Reap (Scarred Souls, #2)(66)

Chapter Sixteen

Luka

Brooklyn, New York

One week later

“You’re really doing this?”

I turned to face my father as I stood in the center of my living room.

“I’m going,” I replied coldly. My father slowly sat down on the sofa.

I hadn’t seen him since that day in the gym when he’d seen me training. When I’d arrived back here from the Hamptons last week, he was away on business. This evening I found him waiting at my door. He was here to discuss tonight’s plan to take out Levan Jakhua. We’d finally got a tip-off for where the Georgian bastard was hiding from our insider. I’d been given permission for this sting from the Pakhan in my father’s absence.

It seemed he was now here to hear about it in person.

Refocusing on the here and now, I watched my father cross his legs, reflecting the calm demeanor he always wore, as his eyes fell upon me. “And you’re going to kill him? You?”

My jaw clenched as I anticipated the argument that was going to come. I walked to my papa and sat down on the seat before him. “My byki will go in to where he’s hiding. I promised you I wouldn’t fight, and I won’t. They’ll bring Jakhua out to me.” I looked up at my father. “Then I’ll slit his f*cking throat.”

My father’s hand rubbed over his short graying beard, and he nodded. “And Kisa knows you’re doing this?”

“She understands what I have to do to avenge Anri,” I replied vaguely. He nodded again.

We sat in silence until I asked, “Papa? Why don’t you want me to fight?”

My father’s hand stopped on his face, his brown eyes looked into mine. “Luka, you will never understand this until you have children, but the day you were taken from me”—he patted his chest—“something within me died.”

A hollow pit formed in my stomach. My father rarely showed emotion. Since I’d gotten back to Brooklyn after being freed from the gulag, he hadn’t really known how to treat me. I supposed that was because he no longer knew me. I’d left him a boy, and I’d returned a damaged man. Fourteen years of raising me had been lost. I’d never really thought about it that way before. Maybe he was just as lost as I was.

He sat forward. “When Kisa told me you were back, when she stood in our private box in the Dungeon and told me my son, my lost son, was the man killing Alik Durov in the cage, I couldn’t believe it.” His eyes lost focus. “You were savage, wild, but highly effective. You slaughtered Alik Durov. You slaughtered anyone that came into your path. You were unstoppable, the most effective killer I’d seen, well, since Alik.”

I stiffened at the mention of Alik Durov, but my father’s expression softened. I was looking at my real father. Not the Bratva boss, but Ivan Tolstoi, my father.

“I watched that boy slowly go insane, Luka. I watched it happen before my very eyes. With each kill, he thirsted for blood, the bloodlust slowly took control. And as for all the f*cked-up things he did in private? I had no idea. But that boy lived for the kill. Sought out our enemies and tortured them. Killed them in the most sadistic ways imaginable.” He sighed. I thought he looked tired. “We may kill in this life, Luka, but we’re not beasts. We adhere to a code, even when it comes to the death of our rivals.”

“Papa—” I went to speak, but my father held up his hand.

“When I saw you kill Durov, you no longer resembled my serious and respectful son I’d known as a child.” His eyes met mine. “You looked like Durov. That same need for the kill was in your eyes.” He sat back and dragged his hand down his tired aging face. “It still is, Luka. That look. That look is still there. Every single day.” Silence hung in the air, and he added, “You’re going to be the pakhan, Luka. Of that, we are certain. But I refuse to watch my son become like Durov. I’ve just got you back. I won’t lose you again. Especially to the demons you hold inside. I won’t lose you to yourself.”

My chest tightened at the flash of vulnerability in my father’s eyes. I stood and walked toward him. I kneeled at his feet. “Papa, I’m back. And I’m not Alik Durov. I’m your heir, and I won’t let you down. You have my word on that.”

Water built in my father’s eyes. He lifted his hand and tapped it on my cheek. “You’re my life, Luka. My legacy,” he said through a tight throat. “I lived with a void in my heart when you were gone. I thought that thinking you were dead all those years was the hardest part of losing you.” He shrugged. “Turns out it wasn’t. Because living with the knowledge that I could lose you all over again? All because you crave to be in the fight? I fear, this time, would kill me.”

“Papa, I’m not going anywhere,” I assured. “And I won’t ever let you down. I swear it to you. I swear it on our family name. I’ll”—I fought back a lump in my throat—“I’ll make you proud, Papa. Just give me a chance.”

My father reached forward and took me in his arms. Pressing a kiss to my head, he rasped, “You already do make me proud, Luka. You already do.”

He held me for several seconds before he pulled back. Getting to his feet, he fixed his tie and walked to the door. Before he stopped, he asked, “How is Talia? She’s seemed distracted the few times we’ve talked.”