67. Chapter 67

67

Clara

T he basement air hits my lungs like ice. Blood and metal and darkness.

The Henley I’m wearing—Leonid’s scent still clinging to the fabric—feels too big, too warm. Everything narrows to Stephan hanging there, pieces of him dripping onto concrete.

Sixteen years old. His office. “You’re family.” The knife he gave me that birthday digs into my hip, its pearl handle cold against my skin. The same hands that taught me to drive, that braided my hair, now twist uselessly above zip ties.

My feet move without permission. One step. Another. Each splash of my shoes through puddles of his blood echoes wrong.

Dad’s wheelchair creaks behind me. The sound pulls my spine straight—muscle memory from years of his drunken disapproval. But it’s the sobriety in his voice that cuts deeper.

“Cla- Clara?” Stephan coughs, spraying red. His eyes find mine, and for a second, I’m 15 again. Ice cream at the pier. Learning to shoot in his private range. Every father-daughter moment twisted into a knife he planned to bury in my back.

Each step brings me closer to the stranger wearing Stephan’s face. It’s a mess of purple and red, but those eyes—the ones I thought held kindness—they’re the same. Just empty now. No mask left to hide behind.

“Fucking… bitch.” The words bubble through blood. “Should’ve died with… your brother.” His lips pull back from red-stained teeth. “Too stubborn. Just like Jake. Never knowing when to give up.”

I stop. Something hot runs down my cheek. My hands shake as his words keep coming, a poison I can’t unhear.

“Your fault.” His chin drops to his chest, words slurring together. “All your fault. Wouldn’t just… fucking… die. Had to keep digging. Had to keep pushing.” A wet laugh. “Should’ve put a bullet in you right after Jake.”

My fingers trace the knife scar on my forearm—his first lesson in self-defense. “Always be ready,” he’d said. Now I understand why. He’d been preparing me for this moment, teaching me how to kill while planning my death.

“What… is going on?” Dad’s voice breaks through the basement’s silence.

I look over my shoulder, catching Mitch’s gaze. His jaw tightens—the same expression he wore at Jake’s funeral. When I look down, Dad’s bloodshot eyes are clear for the first time in fourteen years. The bourbon haze is gone, replaced by something worse: understanding.

His hands shake as he takes in the scene—Stephan hanging like meat, blood dripping onto concrete, Leonid standing in shadows. Recognition hits him like a physical blow. His spine straightens in the wheelchair, muscles remembering the man he used to be.

“You…” Dad’s trembling finger points at Leonid. Spittle flies from his lips as he lurches forward. “You killed Jake, you bas-bastard. My son. My only son!” The words slur together, muscle memory from a decade and a half of whiskey.

Leonid doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just watches with that predator’s stillness that makes my skin prickle.

“Boss, you’re wrong.” Mitch’s voice carries the weight of five bullet holes and fourteen years of guilt. He tilts his head, drawing Dad’s attention like he used to do when Jake and I were kids. “It wasn’t Leonid.” His eyebrows draw together, the scar above his left one pulling tight. “You’ve been lied to.” His eyes flick to Ludis. “We all have.”

“Play it.” Ludis’s command cuts through the air.

The recorder clicks. Static crackles. Then Stephan’s voice fills the basement, and my lungs forget how to work.

“Jake had to die. He was too loyal, too soft. He’d ruin everything.”

My knife handle bites into my palm. When did I grab it?

“Maxwell? That weak drunk? He’s too busy drowning in his bottles to notice anything.”

Dad’s face crumples. Tears cut tracks through years of alcoholic bloat.

“I stood right in front of Clara at Jake’s funeral, and she never even suspected.”

The pearl handle warms against my skin—Stephan’s sixteenth birthday gift. His voice keeps playing, but blood rushes in my ears, drowning out everything except the memory of him straightening my black dress at the funeral, wiping my tears with his monogrammed handkerchief.

“No…” Dad’s whisper scrapes raw. “No. Jake… my boy…” His fingers dig into the wheelchair’s arms until the metal creaks.

Stephan’s laugh sprays blood across the concrete. “Oh, come on, Max.” His words gurgle wet through torn flesh. “You really think you were a father? Jake was weak, just like you. Someone had to take control, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be you.”

The pearl knife slips from my numb fingers. It hits the floor with a sound like breaking glass.

Something snaps inside my chest. My lungs burn. Can’t breathe. Can’t think. Tears blur everything except Stephan’s bleeding face.

Leonid’s boots scrape concrete. “Clara—”

I slam into him, fingers clawing for his shoulder holster. The Glock comes free before he can grab my wrist. The grip is cold. Familiar. Stephan taught me how to shoot with one just like it.

The first bullet takes out his right knee. His body jerks like a puppet, curses dissolving into wet choking sounds.

The second one explodes through his left thigh. Blood sprays.

The third shot punches into his shoulder. The recoil travels up my arm, but I barely feel it.

“Do it, bitch.” Blood bubbles between Stephan’s teeth. “Finish it.”

The Glock shakes in my hands. Fourteen years of lies stare back at me through one swollen eye.

Metal scrapes behind me. Dad’s grunt of effort. His feet hit the floor.

“Dad—”

He stands on trembling legs, gripping Mitch’s Colt .45 in both hands. Fourteen years of bourbon weakness vanish as the barrel finds Stephan’s mouth.

“Go to—” Stephan starts.

The Colt roars. The back of Stephan’s head paints the wall red.