Page 170 of Betrayal and Vows

Mikhail’s face goes bone white.

“What?” he whispers.

“Natalia was sleeping with one of your men,” Elena says. A slow smile creeps across her face. “Natalia told you the baby was yours because she wanted power.”

Vadim turns to Natalia. “Is it true?”

She hesitates too long.

“Is. It. True?” Vadim’s voice is calm now. All traces of anger are gone.

“I have proof,” Elena says.

Mikhail stumbles backward like she’s hit him.

“No,” he mutters. “No, no, no?—”

The silence stretches for what feels like an eternity. Then Vadim lets out a sound I've never heard from him before—a broken, animalistic wail that echoes off the warehouse walls.

"Thirty years," he whispers, staring at Natalia with something beyond rage. Beyond hatred. "Thirty years I believed that bastard was my blood."

Natalia backs away from him, her composure completely shattered. "Vadim, please, let me explain?—"

"Explain?" His voice rises to a roar. "You murdered my wife! You murdered my son! For what? So your whore's spawn could steal his birthright?"

"I did it for us!" she screams back, desperation making her voice shrill. "Irina was going to leave you! She was going to take everything and run! I saved your empire!"

"You destroyed it!" Vadim pulls his gun, pressing it against her temple. "Everything I built was for my blood. My legacy. And you fed me lies while my real son grew up thinking I tried to kill him."

I watch this unfold like it's happening to someone else. Thirty years of believing I was unwanted, disposable, a mistake to be corrected. And it was all orchestrated by this woman who wanted to secure her bastard's position.

Mikhail is having his own breakdown. He's collapsed to his knees, staring at his hands like they're covered in blood.

“I’m the heir!” Mikhail says. “This is mine!”

"You're worse than nothing," Vadim snarls, turning the gun toward him. "You're a pretender. A fraud who's been living in my true son's place."

"Wait," Mikhail scrambles backward on his hands and knees. "I didn't know! I swear I didn't know! She never told me!"

"It doesn't matter what you knew," Vadim's finger tightens on the trigger. "You exist. That's crime enough."

The first shot takes Mikhail in the chest. He flies backward, blood spraying across the concrete. The second shot catches him in the head.

Just like that, the man who tormented me, who was going to rape and torture Lena, is nothing but meat on the warehouse floor.

Natalia screams, but Vadim backhands her so hard she hits the wall and slides down, leaving a smear of blood on the concrete.

And then, to my complete surprise, he turns the weapon on her.

Bang.

She doesn’t even have time to scream before she takes her last breath.

"Thirty years," he says again, his voice hollow now. "I threw away my real family for your lies."

He turns to me, and for the first time in my life, I see something that might be regret in his eyes. "Anton. Alexei. My son."

“I am not your son. I will never be Alexei. Your whore killed him.”