Page 81 of Lord of the Underworld

Even Nikolai is looking at our father in shock, though I don't know why. Does it really surprise him?"

"We are allied with the Turgenev Bratva," I say. It's taking every ounce of my control to keep from leaping over the desk and smashing his face in with his bronze paperweight. God knows he's thrown it at me enough times over the years. "That was why we were married, remember? We need to send men. We need them now. You need to call Konstantin and Alexi, and -"

"I'll do no such thing," he snaps. "This is a domestic issue. Not one that concerns our Bratva."

Nikolai leans in, "Pakhan, this is -"

"Silence!" Father snarls. He looks at me with the familiar disgust. "You've always managed to escape unscathed, haven't you, daughter? No matter how much inconvenience it caused to other people."

"What are you saying? This is your daughter," Nikolai growls.

I can't feel my feet or my hands. My head has a funny, floating feeling, like a balloon, held to my body by a thin string. It might snap and float away. "This is about the kidnapping, isn't it?" I ask bitterly.

"Do you know how much trouble you caused me?" he shouts. "Finally, you had an opportunity to be useful. Of course, I wasn't going to ransom you," he's spitting the words out like bullets, like he's waited forever to scream them at me. "I was going to blame your kidnapping on the Balabanovs. I had enough evidence falsified, ready to present it to the Council of the Six and then go to war against them. I would have had all of the Balabanov mining and mineral shares! And then you turned up, rescued."

Oh, that fragile string keeping my head with my body is getting thinner.

Nikolai slumps back in his chair, running his hand over his face. "You refused to ransom your daughter?" he asks slowly, incredulously. "She was ten years old, Father! She was tortured." Now, Nikolai's the one who slams his hands on the desk. "And you left her there?"

"She would have finally been useful!" My father's lips are wet, and rubbery-looking. There's a vein pulsing on his forehead.

He's not as fit as he used to be, I think, dimly. This might send him into cardiac arrest. But probably not soon enough.

"You must have been so disappointed when I turned up alive," I say calmly. "Mother told me you had been searching for me all along, but that was just a pretty story to make me feel better, wasn't it?"

"Your mother is as pathetic and useless as you are," he snarls.

I think about the King's gambit, about sliding my pawn forward. And I smile. "So, Pakhan, no longer my father but head of the Vasiliev Bratva, you are choosing to abandon a valued ally. One that you pledged your loyalty to. Is that what you're saying?"

"As Pakhan, I have no choice," he says, regarding me with contempt. "I will not risk the lives of my men for your stupidity, and your interference with the other families."

I nod thoughtfully. "All right."

My hand is in my purse. I don't remember when I put it there, my fingers are curved around the handle of the gun, and I pull it out, aiming it at his red, furious face.

I'm a good shot. I practice a fair amount. When I fire, a bullet hole drills right through his forehead.

There is a look of almost comical surprise on my father's face, like he can't accept that he's already dead, before he falls forward. He hits hard, blood splattering across his precious desk.

"Oksana, what the fuck?” Nikolai shouts, stumbling back in horror.

"He wasn't my father," I say, standing up. The gun is still in my hand, and now I point it at Nikolai. He glances at it incredulously and back at me. "You're Pakhan now. Are you going to honor the Turgenev alliance?"

"Give me that." He rips the gun out of my hand impatiently before I can blink, pulling out the ammo clip and tossing it on the desk. He puts his hands on his hips, walking in a circle before looking back at me. "I don't know how we will handle Father's 'tragic' death," he says, not sparing the cooling body a glance. "But as for the Vasiliev Bratva, we honor our commitments."

A half-hysterical little laugh escapes me. "You finally found your footing, moy brat."

Vivid self-disgust creases his face. "Much later than I should have, sestra. I didn't know. About the kidnapping, he'd told us that he was searching tirelessly for you."

"I know, Nikky." It's been a long time since I've used his nickname, what I used to call him when I was too young to pronounce Nikolai.

He straightens his jacket, smooths back his hair and then, he calls for Maks and two of his lieutenants to come in.

Maks is stunned, standing in the middle of the room, staring at our father's corpse while Nikolai is already on the phone, calling Vadim's father.

"Wrap the body," he tells the lieutenants. "Scour the desk clean. Take it downstairs until I decide what to do with it."

The expressionless men obey him, fetching a tarp and wrapping the body up into a tidy package. I recognize them, Iosif and Leon, they work directly under Nikolai. As they're carrying it out, Iosif whispers to Leon. "Excellent shot. Minimal brain matter or blood."