People love funerals. Not because they miss the dead. Because everyone shows up hoping the bastard deserved it.

My father’s funeral was packed. Of course it was. The man spent fifty years building a kingdom of extortion, guns, and nervous men in expensive coats. The Bratva doesn’t ignore a corpse like that. They come to stare at it. Make sure it’s real.

Cold day. Grey sky. Whole cemetery looked like someone spilled ash over Moscow.

Kirill Romanov lay in the coffin with that stupid iron jaw he always had. Even dead he looked like he was about to insult someone’s bloodline.

Good for him. He died doing what he loved.

Pissing off the wrong people.

The Pakhan’s men stood nearby. Quiet. Heavy coats. The type of silence that means somebody already dug the next grave. People whispered that my father betrayed the Pakhan.

People also whispered my stepmother helped it happen.

People whisper a lot when they’re scared.

I hadn’t seen her yet. Not since I was nineteen.

Back then she arrived at the manor like some sacrificial lamb delivered by courier. My father had spotted her on a magazine cover. A teenage model with big eyes and bones too delicate for that house.

He decided he wanted her.

That’s how Kirill Romanov married his fifth wife.

Tatiana had given him three kids. Olga gave him nothing. Alina gave him two daughters. Yelena lost her mind before she could give him anything.

All dead.

Convenient, right.

Then the girl arrived. Barely old enough to drink tea without supervision. I remember seeing her step out of the car that first day.

Small suitcase. White dress. Terrified eyes.

My father looked at her like a wolf inspecting meat.

I looked at her like an idiot who’d just been shot through the chest.

Because I’d seen her before.

Magazine cover. Train station kiosk. I was seventeen. Bought the magazine because of her smile. Stared at it for weeks like some pathetic teenager.

Then my father married her.

Life has a sense of humor like that.

So I left. University overseas. Stayed away fourteen years. Best decision I ever made.

And now the bastard was dead.

I stood by the grave while priests mumbled prayers nobody believed. Dirt thudded onto the coffin lid.

Someone behind me said quietly, “Maxim.”

Her voice.

Christ.

I turned.

She stood a few steps away in black. Not the fragile girl from before. Older now. Poised. Four children had softened her face but sharpened something else in her eyes.

Roman stood beside her. Tall. Seventeen maybe. Already built like a problem.

Rosa held Dora’s hand. Fyodor clung to her coat like a shadow.

My half-siblings.

My father’s last batch.

Rumors said she’d given Kirill everything he wanted. Sons. Daughters. A perfect little dynasty.

Funny thing is the rumors never mention how the dynasty is currently surrounded by armed men.

Her eyes met mine.

Same eyes from the magazine cover.

Same damn smile trying not to appear.

“You came,” she said quietly.

I shrugged. “Wanted to make sure he stayed dead.”

One of the Pakhan’s men coughed like he enjoyed that answer.

Roman stared at me. Kid already looked like he wanted to punch something.

Can’t blame him. I’m the older brother who vanished for fourteen years and just showed up at his father’s funeral cracking jokes.

Family bonding.

She stepped closer.

People watched. Bratva men always watch. Gossip spreads faster than bullets in families like ours.

“You look the same,” she said.

“That’s a lie.”

“Maybe.”

Dry humor. Same as before.

I leaned slightly closer. Close enough to smell smoke from the candles and whatever perfume she wore.

“You know they think you helped kill him,” I murmured.

She didn’t flinch.

“Do you?”

“Depends,” I said. “Did you?”

A pause.

Wind moved through the cemetery.

Then she said quietly, “Your father made many enemies.”

Not an answer.

Not a denial either.

I laughed under my breath.

“God. You survived fourteen years with Kirill Romanov and now you’re running the house like a queen. That’s impressive.”

Her mouth twitched.

“You left.”

“Smartest thing I ever did.”