Page 96 of Gilded Shackles
"You come to me." His voice sharpens. "You come to your family. You don't try to be the solution. You ask for help."
I lower the gun. My hands fall to my sides.
"She's my wife. She's mine to protect."
"And she's carrying your child. That means you don't get to play lone wolf anymore. You don't get to be reckless. Killing me isn't brave. It's stupid."
He stands. Walks toward me. Slow and careful, like approaching a wild dog.
He places a hand on my shoulder.
"I loved your aunt more than anything in this world. If someone had tried to take her from me, I'd have razed the planet. So I get it. But I also know how to win a war. And it's not by charging in half-blind."
I drop into the nearest chair. The adrenaline crashes and all that's left is guilt, shame, and a whole lot of fear.
Viktor pours two drinks. Hands me one. I don't want it. I take it anyway.
"Tell me what you need. Learn to ask for help, Nikolai. We're family. Gayle's a bitch. Don't let her come between us."
I look up. All I see is wisdom and forgiveness.
"You're a far better man than I am," I whisper.
Viktor is quiet for a long moment. He refills his glass but doesn't drink. Something shifts in his face. Something older than anger.
"Before we plan this," he says, "there's something you need to know."
I look up.
"Gayle Donovan is not Elle's mother."
The room goes silent. Even the air stops moving.
"What?"
"I've had questions about Gayle for years. Things that never added up. The way she controlled Elle. The obsession with keeping her hidden. No photographs. No history. When my people started digging into Natalia's Italian connections, the trail didn't stop at the Capellis. It went further back. To Gayle."
He leans forward, voice dropping.
"Elle's real father was Stephan Donskoy. Gayle's ownbrother. Bratva. Donskoy family, out of Saint Petersburg. He had a wife. A daughter."
My hands shake. "Had."
"Gayle killed them both. Stephan and his wife. Took the child. Moved to America. Raised her as her own to control the inheritance and the U.S. operations. She's been running the con for twenty-six years."
"How did you not know?" The question scrapes out of me before I can stop it. Viktor, who knows everything. Who misses nothing.
His jaw tightens. The look on his face tells me this is the part that costs him. "Because Gayle Donovan doesn't exist. Her real name was Galina Donskaya — Stephan's younger sister. After the murders, she disappeared. Erased herself completely: new name, new face, new papers. By the time she surfaced in New York as an American businesswoman, there was nothing left to connect her to the Donskoys. I did business with her for years and never once saw it." He pauses. "That's how good she was. And that's how badly I failed your wife."
Every piece of the puzzle I couldn't name. The way Gayle controlled Elle like property. The obsession with keeping her locked away. The refusal to show a single family photo. It all slots into place with a sickening click.
"She murdered Elle's parents," I say. The words taste like ash. "And Elle doesn't know."
"No," Viktor says quietly. "She doesn't."
Something inside me turns to iron. Not just rage. Certainty.The kind that doesn't bend, doesn't break, and doesn't give a fuck about the cost.
Viktor downs his drink. "Tell me what you need."
