But Danika steps into the doorway, raises her pistol, and fires a single shot into the floorboard, an inch from Dimitri's reaching fingers.
"Don't even think about it," she says, breathing heavily through her cracked ribs.
Dimitri freezes, his eyes wide with terror as he cowers against a weight bench like a rat.
"Didn't mean to disrupt your workout," I say, stepping farther into the room and unjamming my gun.
Danika moves beside me, her gun raised, her expression cold.
Dimitri looks at Danika and starts speaking in rapid Russian, his words tumbling over each other in a desperate attempt to save his life.
I don't understand any of it, but I can tell he's begging, pleading.
I assume he's trying to leverage her loyalty to the Bratva, to Ivan, to anything that might save his worthless life.
Danika's expression doesn't change. She stares at him with the same indifference she showed the men we killed in the hallway.
I step forward, cutting off his words. "Shut the fuck up," I say, my voice dark and commanding. "You are no longer allowed to speak to her."
Dimitri flinches, his mouth snapping shut. He clutches his bleeding shoulder, his body trembling.
I begin to pace around him, my gun never wavering. My anger is a living thing now, coiling in my chest, tightening with every step.
"I've been waiting for this," I say and look at him. "Let's talk about what you've done."
He doesn't try to speak. He just looks at me and then shifts his attention to Danika.
"There's the Siberian Ice," I say, breaking his focus on her. "Human trafficking. The shadow empire you built under your brother's nose, using his name, his reputation, and his resources since you can't do it alone."
Dimitri stiffens at this and spits blood on the floor next to him. "Just business."
I stop pacing, my jaw tightening. "Business?" I repeat. "Just business?"
"Yes," Dimitri says, his voice growing stronger. "Your father knew. Nicolae Ionescu funded half of it for that girl. You think your family is innocent? You're all the same. We're all the same."
I feel the rage bubbling up, threatening to crack the control I've maintained thus far, but I force it down.
"That girl's name is Elena," I say. "My brother's fiancée. The woman your son kidnapped, drugged, and did God knows what else to."
Dimitri looks at me. "That wasn't me, and besides, you took payment for that. You killed my son."
"Damn right we did," I say. "It was my brother Adrian, actually, who had the honor."
"Fuck Adrian and fuck you," Dimitri says, finding his courage.
I walk over and kick him hard in the ribs. He gasps, doubling over, his body curling in on itself.
"You took the money," I say, kicking him again. "You drugged women and sold them," I continue, kicking him again. "You let your son, Maxim, do whatever he wanted to Elena."
I bend down and stare at him, holding back from killing him because it would be too easy. "And then you tried to kill my family by letting your own brother think we were the aggressors."
I strike him with the butt of my gun. A gash appears over his left eye and starts bleeding.
Dimitri looks at me as he sits up, blood trickling down. "Please," he says. "I can fix this. I can make it right. Give your family whatever you want."
I stare down at him, my finger resting lightly on the trigger. "No," I say. "You can't."
I raise my gun, aiming at his other shoulder, and fire.
