Chapter 42: Dmitri's History

The 'Sculpture' stood finished, cold and beautiful, but the studio felt heavier than ever. After Ivan left to handle the logistics of the unveiling, Dmitri lingered. He didn't speak of work or duty. He simply looked at me—ragged, covered in fine marble dust, and emotionally empty.

"You are a ghost, Leo," Dmitri said, his voice low, lacking any hard edge of command. "You poured everything into that marble, and now you have nothing left."

He walked over to me and took the dry, dusty tools from my hands, laying them down on the workbench. "The stabilization Ivan mentioned is not a luxury, it is a necessity. You cannot function on pure emptiness."

I pulled back slightly, exhausted but resistant. "I don't need your 'stabilization,' Dmitri. I just need to breathe air that you don't own."

He didn't argue. He just studied me with an intense, unsettling depth. "Your breath is the most valuable asset we possess. I won't risk it. Come."

Dmitri didn't take me to his bedroom, or even the opulent living room. He guided me to a small, enclosed solarium off the kitchen—a quiet space filled with low, green light filtering through thick potted ferns. It was warm, surprisingly unadorned, and felt like a hidden corner of the fortress.

He settled me onto a deep, comfortable sofa and poured two fingers of amber liquid into a tumbler for himself, ignoring my own silent refusal. He just sat, staring out at the inner courtyard garden, the same view I had from my new studio window.

"You believe control is a power game we play," Dmitri finally said, swirling the drink slowly. "A choice we made to dominate you. You think we woke up one day and decided that ownership was better than love."

I didn't answer. I just hugged my knees to my chest, my silence a raw accusation.

"When Ivan and I were ten," Dmitri began, his voice dropping to a gravelly, almost unrecognizable tone, "we had a small dog. A mutt. Not a purebred show piece, but a silly, clumsy thing we found near the stables. We called him Max."

The story was unexpected. It was the first time he had spoken about something personal, something outside the structure of the Volkov machine, and the casual shift in his tone was chilling.

"It was the summer before our first major public event—an annual foundation dinner where Arthur was being recognized. Perfection was everything. Every detail, every word, every gesture had to be flawless to maintain the family image. Arthur spent weeks coaching us, correcting our posture, drilling us on the precise language for greeting guests."

Dmitri took a sip of his drink, his eyes distant. "Max, the dog, was a problem. He was messy, he barked, he was an uncontrolled variable. Arthur told us to keep him hidden in the kennel until the event was over. We promised. We were good, obedient sons, terrified of disappointing him."

"But the morning of the dinner, I made a mistake," Dmitri continued, his voice tight. "I left the kennel latch slightly ajar. Max, thrilled to be free, ran through the house. He didn't just run; he jumped up on the long, white silk tablecloth, where the name cards for the international dignitaries were laid out. He tore the cloth, chewed up three of the place cards, and tracked mud across the floor. It was pure chaos."

I watched him, fascinated and horrified by the quiet, controlled way he was delivering this memory.

"Arthur didn't yell," Dmitri said, his jaw tightening. "He looked at the damage, at the ruined display, and then he looked at me. Not with anger, but with profound disappointment. He said, 'Dmitri, your carelessness introduced chaos into a structure that demanded order. You risked everything we have built for a moment of sentimentality.' He didn't hit me. That wasn't his way."

He paused, the silence in the solarium growing vast.

"He told Ivan and me that our loyalty was now being tested. He told us that Max had to be removed, permanently, as a lesson in the price of failure. And he made us watch. Not the killing—Arthur delegated the messy parts—but he made us watch as Max was driven away, knowing he was being taken to be put down. The entire time, he looked at us and said, 'This is what happens when you introduce variables into the Volkov structure.'"

I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. This wasn't just a story about a cruel father; it was the psychological source code of the Volkov twins.

"We cried," Dmitri admitted, his face devoid of expression, but his eyes held the deep, enduring pain of that ten-year-old boy. "But we learned. We learned that emotion—love, sentimentality, the need for a connection that isn't transactional—is a weakness that Arthur will exploit to destroy us. The only way to survive is to be the structure itself. To be the certainty."

He finally looked at me, his gaze intense and terrible. "We didn't orchestrate that night with you, Leo. We didn't plan the immediate obsession. But when you tried to flee, when you introduced chaos into our lives, you became Max. An uncontrolled, beloved variable that risked the entire structure Arthur built. And we couldn't, wouldn't, lose you the same way."

"So you built a cage," I whispered, the resentment still sharp, but now laced with a terrifying understanding. "You built this perfect prison to ensure I could never be taken away, to ensure I could never expose your weakness to Arthur again."

"Yes," Dmitri confirmed, the word heavy and absolute. "Your autonomy, your freedom—that is the chaos. And my control, Leo, is the only guarantee against being ten years old again, watching the one thing I cared about being driven away for the sake of an image. I needed you to understand that my possessiveness is not just about lust. It is about survival."

He set his empty glass down. "We need certainty, Leo. And you are that certainty now. I won't apologize for the cage, because the cage is the only thing that keeps the dog alive."

The brutal honesty of the confession, the raw exposure of his childhood trauma, didn't make me love him, but it shattered the simple definition of 'monster.' Dmitri was a creation of a greater monster, and his control was a terrified defense mechanism. My heart ached for the frightened boy, but my soul still recoiled from the cruel man.

I didn't try to run. I just looked at him, seeing the scared boy and the ruthless heir simultaneously. The price of their name was paid not only in money, but in the total psychological restructuring of two children.

"I understand the fear," I said, my voice barely steady. "But that doesn't make the prison right."

"It makes it necessary," Dmitri finished, rising from the couch, the moment of vulnerability already receding behind the polished mask of the Volkov heir. "Now, rest. The art is finished. The

work on the artist begins."