Page 52 of Pregnant By the Russian Pakhan

“Why did you kill Mother? What did she do that was so wrong you had to kill her?” she asked.

Her father’s eyes went wide with shock. “Why would you think such a thing? Why would I kill your mother? Mira, I loved her. What are you saying?”

Mira lifted a hand to stop the torrent of lies. “Please. Don’t lie, not about this. Just don’t. You told me yourself that you killed her.”

He frowned, his eyes going up and to the right as though he were trying to recall such a conversation. “Mira, I don’t know where you heard that from, but I would never—”

“Stop with the lies,” she screamed, leaping to her feet and cupping her hands over her ears to shut out his lies. “You told me in a fit of rage when I didn’t want to get married that she got what was coming to her because she ‘couldn’t keep it in her pants.’ Those were your exact words.”

She burst into tears, turning away from him, but not before she saw her father’s face turn red with anger as he began struggling to free his hands from the rope that bound them behind his back.

He looked at Mikhail. “I need you to free my hands, Nikolai. My daughter—look at her, dammit. She needs me.”

“If you think I’m going to let you touch her with those bloodied hands of yours, you’re mistaken,” Mikhail growled.

“Mira, baby, look at me!” her father yelled.

His words should have endeared her to him, but instead, they made her recoil. He had never called her baby, to her recollection. Mira looked up at him in confusion.

“Read my lips, sweetie, I swear I didn’t kill your mother. I didn’t,” he enunciated. “I have done a lot of wrong things in my life and I don’t deny them. But, Mira, killing your mother was not one of them.”

“Then why did you—why did you say she got what was coming to her?” Mira asked, coming back toward him.

Mikhail pulled up a chair in front of her father this time and gently guided her into it. She knew he didn’t want her on her haunches. Mentally, Mira had to admire the man’s tenacity. Right now, even in the midst of a tense and emotionally wringing situation, he still remembered that she was pregnant. She could see her father watching their actions in confusion.

She sank gratefully into the seat and looked at her father. “Well?”

“I was mad at her. I’ve been mad at her since she died,” he said simply.

“You mean since she was killed,” Mikhail corrected.

Dostoevsky glared at him. “My wife had an affair with your father. Did you know that? Mira was only a little over eighteen months when her mother started up an affair simply because your idiot father seduced her into his fucking bed to get at me.”

The words fell into the room, ringing with truth and sincerity.

Mira’s voice shook as she said, “What?”

Her father looked back at her. “It’s the truth. I—I’m a proud man, Mira. Your mother shattered my pride and tossed my love back in my face. She forgot she had a husband and a little girl and she slept with my business partner, Nikolai, multiple times.”

“This was why you killed my father, too, wasn’t it?” Mikhail demanded.

Dostoevsky didn’t deny it. “I strung the bastard up by his dick, which was no less than he deserved. When I locked him in my dungeon at first, I told her what I’d done and threw her out because I couldn’t bear the sight of her. But she wouldn’t have it; she kept trying to creep back in to see him. I couldn’t have that again so I killed him and she went berserk. Then when she tried to take Mira with her, I killed her too..”

Mikhail swore furiously, stalking off to the windows to glare at the fields below. Mira could understand his sentiments. She wanted to rail and scream at the cretin that was her father. She wanted to hurt him even as much as he had hurt her mother, but something in her wouldn’t let her get blood on her hands. She curled her fingers into fists so tightly that her nails dug painfully into the soft skin of her palms.

“We should call the cops and get him arrested,” Mira decided.

Mikhail snorted. “It’s no use. He’ll probably hold the record for the quickest jailbreak in history.”

“Then what?” Mira asked. “We can’t kill him.”

Mikhail’s eyes glinted at her, “Speak for yourself. I can.”

She felt a cold shiver go through her at the expression in his eyes. He wasn’t bluffing either; he meant every word.

Dostoevsky glared at them both, “If you really think I’m going to let either of you get the joy of killing me, guess again.”

Mikhail turned to Vlad, “Take him to the dungeons.”

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