“Finish what?”
She looks past me, at Iakov, and clears her throat. “I was there. The day Mikhail died.”
Iakov becomes a statue.
“I was with Natalia,” Mikayla continues, every word costing her dearly. “We went to your house. Natalia’s men... they hung the rope. They forced the noose around his neck.”
“No,” Iakov breathes.
“It wasn’t suicide. It was fucking cold-blooded murder.” Mikayla coughs, blood bubbling at her lips. “She wanted you to hate Stefan. She wanted you to believe he destroyed your father.”
Iakov’s face crumbles like ancient paper. “Why?”
“Because Mikhail wouldn’t let you join the Bratva,” Mikayla says. “He wanted you to have a normal life. And you loved him enough to listen. She couldn’t allow that. She needed you to be loyal to her, not him.”
The tip of Iakov’s gun trembles. He stares at Natalia like she’s something he’s never seen before.
“You killed him,” he whispers. “You murdered my father.”
Natalia lifts her chin. “He was in the way.”
“He loved you!”
“He loved an illusion. Just like everyone else.”
Iakov raises his gun, aiming between her eyes.
Stefan watches. Waiting.
I can see the war destroying Iakov from the inside. The rage. The grief. The savage need for vengeance tearing him apart.
But his hand shakes. Until?—
“I can’t,” he says finally, lowering the gun. “I’m not that man. I want to be. God, I want to be. But I can’t.”
My hand falls from Stefan’s arm. I look at Natalia—at this woman who obliterated so many lives, who killed like breathing, who weaponized her own children against each other.
“I understand now,” I say quietly, looking at Stefan. “Why you had to destroy her. She’s too dangerous to exist.”
Stefan looks at me, then at Iakov. “We both lost our fathers because of her. But I’ve had years to live with how my father died. You just learned about yours.” He pauses. “But if you can’t be that man… then I will.”
The gunshot tears through the air.
Natalia’s body jerks once. Her eyes go wide with shock. Then she crumples, a hole punched clean through her forehead.
Stefan lowers his gun.
“I will be that man for all of us,” he says simply. “And now, our fathers can rest.”
Silence descends like a burial shroud. Even the armed men have frozen, staring at Natalia’s corpse in disbelief.
I turn back to Mikayla. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
“No.” Her voice is almost nothing now. “I want to die.”
“Mikayla—”
“I want to see my sister again.” She closes her eyes. “Finally... I can rest.”
