Page 67 of Marrying the Pakhan

The drive home passes in a blur I barely register, Ginger silent and shaking in the back seat despite Viktor’s constant reassurance, my own hands refusing to stop trembling no matter how tightly I clasp them in my lap.

I catch him glancing at us in the rearview mirror every few seconds, jaw tight, knuckles white on the steering wheel, a man visibly holding himself together through sheer will alone.

By the time we’re actually inside, doors locked, security doubled again around a perimeter that clearly wasn’t enough today, the adrenaline finally starts to drain out of me, leaving a cold, bone-deep exhaustion in its wake.

I get Ginger settled with a movie and a blanket, staying close enough to keep an eye on her while Viktor makes a series of calls I can’t fully follow.

Ginger falls asleep on the couch before the movie’s even halfway done, worn out past the point where fear can keep a six-year-old awake any longer. I carry the exhaustion of the entire day in my own shoulders as I get her settled properly upstairs, checking the locks on her window twice even though I know Viktor’s already had them checked three times since we got home.

I sit with her a while longer than usual, watching her sleep, memorizing the steady rise and fall of her breathing like it might disappear if I stop paying attention.

Once she’s finally, mercifully asleep, exhausted past the point of resistance, Viktor finds me in the kitchen, and neither of us says anything for a long moment, just standing there, taking in the fact that we both survived a day that could have ended so much worse.

“Sit down,” he says quietly. “I’m going to tell you everything now. All of it. And I need you to know, before I start, that I am so sorry it took something like today to make me finally say it.”

I sit.

Whatever safety I thought I’d built here, whatever fragile sense of normal I’d let myself believe in over these last months, shattered somewhere in that parking lot, in the space between a stranger’s hand closing around my arm and Ginger’s terrified sprint toward the school doors.

And I’m ready to know exactly what shattered it.

31

VIKTOR

I sit across from her at the kitchen table, the same table where I gave her a fraction of the truth weeks ago, and I understand, looking at her face, that fractions aren’t going to survive tonight.

“Start from the beginning,” she says. “All of it. I don’t want pieces anymore, Viktor.”

So, I do.

“I’m not just a club owner. I run an organization, one that doesn’t advertise itself, that operates through the club and several other businesses as legitimate cover. In my world, the man who runs an operation like mine is called a Pakhan. I’ve held that position for fifteen years, since I was young enough that most people thought I’d never hold it long.”

Harper’s face doesn’t change much, though her hands go still on the table, flat, bracing. “That’s not a business. That’s organized crime.”

“Yes.”

“Say it plainly. Don’t dress it up.”

“I run a criminal organization, Harper. Drugs, in part. Money that moves through channels the government would very much like to tax and can’t find. Men who work for me, some of whom you’ve met, who’ve spent years learning how to hurt people efficiently when hurting people becomes necessary.” I make myself hold her gaze while I say it, refusing to soften a single word. “That’s what the club actually is. A front, and a genuinely profitable one, but a front regardless.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, absorbing that, and I watch her expression harden in a way it wasn’t a minute ago.

“Keep going,” she says. “Tell me about Pavel.”

“Eleven years ago, there was a standoff at a warehouse on the east side of the city. A rival organization, run by a man I only ever knew by face, never by name. Twelve of my men against fifteen of his. It nearly ended both organizations in one night.” I pause, the memory still sharper than I’d like after all this time. “There was a moment, guns drawn on both sides, close enough to a bloodbath that I still remember the exact silence right before someone decided against pulling a trigger. Neither side ever agreed on who backed down first.”

“And nobody died that night.”

“Not that night. Within the year, though, his face disappeared from every corner of this business. Presumed dead. Nobody looked for a body. Men in this business vanish for a hundred reasons, and a rival not showing up anymore was treated as good fortune, not a mystery worth solving.”

“And that man is Pavel.”

“That man is Pavel Ivanov,” I say, the full weight of it plainly, watching it land. “The same man who sat in that courtroom watching you fight for custody. The same man whose face I recognized the day of the hearing, though I didn’t have a name to attach to it until the lawyer said it out loud.”

Harper’s breathing changes, shallow and fast. “Grandma and Grandpa Ivanov. Ginger’s grandparents. You’re telling me that is who this guy is.”

“He’s the same man you danced at Mia’s wedding with. The same man who taught you to make pierogi in his kitchen.” I don’t look away from her, though every instinct tells me to. “I’ve suspected it since the courtroom. I had it fully confirmed only recently, once we traced the surveillance funding back to accounts controlled by the family directly.”