29. Sasha

CHAPTER 29

SASHA

I shuffle my feet just outside Vlad's office, the fancy carpet doing little to muffle the sound of my nerves. It's now or never. I've got to lay it all out for Vlad, let him see who I really am. Before he’s gone again.

Logan's words are a fire in my belly, promising resignation and a life together. Brazenly ours.

The door swings open and Ivan steps out, his broad frame blocking the threshold like a bleedin' guard dog. "Not a good time, Sasha," he mutters, eyeing me as though I'm about to nick the silver. " Poposzhe ."

"Is it ever a good time?" My voice comes out sharper than I intend, but I can't help it. The urgency snakes up my spine, wrapping tight around my throat. "Piss off."

Ivan hesitates, then steps aside with a grunt that could be agreement or warning—I can't tell which.

I slip past him, heart thudding against my rib cage. I hate this feeling, hate the state of anxiety I’ve been ever since Logan told me he's willing to end his working relationship with Vlad.

My brother’s on the phone, standing behind his desk, his back to me, speaking in hushed tones that don't quite mask the authority woven into every syllable.

" Da , I understand. We'll proceed as planned." He hangs up without another word and turns, his expression schooled into practiced neutrality. "What is it, Sasha?" He fumbles with some papers in front of him. "If this is about rescheduling dinner, it'll have to wait."

"Fuck the dinner." The sentence tumbles out, raw and unfiltered.

"Excuse me?" He lifts his gaze to me.

"We need to talk about me, Vlad. About us."

His eyebrows punch up even higher, a silent challenge in the arch. "Us?"

"Yes, you bloody wanker." My voice cracks like thin ice underfoot. "I can’t keep playin' this game. I’m tired of this bullshit. I want my own place. I’m tired of pretending to be someone I'm not. I won't do it anymore."

Silence unrolls between us, a void filled with unuttered thoughts and unacknowledged truths. I watch as his jaw clenches, the only betraying sign of tension beneath that cool exterior.

"I’m protecting you," he says calmly, voice level but eyes sharp as broken glass. "What more do you want?"

Logan... I want Logan. All to myself.

It’s there, on the tip of my tongue but it won’t come out. I swallow hard, forcing the name past the lump in my throat.

"If you’re finished, then I need to get back to work, Sasha," Vlad snaps.

"Stop fucking dismissing me."

"And you need to watch your goddamned language when you speak to me, bratishka ."

We're statues in a locked room, two men with the same blood, worlds apart. I brace for the storm, ready for the tempest to break over me, wash me away in its fury.

"Always pushin' me aside, aren't you?" My hands bunch into fists at my sides, knuckles whitening. "My problems are just as real as any of your bloody business deals."

" Ty ne ponimayesh' ," he snaps back, the Russian slipping out as easily as the anger in his eyes. "You don't understand."

"Understand what? That you're too busy for your own brother?" My voice rises, each syllable sharp enough to cut. "Or is it that you just don't give a damn?"

"Careful, Sasha." He rounds the desk, taking a few steps in my direction and towering over me. There’s a warning etched into every line of his body.

"Did you kill him?" The question bursts from me like a gunshot, echoing off the walls. "Our father. Did you have him killed?"

Vlad freezes, the air between us is charged with electricity and not the kind of electricity I have with Logan. Time stretches, thin and taut like a wire about to snap.

" Zachem tebe eto znat' ?" Vlad's tone is low, dangerous. "Why do you need to know?"

"Because I'm sick to death of secrets!" I shout, my chest heaving with emotion. "I need honesty, for once in my bloody life!"

He doesn't move, doesn't blink. Like a monument crafted from ice and silence, dressed in an expensive suit.

"Answer me, Vlad!" I roar a demand. "Tell me the truth!"

"Fine!" The confession explodes from him, a cannon blast that shatters the stillness. "Yes, I had Father eliminated. Are you happy now?"

The world tilts, reality shifting beneath my feet.

The silence clangs in my ears, a bell tolling the death of everything I thought I knew.

I'm not certain if Vlad can see what’s going on in my head right now or if it’s all just obvious on my face, but he steps forward. His features soften for a second, his palm reaching out for my cheek as if to steady a ship rocked by storm. But we’re not little boys anymore.

I'm not having any of it. My hand lashes out, swatting his away like an unwanted fly. "Don't touch me."

"Sasha, please," he pleads, his voice strained, his usual facade crumbling like a cliff face after years of erosion.

"Why?" I hate the old wanker, hate him even now that he is gone. Hate him with all my heart but if a son could kill his father, he could kill the rest of his kin. "Why?"

Vlad’s moment of weakness is gone. He’s put himself together, his expression hardening with each second until there’s nothing but harshness left.

"Is this making you happy? Knowing this truth, Alexander?"

"Why?" I can’t seem to get my wits about me.

"You’re asking a dumb question. We both know, both saw who he was. He wasn’t going to just stop. He was going to drive us all into a goddamned grave. You, me, anyone who was around him."

"You think you’re better than him?"

"Never said I was."

"You’re just like him!"

"Don’t you ever compare us!"

"Looking in the mirror and seeing the same piece of shit you killed hurts your bloody feelings?"

"You need to stop talking, Sasha."

"Or what? You’re going to kill me too?"

"Goddamn it!"

"Fucking cunt! Rot in he—"

"He murdered Mama." The words fall heavy and dark between us, splintering the floors underfoot.

I’m speechless all of a sudden, everything is finally starting to make sense. How she was just no longer alive one day. Too young to have a stroke.

"It’s a bloody joke, isn’t it?" I whisper, reeling from the shock. My breathing is taking a dive, I realize. As if there’s no more oxygen left in this room.

"Do you think I would joke about something like this?"

"I have no clue. I don’t even know you anymore."

"Listen to me—"

"Shut up!" Anger in my chest flares up. I’m starting to suffocate for real. I don’t know if it’s a panic attack or an actual heart attack. But I feel like I’m breaking into a million pieces, like I’m about to drop to the floor. My knees are so weak and my stomach is churning.

I can't stay here, not a second longer. Not with this revelation wrapping its fingers around my neck. I storm out, every step a hammer blow, leaving Vlad—a statue once again—in my wake.

Corridors and rooms blur past me, walls lined with ancestral stoicism watching my flight. Ivan looks up from his post, his stern face etched with concern, but I don't stop.

Can't stop.

There's no space for words or explanations, only the need to put distance between me and this house of horrors.

The garage greets me with the smell of oil and rubber—a scent now tainted with betrayal. I grab the first fob my hand comes across from the series of hooks and press the button. A bright red sports car, a BMW, winks back at me. I climb inside. My hands are shaking as they wrap around the steering wheel. The vehicle growls to life beneath my touch and before I know it, I’m driving.

Right side of the road, dickhead. Right side of the road , I have to remind myself but it seems like such an unimportant detail right now.

The tires scream their fury as I take a sharp turn and steer into the traffic.

Open road stretches ahead, a void swallowing me whole. Tears well, unbidden, streaming down to mingle with the taste of salt on my lips. Every drop blurs the world outside, but it doesn't matter. Nothing does anymore. At least not in this moment.