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LUKA
What happens next?
How the fuck do I answer that question? How can I look Natasha in the eye and tell her that the next step is for me to blow a hole through her father’s skull?
It’s the only way this story can end.
I drop my eyes from her face, unable to look at her because I know she’ll see my answer. I can’t bear for her to suffer any more right now. There will be plenty for her to deal with later.
The list I found in the safe has to be part of Ivan’s plan, and since Natasha is listed at the top, it tells me she’s the biggest pawn in his twisted game.
For all I know, the rest of those names are of people whose families have skin in this takeover. Since Natasha is in so deep, she’s got the most skin right now.
But it also tells me that if shit goes sideways and they lose her as part of this battle, there are a bunch of others who can step in and pick up where she left off.
To them, she might be a casualty of their war. To me, she’s the treasure I have to protect.
How her father was so willing to sacrifice her is beyond me, and goddammit, he’s going to pay for that decision once I get my hands on him.
“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” Her voice quivers. “Luka, please look at me. I need to see it.” She cups my chin with her fingers and turns my head back in her direction. Tears pool in her eyes and her shoulders quake. “I knew it.”
“Natasha–”
“I should be angry, right? Or sad? Or scared?” She shakes her head, sinking back onto the couch. “How terrible is it that I don’t feel any of those things? I’ve never felt so betrayed, so worthless. My God, when I think about everything that’s happened since you took me…all of the danger, the threats, the death. He let it all happen, knowing the risks to me. He didn’t care at all. Fuck,” she whispers, covering her face with her hands. “Where the hell is the man I knew for my whole life? Because the version I saw at the wedding was not my father. He was cold, unfeeling, and completely disloyal to the one person whom he should’ve done everything in his power to protect.”
“Protecting you was his job. And he fucking failed.” I run my hand over the back of her head and she tilts her face toward me.
I swipe away the tears streaming from her puffy and red-rimmed eyes. “He failed you, Natasha. I don’t trust that he won’t fail you again.”
“He destroyed me.” She sniffles, springing off the couch. “He deserves to be punished for that. But my mother and sisters…they’d be devastated if he was gone.”
“They’d be better off,” I growl.
“Unless…” She bites down on her lower lip. “You’re wrong.”
“Impossible.”
“He could be as much of a pawn as I was.” Natasha reaches for my hands and clasps them in her own. “Maybe someone came after him and threatened him if he didn't give me up. You have to admit it could be the case. Maybe he’s being threatened.”
“You really believe all that?”
“Luka, I know I may be grasping right now, but it’s because I’m having a hard time facing the reality that my father is some kind of self-serving monster.”
She brings my hands to her lips and brushes them against my skin. “You have to admit that there is a possibility I may be right.”
“If there’s a possibility, it’s fucking slight.”
“Still something.” She lets out a deep sigh. “Look, I’ll do what you want. I’ll call my mother and tell her the plan. But just promise me you won’t go after my father unless you find out the truth first. I have such intense disgust for him now, but it would kill me if there was something none of us knew, something that can explain his part in all of this, and we didn’t find out the truth in enough time. I can’t bear the thought of my mom and sisters suffering that loss, too.”
I’m sure Natasha thinks it’s a simple ask. But it’s absurd for me to agree, not that I dare tell her that.
Her father was responsible for crippling my family’s arms-trafficking business, and for launching a full-on investigation into our activities. He knew what he stood to lose when…not if…we rose back to power.
But he didn’t give a damn. He was more than willing to sacrifice what he supposedly loved for what he absolutely does love — power and status. Ivan Resnov has proven over and over that his priorities don’t include his wife and daughters, and mine definitely don’t include wasting a second to prove his innocence in all of this.
He’s the villain.
And the villain is gonna die.
