place we knew for sure Lexi was…was inside that building.
“Stop!” I yelled when Dimitri kicked my father in the ribs, pulling a groan from him.
I ran to his prone body and knelt down to check his pulse. Weak but steady. I swallowed down bile when I took in his swollen-shut eyes, cracked and bleeding lips, blood-matted hair, bruises covering almost every inch of skin I could see, and numerous cuts and gashes, all of varying depth.
“What is wrong with you?” I screamed at Dimitri. “Why are you doing this?”
“Haven’t you been listening, Alexia?” He came up behind me and placed his mouth right at my ear. “I’m here to claim what is rightfully mine. I am owed the vast Kozlov fortune, considering the fact that I am Sergei Kozlov’s only biological child.”
I gasped. “You’re his illegitimate son?”
Batya had never mentioned this.
Dimitri picked up a barstool and threw it across the room. “I’m as fucking legitimate as you could get! Far more than you, the adopted orphan he plucked right off the dirty Siberian streets. I am the son of Sergei and Claudia Kozlov!”
My mind swam with all the stories I’d been told my entire life. “No…they never had a child together. Claudia had a miscarriage.”
“She lied. She was three months pregnant with me when dear old dad here drove her away to the goddamn ghetto. She felt she had no other choice, and he just let it fucking happen. She ended up marrying a man who used his fists on her and on me, and Sergei never once cared to check in on the woman he claimed to love so fiercely. But she never left him. He left us first. She didn’t want this life, and he didn’t love her enough to walk away from it.”
I couldn’t believe this. All this time, Dimitri had been my father’s son. Batya had been Dimitri’s real father.
I scooted closer to Batya, who was struggling to remain conscious, moaning in pain every few seconds. He grasped my hand and squeezed, as if trying to communicate with me. Had he heard everything Dimitri just said? Did he know his own underboss was actually his son?
“Shh,” I whispered to him. “Save your strength. It’s going to be okay.”
“That all depends on you.” Dimitri slapped two pieces of paper onto the bar, along with a Montblanc pen. “If you cooperate and do everything I say, then he will remain alive.”
“You would really murder your own father?” I asked, aghast.
This was so not the same man I thought I knew.
Dimitri’s face twisted in revulsion. “A father would have known of my existence. He would never have let my mother leave in the first place. He is no more a father to me than the man who broke my bones and beat my mother black and blue. If you think I feel some level of affection toward him that would prevent me from slitting his throat, you’re gravely mistaken.”
Crazy.
Officially coocoo-ca-choo crazy.
“The first document is a money transfer that authorizes everything in Sergei Kozlov’s name be transferred to Alexia Kozlov,” Dimitri went on, turning his attention to the bar. “Bank accounts, liquid assets, everything. I’ve already gotten the old man’s signature. It just awaits yours.”
I frowned, getting a horrible sinking feeling in my chest. “What good will that do? You won’t have access to it.”
He glanced over his shoulder, an excited gleam in his eyes. “I will once we are married. Which brings me to the second document. I’ve taken the liberty of having your annulment papers drawn up.” He pointed the pen at me. “You will sign them.”
I pointlessly clutched onto my last vestige of resolve. “I won’t marry you, Dimitri. That will never happen.”
He sighed, as if bored. “We really need to work on your listening skills, kotyonok. If you do not want me to make your father choke on his own blood before I dump his body into the sewers, you will sign anything I tell you to.”
I gaped at this man that I’d considered a protector, a friend, and a confidante for fifteen years. “How can you do this? You were my family. For so long, all I had was you and Batya. How can you betray us like this?”
Dimitri gave the tiniest of flinches before he masked his features. It was the first hint of a chink in his armor. “He betrayed me first, Alexia. You have to understand, my fight is not with you. Ever since I met you, I’ve pictured you by my