Aleksandr: To Kill A Pakhan

Reever's POV

"I can't believe you did this to me, Dad." The words burst out of me before I could stop them.

I rarely called him Dad. Usually it was just Vito — an only child's privilege, I liked to think. But today was one of the rare occasions the word slipped out on its own, and I hated how much smaller it made me feel saying it.

He didn't answer. He just stood there with his hands behind his back, gaze fixed on the flower vase in the corner of the room, refusing to look at me at all — as if I weren't even standing three feet away from him.

The silence stretched, heavier this time.

"Don't act like you didn't hear me, Dad."

"I... I'm sorry, daughter. I don't want to do this, but—"

A bored yawn cut him off from across the room.

I turned toward the other man — the one who looked even less interested in the scene unfolding in front of him than my father did.

Aleksandr Volkov. The Pakhan.

His name had become the center of so many stories that separating fact from rumor felt pointless. He'd walked away from a bomb without a scratch. He'd killed men with his bare hands and no weapon at all. He was so heartless he could kill his own mother if she stood in his way.

She was dead, though.

I didn't know if that detail made the rumor true or just convenient.

Looking at him now, I found it strangely hard to match the stories to the man in front of me. He wasn't dripping in luxury or performing wealth the way I'd expected. Simple black pants. A black T-shirt that fit close enough to outline the muscle beneath it. Dark hair combed back, neat and unbothered. One hand tucked lazily into his pocket, the other resting on the head of a cane he didn't seem to need.

If I'd passed him on the street, I might have called him polite-looking. Almost harmless.

Except for the boredom on his face — the unmistakable look of a man who thought this entire meeting was taking far longer than it deserved to.

His gray eyes flicked to me for exactly one second before settling back on Vito.

"I assume we're almost done?" His voice was calm. He didn't need volume. The room had already gone quiet enough to carry a whisper.

"You sold me, Father." My voice cracked despite myself. "You sold me to pay off a debt I know nothing about."

"Reever—"

"No." I shook my head before he could finish. "Don't."

His mouth closed. For a moment, guilt flickered across his face, followed by something that looked almost like shame. Aleksandr saw it too — I watched him catch it — and sighed.

"If this is the emotional part," he said, checking his watch, "I'd appreciate it if we hurried through it."

I turned on him instead. "I wasn't aware debt collection involved buying people."

"It usually doesn't." One corner of his mouth shifted, not quite a smile.

"Then why this? Why me?"

His gaze settled on me, and I felt it more than I wanted to admit — like being studied and dismissed in the same breath.

"Because your father negotiated well."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means he offered me something I found... acceptable."

I looked back at Vito. "To make me work for you? This isn't fair."

He said nothing.

"Work for me?" Aleksandr's brow lifted slightly. "Vito. You didn't tell her?"

"No."

"I see." He pushed off the wall and crossed the room with slow, unhurried steps, stopping a few feet from me. "Your father owed my syndicate a debt he couldn't repay. And I think you already know how I feel about debtors."

I did. Everyone did. Aleksandr Volkov didn't forgive debt — he made an example of it.

"What offer?" I asked.

"You." His eyes held mine. "You are now my bride."

The words landed in the room like something breaking.

"What?"

"Your father signed the agreement," Aleksandr said.

I spun toward Vito. "You actually did this?"

"It was the only—"

"Don't." My voice shook. "You didn't just sell me like property, you handed me over as a *bride* to a man I've never met. Your only child, Vito."

He said nothing. He just stood there, letting the silence answer for him.

Aleksandr looked between the two of us, unmoved, and clapped his hands together once. "Okay. Time's up. We're finished here."

He snapped his fingers, and two men in black stepped forward — one opening the front door, the other lifting a small suitcase from beside the entrance.

My suitcase. I hadn't even noticed it was already packed and waiting.

Aleksandr adjusted his cuff. "The car's waiting. Time is ticking." He said it almost pleasantly, like a man announcing dinner reservations.

I didn't move. Instead, I crossed the room to Vito.

"Please, Father. Are you really going to let him take me? You said you'd always protect me. You said—"

"Go with him, Reever." His voice was quiet. Final. "Please."

I looked at him for a long moment, searching for something — an apology, a reason, anything — and found nothing. So I lowered my eyes and walked to the door without looking back.

Outside, the evening air smelled faintly of iron. Gun oil, maybe, from the men flanking the entrance. A long black sedan idled at the curb, engine running like it had been waiting for me its whole life.

One of Aleksandr's men held the rear door open. I hesitated, turning back toward the house one last time.

Vito stood in the doorway, watching. He didn't call my name. He didn't move to stop me.

He just watched me go.

I lowered my gaze and climbed into the car. A second later, Aleksandr slid into the seat beside me, and the door shut with a heavy, final sound. The engine started. I heard the click of the locks engaging.

"You can stop looking at the house," Aleksandr said, without glancing at me. "It's not yours anymore."

I didn't answer.

The car pulled away and kept going, long past the point where I should have stopped watching the streets slide by. Aleksandr didn't speak again. He didn't look at me once.

Good.

It gave me time to memorize the roads we were taking — every turn, every landmark, every way I might one day need to leave.

Reever's POV

The car finally came to a halt, and I looked up.

I'd expected Aleksandr Volkov's territory to at least pretend to be a home. Instead, it felt like a fortress wearing a home's clothes.

The black gates opened slowly, and the car rolled forward into a massive estate hidden behind them. Security here was tight in a way that bordered on obsessive — cameras watching from every corner, armed men posted at every strategic point. Nothing about the compound was accidental. Every inch of it had been planned, measured, defended.

This wasn't a place built to welcome people. It was built to keep them out. Or in.

I sat quietly in the backseat, letting my eyes move across the grounds without letting it show. Camera placement. Guard rotation. The distance between entrances — roughly five footsteps apart. Blind spots. Emergency exits. I was cataloguing an escape route before I'd even stepped out of the car.

Sh*t.

I stopped myself cold. Not becaus