Page 114 of Deviant Need

I’ve lost track of how long we’ve been sitting here on the floor, but we’ve shifted closer to the wall. A nurse or doctor comes in every fifteen minutes to check on Daniil.

The door bursts open, and I jerk my head up so fast pain shoots through my neck. My mother bursts into the room, and Alexei and Lev enter after her, both looking tense.

Pushing up to my feet, I ignore the pain radiating from my stomach wounds. “What happened!”

She freezes. “The Nozares family attacked us. They were trying to sabotage the event, prevent it from being successful. We don’t know how they got past our security or how they brought so many men there without us knowing.”

“It was set up,” Alexei says from where he’s leaning against the wall. “They must have gotten insider information.”

She nods and rubs her shaky hands against her temples. “Your father is dead.”

Alexei shoots me a look that says keep your mouth shut.

Yulian clears his throat from the corner. “Mikhail knows about Daniil being Adrian Nozares.”

She blinks in surprise, her face going pale. “What?”

“Why would you keep that from him?” I snap, my voice rising. “From us?”

“We had to. We⁠—”

Alexei cuts her off. “How long have you known?”

“Roman killed his family,” she says, and her voice breaks slightly. “I didn’t know until it was done. He brought Daniil home covered in bruises and said we were keeping him.”

“And you just went along with it?” I shout.

“What was I supposed to do, Mikhail?” she snaps back, her eyes flashing. “Give him back to Santiago? Let that monster have him?”

“You could have told him the truth,” Alexei says coldly.

“When?” Mother’s voice rises. “When he was five? Ten? Fifteen? When was the right time to tell a child that Roman killed his entire family and that we kidnapped him?”

“Any time would have been better than never,” I say.

“Don’t lecture me about what I should have done,” she fires back. “You have no idea what it was like. Roman wouldn’t allow it. He forbade all of us from ever speaking about it.”

“Well, the bastard is dead now, so speak,” Alexei says flatly.

“The family needs leadership. The business needs—” Lev starts.

“Fuck the business,” I snap.

“Mikhail,” Lev says, his voice strained. “We need to be realistic. Someone has to take over. The operations can’t just stop.”

“Then you do it,” I say. “You’ve wanted it your whole life.”

Lev’s jaw tightens. “That’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair,” Alexei says.

“I didn’t want it like this,” Lev says.

“Well, congrats, you can take over because no one else wants it,” Yulian says from the corner.

Lev rounds on him. “And where the hell were you during all of this? You disappeared the second the shooting started.”

“I was handling things,” Yulian says.