Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 543 -

*Tallon*

I stood to the side, unnoticed, listening and watching my brother and my best friend.

"So, what do you think? It's been an hour. Do we kill them?" Alessandro asked casually, turning to me with a bored look. He didn't even bother looking at the beaten and half-collapsed bodies of the two Russian men before them. Strapped to wooden chairs with piles of duct tape around each of their limbs, neither Ivan nor Anton looked particularly okay in this instance. Swollen faces, blood dripping from various orifices, and slumped over as they went in and out of consciousness, there was very little keeping them still awake except for their sheer stubborn will.

"I don't mind." Vinny shrugged, turning the page of the magazine he was reading from the one old worn-out couch in the room. "But you're explaining to Tallon why he couldn't punch them in the face himself."

Alessandro pursed his lips, a little annoyed, but he reluctantly took a seat on one of the various recliners in the room. The warehouse they had settled in was one of the smaller ones, refurbished in the back room they had been in. With a desk and various furniture that were too old or worn for the regular house, it had become somewhat of a hangout on a good day and a torture room on bad ones. Today, it was a holding cell for the two Russian men. "They're not worth it," Alessandro decided finally, opening up his phone as the very loud sounds of a game on his phone came on.

The music was both annoying and incredibly repetitive and Ivan glanced up, one eye swollen shut as he glared at his interrogators.

"Svolochi," Ivan muttered under his breath, spitting a mix of saliva and blood through his split lip onto the floor.

"And?" Alessandro raised an eyebrow, recognizing the word. "I may be a bastard in the literal sense, but at least I'd never sell out my own family, unlike the two of you. You still haven't even asked if your niece, the one you shot, is still alive." "That predatel is not my family!" Ivan shouted as loudly as he could, blood dribbling down his chin, "If she lived then I'll kill her myself-"

"Say that again. I dare you."

Ivan stiffened, turning his heated gaze to the open doorway just as Alessandro smirked.

I stepped into view as I lowered my murderous gaze upon Ivan and his half-dead associate. Anton didn't even flinch or move as I stepped inside, not like Ivan, who tracked my moves like a spiteful deer caught in a bear trap. He was trapped and he knew it. All he could do was growl and wait for death.

"Took you long enough," Vinny huffed, tossing his magazine onto the couch as he got to his feet. "We were beginning to think you wouldn't be coming."

"And miss this?" I smirked, glancing over Ivan and Anton's injuries with dark satisfaction. "Never."

"So, what you wanna do, boss?" Alessandro asked, not even looking up from his phone as he lounged in the recliner. "I can kill them or Vin can take them to the authorities, get them locked up for life, though I'd rather the first option, to be honest."

"Prison is too good for them," I said calmly, crossing my arms.

"Kretiny!" Ivan burst into a low, crazy laughter, pinning his good eye on me. "You think we'll go down this easy? My father waited years for his revenge and we waited fifteen more for ours! Do you think this will end with us? No. We won't stop until both of our families are dead in the ground. No matter what happens to me, the Zaytsevs will live on!"

I studied him for a moment, watching as his crazed laughter turned into a choked cough. He wheezed, his breath coming in pants at his extensive injuries. With how he was nursing his right side, I guessed he had at least a few broken ribs on top of everything else.

"You're right," I said calmly as he met my cold gaze. "Killing you won't end this. But it sure would make me feel a lot better."

Ivan grit his teeth, hanging his head in what I was assuming was pure exhaustion. I stared at the two of them closely, watching for any hints of weakness to exploit but unlike the fearsome men from before, they were broken down, cracked, and bruised.

They had nothing left anymore and they knew it.

I grabbed a chair and sat on it backward, my legs splayed out as I tucked my arms over the back. "Let me be very clear. Natalia is alive. She is expected to make a full recovery, and that is the only reason the two of you are still alive. You are lucky she survived or I might not have been so benevolent."

"Oh? And why be so kind?" Ivan glanced up, baring his teeth at me as he spat the word. "Are you expecting an apology? Remorse of shooting her? Well, you will only be disappointed. That predatel got what she deserved for getting in my way. All of you deserve death for my father's death!"

"Getting in your way?" I raised an eyebrow, my voice lowering ten degrees as I pinned him with an unblinking stare. "I know everything you did, Ivan. You think that you're the victim here, but you're not. Your father was a cruel, ruthless man and we gave him every chance to walk away, to pursue a life outside of here. It was he who chose to come after us again, to pursue revenge over rebuilding. His death is his own fault."

"You know nothing!" Ivan snarled, struggling against his binds.

"I know everything," I said forcefully and coldly, ignoring his attempts to run from the hard truth thrown into his face. "Any of you could've chosen to start a new life like Natalia's mother did, but it was your senseless goal of revenge that has driven you into a corner again and again. Do you want to know why you keep losing? Why you couldn't beat our men? Why you failed to turn Alessandro against me? Because you treat everyone around you like pawns in a chess game! None of your men are loyal to you because you don't value what they bring. Even your own family turns their back on you because you use them and throw them away, just like you used Natalia!"

"And you expected us to be the same," Alessandro said, glancing up with a firm glare. "No matter what transgressions I may have, no matter our disagreements, we are brothers. I would never turn against my family, especially not for personal gain."

"Unlike your brothers," Vinny smirked.

Ivan stiffened, an unnaturally still look to him as our words settled in like water being absorbed into a sponge. It was slow and gradual, but the pieces began to come together bit by bit-how we knew about his plans before even entering the restaurant, how we had the time and resources to get rid of the many assassination attempts he had put in place, and how easy it had been to trap them.

If it hadn't been for them taking Natalia, which had been a pure impulsive move, we wouldn't have destroyed them in that restaurant, taken them down as easily as a match of chess. And the only way we could've done all of that was due to those contingencies I had set up-or rather, the ones that had come straight to me.

Loyalty really did not run in their veins, it seemed.

It was several minutes of tense silence, watching Ivan as he slowly bit by bit lost all sense of fighting back, slumping against the tape binding him. It was sad in a way to watch a man lose his spirit, his world turning on its head as he gave up-or it would have been if he hadn't shot the woman I loved.

Instead, I felt gratified, triumphant as he fell completely and utterly silent, not even an ounce of his wheezing breath in the air. It was easy to mistake him as dead, if it wasn't for the slightest movement of his chest, the rise and fall of his lungs. But after a long time, Ivan slowly glanced up at me. His dark eyes were just endless pools of nothing like everything he'd had was drained out of him.

"Killing me," he said in a slow and calm way, "will only continue the feud."

I snorted, crossing my arms as I stared him down with a blank look. Did he really think such a pitiful excuse would stop me from making sure the rest of his life was miserable? After what he did to my family, to Natalia, to my father, and to Gio and Olivia....

"I don't care," I said honestly. "As long as you pay for what you've done, then this war can continue for ages. But just know that we will always crush you beneath our feet. The Zaytsev's will never win, not while my family is here."

It may have seemed cruel after he'd been dealt such a critical blow to his psyche already, but to me, it was nothing but necessary. He'd taken too many lives and hurt too many people. I would personally make sure his family could never rise up into power ever again if it meant protecting the people I loved.

"And Natalia?"

Ivan stared me straight in the eyes, the last few straws he had clutched in his hand as he baited me out. I gave him a steady look, not showing any emotions like he wanted.

"Take her away and cut her off. The blood of Zaytsev runs in her veins," Ivan told me with a slight curl to his lips and a devious look in his eyes. "You really think she won't side with her family again, even for her precious mother?"

I set my jaw, not willing to give him the reaction he wanted but also knowing that he was right. I doubted Natalia would side with them again, but the guilt she would have over abandoning them... of choosing me over her mother, well, it wasn't a choice I ever wanted her to have to make.

We were stuck at an impasse, our two families on either side of the road as we blocked one another's path to what we wanted. Neither of us was willing to step aside, to give even an inch of land, and as I stared at Ivan and he at me, there was a spark of recognition-a realization that there was only one way out of this goddamn mess.

"What do you want?" I scowled, already knowing the answer but forcing it out of him anyway.

"My life," Ivan said plainly, "and Anton's."

"And what are you willing to offer for it?" I glared at him.

"The end of this feud."