, but no sound came out.

"She crashed through the barricade," Dominic continued, looking up at Lev with eyes full of pure hatred and unbearable sorrow. "She took a sniper round to the shoulder, and then... she set the car on fire. To make sure the body was burned beyond recognition. To make sure they thought the Russian street rat was dead."

"No..." Lev whispered, the word barely squeezing past his lips. He stumbled back a step. "No, no. That's a lie. That's a fucking lie."

"She's dead, Lev!" Dominic screamed, his voice echoing off the exposed brick walls of the ruined bar.

"She died five years ago! She burned to ashes, just so you could live!"

"We kept the secret so you wouldn't blow your own brains out from the guilt!"

"But look at you! Look what you've done to the people she died to protect!"

"Why did you ever come back?!"