Their Vengeance: Siren's Revenge Book Two

1. Nikolai

Fyodor”s Rules #10 - Learn to compartmentalize. Personal business is not the same as Family business.

Fyodor was alive.

Fyodor was alive and on his way here.

Fyodor and Yana were both alive and going to be here.

We were all going to be together for the first time in a decade, to sit down and talk.

What the fuck was happening?

I fought to keep my shock contained. To keep from staring slack jawed at Yana as she handed Pasha back his phone. Everything had happened so quickly my brain struggled to process it. The fact our father was still alive played on a loop, going around and around in my mind. Both as a celebration and a taunt.

Pasha cleared his throat gently, and it snapped me out of my daze, drawing my attention. He raised his eyebrow expectantly, and I pulled myself together. The others were relying on me. I could fall apart later—when I was alone—and that was going to happen. But right now, I needed to be the one in charge. I needed to be cool, calm, and collected and appear like I was prepared.

Though how could I possibly be prepared for this?

I took my phone from my pocket and shot off two texts—messaging Alexei and Lukas—telling them to return for an urgent meeting. Lukas couldn”t have gone too far with the hounds, assuming he had left at all. I couldn”t bring myself to tell them what the meeting was about or who it was with. The thought of telling them Fyodor was alive over a text message made my stomach flip. How would I even put that into words?

Both my brothers instantly confirmed they would return within minutes. I want to say I instantly relaxed, but that would be a lie. My mind whirled, imagining all the things that could happen at this meeting. Was this an elaborate trap? Yana’s reaction seemed genuine. I knew what it looked like when someone received news which brought their entire world crashing down around them. I had seen it on my brother’s faces a decade ago.

Setting my phone on the desk, I nodded at Pasha and motioned to the door with my head. It would be best if he told the others before they entered. Pasha slipped out of the room without a word. His ability to understand the simplest gestures and the meanings behind them was such an undervalued skill. He was always so in tune with what the three of us were thinking and feeling; I didn”t know what we”d do without him. Another reason to be glad Alexei followed him when he”d gone to meet Yana, starting all of this.

My eyes moved to Yana, and a frown creased the corners of my mouth at her current state. It was surprising how strongly I felt the urge to comfort her. It was almost as though no time had passed at all. I was glad the table was between us, keeping me from giving in to the impulse. If I was in her place, I wouldn”t want anyone touching me. In fact, I had been in her place on the day I was told she was dead. Anyone touching me would have brought the contents of my stomach up.

She hadn”t spoken since she gave the phone back to Pasha, and taking stock, I realized she hadn”t moved either. She was staring at my desk, although I was sure she didn’t see it. I mentally ran through all the things I could say to her, but none of them seemed right. Should I tell her I was sorry? I was sorry that a decade had been taken from us, but it didn”t seem like enough. Should I tell her it was going to be okay? It seemed like a hollow promise, but maybe it would comfort her.

Perhaps I had sent Pasha out of the room too soon.

“Do you want to shower, or change, or anything before Fyodor gets here?”

It was the best I could think of to offer her. We both needed something to occupy our minds before Fyodor arrived. I wasn”t offering to let her shower with me, though maybe it would snap her out of this fugue.

Her eyes moved from the desk to my face, although they were still unfocused. She blinked a few times, and with each blink, it was like she emerged a little further from the pool in which she had been drowning. It was about a minute and a half before the words I had spoken hit the part of her brain which understood language, and she nodded.

I didn”t stop her from getting up and leaving the room. It was still early in the morning, but I took the bottle of bourbon out of my drawer, the one I kept for the rare occasions I didn”t want to cross the room to the bar. I didn”t bother with a glass, instead taking a long, deep pull from the bottle. One, I was sure, would be empty by the end of the day.

Yana had been gone for less than a minute when Pasha came back into the room, with Alexei and Lukas in tow. None of them spoke. All poured their own drinks, sunk into their chairs, and stared into their glasses. This was the moment where I needed to be their older brother. Where I needed to find the words to help them through, but my mind was blank except for the loop still running from earlier.

Fyodor was alive and on his way here.

“Security is going to meet him in the lobby. They’ll call me before putting him in the elevator.” Thank the gods for Pasha. He might have been staring into his drink like the rest of us, but his brain was clearly more functional than my own.

“Are we sure it”s him?” Lukas”s voice was soft, echoing the disbelief we were all feeling. Not that I could blame him, as I questioned it myself.

I answered him, even though I felt like I didn”t have any answers. “No way to be sure until he gets here.”

There was a possibility all this was some sort of trick, and we were about to let someone dangerous into our home. And even if it was really Fyodor, that was still true. He taught us everything we knew. He was also a werewolf who had been alive for decades and had served as one of the Bratva”s main tacticians. Fyodor was a dangerous man.

“Yana really thinks we tried to have her killed? Her and Fyodor?” Alexei sounded hurt, an emotion I wasn”t used to hearing from him. Alexei didn”t take things personally. If one of us lashed out at him, he laughed it off. Very few things got under his skin, but this was clearly eating away at him.

Unsure what to say, I took another long pull from my bottle, before pouring myself a glass and setting the bottle aside.

“I imagine the evidence shown to them was as compelling as what was shown to us.” It would need to have been, Fyodor wasn”t the kind to make rash decisions. He was calculating and methodical. He planned everything out and did not react without thinking.

“What if—” I lifted my hand, cutting Pasha off.

“We all have a lot of questions, but the people who have the answers aren”t here yet. It’s no good to speculate when we could just wait and have the truth.” A soft grumble echoed from all three men as we turned our attention back to drinking and waiting.

Alexei was the next to break the silence, less than a minute later. “We shouldn”t be waiting for them to get here to work out what to ask. There are a lot of questions, and we should work out which are the most important. We need a plan of attack.”

I was surprised to hear the term coming from him. Maybe he had been spending too much time with Lukas. Although Lukas rubbing off on him wasn”t a bad thing, especially when he was speaking sense.

“Alright, what do we want to know?”

I pulled out a notebook and pen, even though Pasha scoffed at me, wiggling his tablet in my direction. It was a habit. Writing things down helped put my thoughts into order, as I could see everything laid out and make changes if needed. We could both keep notes.

“Are they the ones attacking us?” I wrote Lukas”s question. I could only hope they”d answer it, although I wasn”t sure what I wanted the answer to be.

If they were behind the attacks, then we”d be able to close our investigation and the attacks would stop. Having one less problem on our plate would be a good thing. We could then focus on the nightclub, our marriage negotiations, and other more pressing concerns.

Like the fact our sister was alive and had been for a decade.

I tried not to think about it too hard. I wanted to be excited, to be overjoyed. But a decade was a long time. We had changed in that time, and she had too. I wasn”t sure finding out the truth would be enough for her to want to stay in Chicago. Though I was sure I didn”t even have to ask the others if they wanted her around; Lukas and Pasha would glare at me for even asking.

“We should ask Fyodor who he thinks might have been behind this.” Pasha flicked his fingers across the screen on his tablet and was drinking with his other hand. How he managed to do both at the same time escaped me. The tablet was balanced precariously on his knees. I added it to my list, even though I had planned on this question already.

“We need to find out what they want. Assuming Fyodor believes us, what do they want as their next steps?” Trust Lukas to put my inner thoughts into words.

Nodding, I took a sip from my glass. “We should offer them rooms here, too. Someone clearly wanted to separate us. If they think we may reunite, then Yana and Fyodor will be at risk. We need to protect them.”

I would need to watch Lukas. He had been doing okay the last few days, but now the truth was coming out; Lukas always blamed himself when things went wrong, even when there was nothing he could have done. And honestly, there was nothing any of us could have done, someone had put a lot of thought into orchestrating this scenario.

All we could do now was pick up the pieces.

A loud ding came from Pasha”s tablet, drawing everyone”s attention. “He”s here. I”ll go meet him at the door. Lukas should probably get Yana.”

He was out of the room before any of us could argue. Lukas wasn”t far behind him, leaving me with Alexei.

“Never a dull moment, hmm?” His laughter echoed his words, but did nothing to lighten the mood.