Ivan’s lips stretched into a thin grin. He bore no resemblance to the man who’d brought me into his house and treated me like his son—or so I thought. It took years to build a relationship and a second to destroy one, and ours had been ruined beyond repair.
Don’t trust anyone, Alex. It’s always the people you least expect who’ll stab you in the back.
“That’s the beauty of it,” he said, even as he winced. I reveled in the pleasure of that small movement—it’d been two weeks; he must be in serious pain by now—even as my heart tore itself apart at the way Ava looked like at me. Like she didn’t know me at all.
In some ways, she didn’t.
“Michael was one of your father’s business rivals when Anton started expanding into Maryland. They’d never gotten along—Anton hated the way Michael conducted business, and Michael hated that anyone dared encroach on ‘his’ territory. They eventually reached a truce, but Michael made an easy scapegoat. It didn’t take much to plant ‘evidence’ that an impressionable teen like yourself would believe.” Ivan coughed. “You’re a smart kid, but your desire for vengeance blinded you. I always hated the man, anyway. He humiliated me once at a party your father invited him to as a ‘gesture of goodwill’—even though I told Anton not to—and I wasn’t surprised to learn Michael’s a psychopath as well.”
“You’re one to talk,” I said coldly. My uncle would be deranged enough to hold on to a grudge over some slight at a party that happened decades ago.
I’d gone to painstaking lengths to ensure Michael wouldn’t know of Ivan’s nor my connection with my father, because he wouldn’t exactly welcome the son of the man he’d murdered （or so I thought） into his home. I’d changed our last names and erased any evidence that would tie us to Anton Dudik. My uncle and I had been born Ivan and Alex Dudik; we were now Ivan and Alex Volkov. I was lucky my uncle was so paranoid—there were few public photos or traces of him before we started Archer Group, which made my job easier.
Apparently, that had all been for naught, since Michael had already met Ivan and knew of his connection to my father. He hadn’t liked me, but he also hadn’t cared about having me in his house, because he wasn’t the murderer.
I couldn’t believe my uncle pulled the wool over my eyes for so long. I was supposed to be a genius. A master strategist. But I’d fallen prey to the same failing as all other humans—believing the best of someone simply because they were there for you at your worst. He was my only living relative left, and I’d let that color my perception of him.
Now, because of my fuckup, Ava was hurt.
My stomach clenched. I kept my gaze averted from her—if I looked at her, I would lose it, and I couldn’t afford to lose it. Not with Camo pointing a gun at her and my uncle’s sharp eyes watching everything. He may be dying, but I wouldn’t underestimate him until he was six feet in the ground.
“I can say the same for you.” Ivan winced again, though he tried to hide it. I hoped the bastard suffered until his last breath on earth. “You, me, Michael. We’re all cut from the same dark cloth. We’re willing to do whatever it takes to achieve what we want. I knew it was smart taking you in,” he said. “You were so grateful, and I couldn’t let that intellect of yours go to waste. We’ve done well for ourselves, haven’t we?” He swept an arm around his grand office.
“I did well. You leeched off me like the parasite you are.”
Ivan clucked in disappointment. “Is that any way to speak to the man who kept you from being put into the horrid foster system? Really, you should be more grateful.”
He really was deranged. “No wonder my mom wanted nothing to do with you,” I said. “She must’ve smelled the crazy from a mile away.”
Ivan’s fake smile melted, and his face twitched with anger. “Your mother was a stupid whore,” he spat. “I loved her, but she turned me down—me, the one who’d been there for her long before she met your father—for na?ve, soft-hearted Anton. I waited and waited for her to come to her senses, but she never did.” He snorted. “When she told Anton about my letters, he stopped speaking to me. Wasn’t man enough to confront me face to face, but he ran his mouth to our mutual friends, all of whom cut me off too.” His eyes shone with hatred. “No one crosses me like that. He took what I loved from me, so I took what he loved from him.”
“Not what. Who,” I said through gritted teeth. “My mother was not an object.”
Ivan cackled. “Oh, Alex, love did make you soft after all.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m not in love.”
“That’s not what a little birdie told me.” A cough rattled in his lungs. “I had some interesting conversations with a pretty little blonde by the name of Madeline. She had a lot to say about how you reacted when she pushed poor Ava into a pool.”
Fury sliced through me. Madeline. I didn’t know how she and my uncle met, but Ivan must’ve been tracking me longer than I thought.
Once again, I cursed myself for letting my guard slip.
By this time next month, Hauss Industries would be toast. I’d make sure of it. I’d already gathered the kindling after the pool incident; I just needed to set it on fire.
“All you have to do is give me the money and position, sign a contract saying you’ll never come after me or hold corporate office again, and I’ll let Ava and her little friend go,” Ivan said. “It’s a simple trade.”
I wondered if he knew Bridget was the Princess of Eldorra. If he did, he was an idiot for dragging her into this. If he didn’t, he was an idiot for not doing his research.
And if he thought I’d believe he would let any of us go after he all but admitted to murder in front of us, he must think I was an idiot.
I weighed my options. Ivan wouldn’t do anything to me, Ava, or Bridget until I’d wired the money and given him back his position, but that wouldn’t take long. He knew I had the board under my thumb. I could make him CEO again with one call.
“To be clear, that wasn’t a request,” Ivan said.
I smiled, the gears in my brain clicking into place. “Sure. I can agree to your request—” My uncle smirked. “—or I can save your life. You choose.”
The smirk disappeared. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I stepped toward him. Camo raised his gun in warning, but Ivan waved him off, his rheumy eyes narrowing as I stared pointedly at his skin, his hair, and the way his hand shook with barely concealed pain.
Realization dawned. “How?” he growled.
My smile slashed across my face. “You were quite thirsty after your drive to my house a few weeks ago.”
“The tea.” Ivan’s face pinched. “I checked after the symptoms started showing. The doctors said—”
“That you had Guillain-Barre disease?” I sighed. “It is unfortunate that the symptoms are so similar. But no, I’m afraid it’s not Guillain-Barre.”
“What did you do, you little shit?”
A flash of movement behind Camo—visible only from where I stood—caught my eye. I showed no reaction even as my mental calculations adjusted to account for the new development.