Page 137 of Filthy Lies

“What happened is that I’m fucked no matter what I do,” I spit, wrapping a handkerchief around my bleeding hand. “The feds have a RICO case ready to drop on my head. They want me to wear a wire against Grigor and my father.”

Arkady’s face pales. “Jesus Christ?—”

“Exactly. So now, I get to choose between prison or a bullet to the back of the skull when the Bratva discovers I’m a fucking snitch.”

“What are you going to do?”

I laugh miserably. “Find my wife. Tell her that the man who just spared her father’s life is now being blackmailed into destroying him. See if she’ll let me hold my daughter one more time before everything goes to shit.”

“And if she doesn’t want to see you?”

I close my eyes, swallowing the bile that rises in my throat. “Then I die knowing I tried.”

I grab my coat, ignoring the blood soaking through the makeshift bandage. Pain is good. Pain keeps me focused at a time when every other thought is a waking nightmare.

“You need a hospital for that hand,” Arkady says.

“I need my fucking family back,” I snap. “Everything else is irrelevant.”

I storm down the hallway, my mind racing through contingency plans. Maybe I could get them all out of the country. Rowan, Sofiya—even fucking Grigor, if that’s what it takes. We could disappear before Carver’s twenty-four-hour deadline expires. Start over somewhere without extradition.

But I know better. There is no outrunning this. No clever escape. Just impossible choices, each stacked one inside the other like matryoshka dolls.

As I reach the front door, I pause for a moment. What will I say to her when I find her? How do I explain that the FBI used heragainst me? That her act of protection—taking Sofiya to Rhode Island—has only tightened the noose around all our necks?

I throw open the door, already rehearsing the speech I’ll never get right?—

And there she is.

Rowan stands on the threshold, my daughter clutched to her chest. Her green eyes go wide with shock at finding me here, at finding me like this—blood-drenched, wild-eyed, halfway out the door.

We freeze, caught in this surreal standoff. I drink in the sight of them. I’m desperate after days of emptiness. I could swear Sofiya’s dark curls have grown longer in just these few days. Rowan looks thinner, shadows bruising the skin beneath her eyes. She’s wearing a simple sweater and jeans, nowhere near warm enough for the autumn chill.

“Papa!” Sofiya squeals, reaching for me with her tiny hands, oblivious to the fucking nuclear wasteland between her parents.

“You’re bleeding.” Rowan’s voice is flat, emotionless.

I don’t move toward them, though every molecule in my body screams to close the distance. To grab them both and never let go.

“You came back,” I reply.

“As you were leaving, apparently.”

“I was coming to find you.”

Her gaze hardens. “How did you know where I was?”

I cringe. If I tell her about Carver’s photos, I have to tell her everything. The RICO case. The ultimatum. The impossible choice I’m facing.

But if I lie, if I say I tracked her through other means, I’m just proving I’m still the secretive, manipulative bastard she fled from in the first place.

Sofiya whimpers, sensing the tension. She stretches her arms toward me more insistently, her little face scrunching in frustration when neither of us moves to bridge the gap.

“We need to talk,” Rowan says, moving our daughter higher on her hip. “Something’s happened?—”

“Yes,” I cut her off. “Something has.”

She studies my face, and I can’t tell what she sees there. Desperation? Defeat? The pathetic shell of a man who used to rule this city with an iron fist, now brought to his knees by the thought of losing her?

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