“You tried to get a spy into my house, and failed.”
“Did I?” Sergey’s half-smile chilled me to my center. “She got into your bed fairly quickly.”
“I’m not going to complain about that, but I wanted to make sure you got that you failed. Not just with Aleksandar, either. You played this all wrong.”
“How’s that?”
Vasilije smiled. It was all dimples and teeth, and I wanted to possess the same grin. Did it trigger danger alarms in my father’s head?
As Vasilije wandered further into the room, I followed his lead, and let my gaze linger on the books on the bottom shelf where the 9mm was stored. He did better than I did. His focus didn’t hover over the hiding spots I’d told him about.
“You sent her to plant a few bugs, when you should have had her kill me. A woman who looks like she does, and doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty? Oksana could have been your greatest asset. And loyalty wouldn’t have been an issue. I mean, she’s your fucking daughter, but then you go and treat her like shit. She probably could have turned me—”
Sergey’s hand came up, silencing him. His jaw set. “What makes you think she didn’t? You killed Goran, and came straight here, didn’t you?”
My eyes widened.
My father’s lie was simplistic but perfect and believable. After coming clean to Vasilije, I’d shattered the trust. I believed we’d built it back up, but what we had was fragile. When a broken bone heals and is hit in the same spot, it’s likely to fracture the same way. Would this lie do the same damage?
If he fell for it and left me, I was as good as dead. Not just because of what my father would do, either. How would I survive without this man, who’d seen the real me and might love me anyway?
“Nice try, but I know Oksana a hell of a lot better than you do.”
“What do you want?” Sergey asked. “An apology for attempting to get surveillance in your home? For turning one of your men?” His condescending tone was like being lectured. “If you think Goran hasn’t tried worse with me, you’re naïve. That’s the price you pay when you’re the head of the family business. Which I’m sure you—”
Vasilije shrugged. “An apology would be great, but it needs to be to her.”
It was like he’d been slapped. My father’s incredulous gaze swung to me. “For what?”
It’d all been building up to this moment, and the blood roared in my body so loud, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. Every cell in me screamed. I’d been silent the whole time in this office.
God, other than my music, I’d been silent practically every second I’d been in America.
And I was fucking done with it.
I spoke in Russian, the language of my mother. “You can apologize for murdering an innocent family. You can apologize for treating me like I was less than garbage just for being born. And most of all, for how you’re a spineless fucking cunt.”
There was no tremor in my hands as I went for the gun. I bent, yanking at the books and flinging them away, and—
The shelf was empty.
No. No!
My hands moved on their own, or maybe they were connected directly to a part of my brain functioning on a higher level, existing above the thick fog of my panic. The gun was still here somewhere. My father was too cautious to remove it altogether.
I tore at the books and the decorative clutter, hurling everything on the shelves I touched toward the floor in a thunderous crash. I knocked over a silver bowl, sending the polished stones inside raining down on my feet, where they bounced and clattered on the wood.
There!
The 9mm dumped out the side of the bowl, hidden beneath the stones.
The metal was cold and sure in my grip, and everything felt so incredibly . . . right. I swung around and took aim, and the air buzzed and swirled. Sergey was racing to get around the desk, but he’d never make it in time.
I pulled the trigger with no hesitation.
God knew I’d waited long enough.
The gunshot was as loud as a cannon firing, and the recoil on the gun caught me by surprise, but I struck him in the back. The black and blue fabric of his robe exploded and Sergey grunted in pain, his knees going weak. He stumbled into the side of the desk, his hands splaying on the desktop, but got back on his unsteady feet.
I fired again, hitting him in the shoulder this time. The impact spun him halfway to face me, and as he went down, his expression was comical. He was so surprised, which was stupid. I’d killed Ilia only inches from the spot where he stood. He grabbed blindly at anything to keep him upright, and as he fell, he snagged the corner of the desk calendar and pulled most of the contents of the desktop down with him.