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"So you admit that you paid Dr. Babich to hide that evidence? That you knew Ivan Sokolov raped me and you hid it from the council to protect your own name?" My pulse thuds in my ears, and he glares at me.

"I did what I had to do to protect my family." Batya is so damn stubborn, and Mamochka won't help me. Her face is still covered as I keep pressing.

"Tell me what you did, Batya, so I know. Tell me so I can make my own decision about you."

He sighs and drags a hand over his face. "Babich was going to tell the police, Alana. I would’ve been arrested. Forget the council—they weren't even in my mind. I knew if they arrested me even for a moment, the Sokolovs would’ve attacked. You’d all be dead. I paid Babich because I had no other choice. And Natalia will marry Alexei for the same reason. The fighting must end."

"So you tried to cover it up."

"I tried to do what's right."

"I'm trying to save this family," I say quietly. "Natalia can't marry Alexei Sokolov."

"That marriage is the only thing standing between us and total destruction," Batya says. "The war has cost us too much. We need the alliance."

It makes me sick to know he still feels that way after everything, and I will never understand why.

I take a step to the side and my chair scrapes against the floor. "I need some air."

"Alana," Mamochka calls after me, but I'm already moving toward the door with my phone in my pocket with the recording still running.

His recorded confession might not be something I can use to force him to back down, but it's something the council can listen to and at least know what happened. If they believe the marriage is still good and right and true after they know what sins it's really covering, I don’t think I can stay here anymore.

And I'm not sure what Dimitri has to prove to his father, but my world seems to be shattering the more I learn. I hope to him it's with all this darkness being exposed. If not, we might both be outcasts by the time this is all said and done.

11

DIMITRI

The house is quiet when I slip in using the hide-a-key. My father is so predictable. He hasn't even changed the locks in twenty years, which means he probably hasn't changed the password on his computer, either.

"Stay close," I tell Maksim as we walk up the hallway. My father should be out of the house, but that doesn't mean Alexei or one of our men isn't here keeping an eye on things. Father is anything if not protective, though he could take a lesson about how often security protocols are supposed to be updated.

"What are you hoping to find?" he asks, staying just a few steps behind me. I glance around as I go, checking rooms, listening for movement. I've never been caught breaking and entering, but I've never tried to break into my own father's home. I'm not an idiot. He has security cameras and armed men. Hopefully, so long as we don’t trip any alarms, he'll never even look at the cameras.

"Proof they paid off someone after Ivan's death. I need to show the council he's not been honest with them. They'll do their own inquisition after that." He's not smart enough to totally cover his tracks. If he paid someone off, a cop or an investigator, I'll find it, and when I do, hopefully, I'll have enough proof to present to the council. It'll just be deciding where and when to do it.

We stalk into his office and shut the door behind us. There are no cameras in here, so I can let my guard down a little bit. I sink into his large leather office chair and wake the computer, which brings up a password screen. When I type in his old password, it flashes for a moment and the lock screen dissolves into bliss. I'm in, just that easy.

"God, you weren't kidding," Maksim says, leaning over my shoulder. He hovers, but I've got a better use for him.

"Go look through the filing cabinet. The date would be December twenty-fourth five years ago. See what you can hunt up." I nod at my father's stash of old paper files he keeps needlessly. Computers are so much more secure and convenient, but he insists on keeping paper records of some things.

My search starts in his finance folder, but that yields little results, just ordinary transfers, payroll, and property taxes. Nothing that looks like a man trying to cover something up. I have to dig deeper.

I sit back and rub my jaw, then I start opening folders he has labeled Miscellaneous. Maksim works the cabinet behind me, drawers sliding, paper whispering as he flips through things. This could take forever, and I don't have forever. He could be back in under an hour. I don't even know where he is right now.

“December twenty-fourth,” he mutters. “And the week after.”

“Keep going," I grumble, finding a subfolder dated that winter, and the first line item stops me. A wire to the same private clinic the Volskayas have used for years. And this isn't a small co-pay amount. It's a lump sum sent two days after Ivan died, marked as a consulting fee. I click through the attachments until I hit the invoice. There are no procedures listed or a physician's notes. It's just stamped Paid and a file number is marked that matches the one on Alana's records she sent me.

God, this sickens me. My own father paid that doctor to keep his mouth shut while her father stood back and let it happen. They conspired to cover this up so the Sokolov name would be protected and Nikolai Volskaya wouldn’t go to prison.

“Got paper,” Maksim says, and I hold out a hand without looking. He puts a folder in it with file after file of records dated back to that transaction. The same receipt I see on this computer is here in print form with my father’s fucking signature on it.

The next payment is worse because it's sloppy. Cash was withdrawn from his personal account the same week, then a deposit into an account that traces to a police captain in the district that would have responded to some sort of emergency call. The memo line is blank, but the amount isn't. I copy the routing numbers and the dates into my phone with every intent to go look this up later, but I don't think I have to prove much. This guy's been on the payroll for years.

“The captain?” Maksim asks, reading over my shoulder now. I hear the disgust in his tone and I've never been more glad to have a loyal lieutenant on my side. He knows just how detrimental it will be to our whole organization if that alliance goes through. We aren't just losing territory or coughing up millions. We're exposing our men to the spineless rule of power-hungry men who can't follow any code. Whatever's on the head flows downward, and that will mean tarnishing every man under us.