Page 116 of Phantom Flower

Chapter 40

Dimitri Morozov

I stood in the center of my father’s office. I could smell the scent of Cuban cigars and polished mahogany. Alexei was at my right shoulder. My eyes burned. I could not even hide it. My whole body was filled with rage.

My father sat behind his desk. He had summoned us yesterday. I had ignored the call for weeks, ever since the last time we spoke and he brought up that fucking wedding again, the one he wanted me to use as a leash. I had not answered his messages. I had not stepped foot in this room. And now here I was, because the truth had finally clawed its way to the surface.

He looked me over with a knowing smile. “It’s a surprise you came,” he said. “I thought I’d have to chase you down. Alexei has been handling all your work. Is that the mark of a leader?”

Alexei squeezed my forearm in a silent warning. He could probably feel I was about to go feral.

My gaze stayed locked on the man who had given me his name and taught me that love was just another weapon.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

My father tilted his head like a curious cat.

“You helped Daniel Walker.”

Inside my head, the pieces had already locked into place. Daniel had been rich, but he still did not have the resources to pull off everything he did. Ilya, the best hacker we had, had taken far too long to find him. Money alone did not buy that kind of delay. Only real power could slow Ilya down. So I told Alexei and Ilya to stop looking at the surface and start digging under it after Daniel died, because I was not convinced he was doing it alone. I knew he had help. Ilya came today and delivered all the information, traces that pointed straight back to the Morozov name. My father had been covering him and helping him.

“The video from the woods was also you,” I said, feeling my voice give in to anger. “You spread that around and hid my face, thinking I’d drop him once he was publicly humiliated.”

My father simply leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, and answered like we were discussing the weather.

“And yet you didn’t. You had to go and make a demonstration and declare him yours.”

He made me fucking sick.

He had helped Daniel Walker lure and corner the one person I had decided belonged to me. He could have had Rei killed outright, but my father had never been interested in simple. He adored games. The psychological knife twist. Let Daniel destroy what I cared about. Let the public humiliation do the work of breaking him. And watch to see if I would walk away like a good son who knew his place. When I did not, he must have been disappointed. Or amused. Or both.

I could not stand the look on his face.

I raised my gun and aimed straight at the center of my father’s chest. The safety was already off. One twitch and it would be over.

Alexei’s hand clamped down on my wrist instantly. “Dimitri—”

“I’m going to fucking kill you.”

My father watched me. I knew he had already calculated every possible outcome and was waiting to see which one I would choose.

My finger rested on the trigger. I could end it. Right now.

“You always did have a temper,” he said softly.

I could kill him. I wanted to kill him.

“It’s time to stop playing games,” my father said, like he was discussing a business merger instead of my entire fucking life. “You had your fun. But he’s no woman. He’s a boy with a pretty face and a weak spine. It was amusing for a while, watching you chase something you thought you wanted. But it ends now.”

I almost laughed.

“You know, when I was small, my mother used to talk about you so fondly. She would sit on the edge of my bed at night, brush the hair from my face, and tell me stories about the great Ivan Morozov. How strong you were. How clever. How no one in the world could stand against you. She spoke about you like you were some kind of god she had been lucky enough to marry. Even when you were cold to her. Even when you barely looked at her across the dinner table. Even when you came home with blood on your cuffs and did not say a single word to her for days.”

My father’s jaw tightened, but he did not interrupt.

“She did it for me,” I continued. “She wanted me to love you. To respect you. To grow up wanting to be like you. Every time I complained, every single time I cried because you dragged me into those meetings at seven years old, because you made me watch men beg for their lives while their fingers were being pulled off one by one, she would grab my face and say, ‘Your father does this because he wants you to be strong. He wants you to survive in this world.’ She had so much faith in you. Right up until her last breath.”

The gun in my hand trembled. I forced my fingers to still.