Vow of Silence (De Santis Dynasty #1)

ONE

Nastasya

F rom as young as I can remember, I knew my family was different. Never allowed friends over to play, never allowed to go out alone—I didn’t experience a lot of the things other kids took for granted: school bus rides, prom, football rallies. Instead, I live a privileged life caged behind gilded bars made from the hatred of our enemies. A prison of my parents’ making and one I accept as my own.

But until now, their dealings have never had a direct impact on me. I was protected and shielded as a precaution. Mainly from the enemies within. Women are still to be seen and not heard in our family, and keeping me locked away from the reality of what my father does to provide for us was as much for their protection as mine.

“Caroline.” Hand to my best friend’s forearm, I shake her sharply.

She doesn’t stir—strapped into the driver’s seat and on an awkward angle. Rain pelts the forest canopy above us, a steady soundtrack that matches the tempo of my rattled heart. Droplets encroach the protection the car offers through tiny cracks in the windscreen, spattering my face with liquid, cool, in stark contrast to the warm blood that runs past my eye.

Zero to sixty in 4.2 seconds, I gifted myself the Lexus RC F when I earned my first six-figure year. An achievement I didn’t take lightly after hustling and grinding on my own for so many years. My father insisted I upgrade the car on its second anniversary earlier this year, but I refused. I’d gained respect with this ride and found my freedom—fleeting as it was. She just wanted to drive, Caroline. Begged me to take the keys and feel what it was like to control a car with more power than double her old banger’s.

“You’ve got to wake up now, babe.” I release the catch on my seatbelt and fall against the door panel beneath me, the side of the racing-style seat digging painfully into my ribs. The steady rumble of an engine on the roadside above us blends with the tapping of my cooling V8.

The blacked-out sedan came out of nowhere. We raced alone down the semi-rural stretch leading to Caroline’s home, nothing but the rain-darkened trees to bear witness to our reckless behavior. One second, it was the two of us re-living our youth; the next, a car shadowed our every move. I told her not to slow down. She panicked, eyes wide as she reminded me she’d never driven that fast before. I could have told her to pull over and taken the wheel. After all, Papa ensured I had sufficient defensive driving courses as a teenager to near qualify me as a low-level stunt driver. He’d insisted that I learned how to speak to the machine beneath my touch, how to manipulate and pre-empt every move the car would make no matter the conditions. It’s how we stay alive, he’d explained. It’s what keeps us one step ahead of our enemies.

But here I lie, one step behind, struggling against gravity as I try in vain to curl myself onto my knees so I can reach up to where Caroline lies suspended above me. Her golden hair falls from her shoulder in a waterfall, streaks of red slowly turning the locks pink in intervals where the evidence of her head injury slowly trickles down to my side of the interior. The corner was too tight, too sharp for her inexperience. She did her best to fling us onto the last straight before her estate, but understeer is a hell of a thing to control. We slid off the side of the road, majestic and smooth, until the side of my coupe collided with the unrelenting trunk of a redwood. End to end, we spun. The shock of the final impact still throbs in my spine.

“Babe,” I whisper, pushing Caroline’s hair aside to feel her pulse. “We have to go.” The beat is faint but undeniable.

I take a second to give thanks, eyes closed as I whisper a quick prayer. The swish of wet undergrowth draws my attention toward the back of the stranded vehicle; the lack of light makes it nearly impossible to see anything past the dented rear of the car.

“Stas?” The single syllable scratches from Caroline’s throat. “Stas? Are you okay?”

“I’m here.” I touch my best friend’s face, gently padding my fingertips into her hair to find the source of the blood. “I’m okay.” A gash meets my touch, deep and wet. Fuck—not good. “Can you move?”

“I think so.” She lifts one arm to the door above her and grabs the handle before grimacing, air hissing between her teeth. “My left leg.” Her breaths are short, frantic. “Can you see it?”

I push the fabric of her skirt aside and squint into the darkened foot well. A dull glint catches my eye, but nothing seems out of place. “I can’t see anything.”

“My calf.” Her head whips toward the side window above as the footsteps grow closer. A distinct pair rather than the single person I thought it to be. “Who is that?”

“I don’t know.” I reach for her seatbelt. “I need to undo this so you can get out.”

“No.” She sets her hand over mine. “Something has my leg stuck, Stas. You need to see what it is.”

The ticking of the cooling engine slows, ominous, like a countdown until we’re found. Our pursuers need only to follow the trail we no doubt left as the car skidded down the bank. Contorting my body in the sideways cabin of my sleek car, I nudge a shoulder into Caroline’s stomach so that I can get my head closer to her legs. The steering wheel stops me from getting too close, so I trace the long line of her shin with my palm. I recoil when something sharp slices into the side of my finger. Something wide and most definitely lodged in her leg. “Damn it.” I drop to my haunches and pop the glove compartment open. Dull light floods the car’s interior.

“What are you doing?” She cranes her neck both ways to locate our stalkers. “You need to go.”

“Shut up.” I feel around for my handgun and come up empty. “What the fuck?”

“You have to go, Stas.” I tilt my head to find Caroline watching me intently. “I won’t get out, but you can. It’s you they’re after; I’ll be fine.”

She doesn’t know much about my family, my bestie, but she understands enough. Enough to know that the words she just fed me are laced with bullshit and barely a believable lie. “You won’t.” I turn my search efforts to the rest of the cabin. “It must be here somewhere. I need to buy us time.”

“Babe.” She pauses as a branch snaps close by. “It’s not in the car.” Her level words implore me to reach into my subconscious and accept the logic in this fucked-up situation.

I opened the glove compartment. If the fucking gun were in the car, it would still be there. To be thrown free in the crash, the compartment would need to be open already. I won’t find my handgun. Not tonight. Not when I need it most.

“You have to go, hon.” Her peaked eyebrows frame shimmering eyes. “Now.”

I don’t want to. My father raised me better than to stand idly by while those we love suffer. He taught me to fight, defend, and protect. I’m a Kuznetsov, and we don’t lie down quietly. I don’t want to leave her, but I need to. Fighting for your people is honorable, but not when you know there’s little to no chance of success.

They have weapons—I don’t. There is absolutely nothing I can do, and that’s what fills my limbs with enough rage-fueled adrenalin to move.

“I’ll be back,” I whisper as I twist myself into position to push the broken windshield with the soles of my boots. “Play dead, Caro. Close your eyes and hold your breath.” Pathetic, but the only option.

The glass pops free, the sound of it collapsing onto the forest floor disguised by the steady rain through the leaves above. I twist and bend, wincing at the stabs of pain that I’ll investigate later, and crawl out onto the sodden dirt and debris. Mud cakes my hands, knees filthy when I turn back to spare a glance at my best friend.

“Run”, she mouths.

The hastened scratch and swish of legs through seedlings and shrubs accompany the shadow that morphs into a definite man behind my wrecked car. We’re thirty feet down from the road—a steep, slippery, and undulating terrain that would have made their path to us challenging. I back into the forest, concealing myself beneath a dense bush clinging to the base of an ancient redwood. Running now would only draw attention to me; my best chance is to hide.

“La cagna è ancora in macchina.” The first man on the scene chuckles at Caroline’s predicament.

I crush my eyes shut and pray she took my ridiculous advice. Playing possum is her only chance at getting away from this alive. If they think she’s already dead, they might figure it’s more believable as an accident to leave her alone. But then again, there’s no such thing as serendipity in organized crime. Everything is calculated and carefully executed. Nothing gets left to chance.

“ Ha ancora bisogno di consegnare il messaggio.”

I should have elected to take Spanish in school and at least stood a chance of understanding our adversaries. Instead, I lived the life of a Bratva brat, shopping and entertaining admirers like the attention whore I am. Look where that got me now: crouched beneath a plant while my best friend’s life flashes before her—hopefully closed—eyes. My phone. My eyes snap open as the realization hits. One message, one SOS, and Papa’s soldiers would have been here within minutes. Stupid, stupid woman. I ease myself over and edge toward the side of the bush, peering out at ground level to see if the followers are still around. The night casts dark shadows across the earth, pale moonlight shielded by the rain clouds above. The car’s headlights make it hard for my eyes to focus, and I steady my breaths as I slowly drag my gaze along the vehicle’s lines, looking for their legs and feet. Perhaps if I can get to my phone, keep the attention away from Caro?—

The gunshot sends me to my stomach, face buried in the undergrowth as the echo of the sound rattles around my skull. Leaf litter tugs into my mouth, pulled between dry lips when my lungs heave for clarity. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. A sharp twig digs into the side of my palm, but I don’t dare move even an inch in case they hear me. The rain grows heavier, the water pouring through the leaves, soaking my hair and sticking the damp lengths to the side of my face. I shut my eyes and let the matted mess shield me from the ugly truth around me.

From the reality that I just heard my best friend take a literal bullet for me.

“ Andiamo. Potremmo fare l'ultima chiamata se siamo veloci.”

Footsteps recede, the crunch and swish of the undergrowth fainter by the second. I pant against the sodden ground, and something small and tickly crosses my neck. I lie there for what seems like hours before I feel sure enough the men won’t return. My hands shake, and my arms are like jelly when I push myself off the ground to crawl from beneath the undergrowth.

“Caroline?” I whisper-yell her name, scrambling toward the car.

The rain has eased. It coats my face and hair, settling on the tips of my lashes as I pull myself onto the vehicle, the discarded windscreen crunching beneath my knees. My dress is ruined, my shoes soaked, and my flesh torn to ribbons. The night was supposed to celebrate Caroline’s recent graduation from law school, but instead, we became the latest crime statistic for her peers to investigate.

I fill my lungs and run a shaky hand over my face before I dare lift my chin and discover what lies before me. My stomach spasms, muscles contracting as I suppress the urge to vomit. What was once a pretty face now lies destroyed with a perfect hole blown through her right eye. A clear message from whoever ordered the hit: you’ve seen too much.

Hands trembling, I tumble into the car and locate my strewn purse in the footwell, tugging my phone free from the silk lining. My gaze fixes to what remains of my beautiful best friend, nostrils flaring while I refuse to let these monsters win. I hold down my preset emergency dial icon and lift the phone to my ear. The reception is patchy, but there.

“Miss Nastasya,” Papa’s sovietnik answers.

“Dmitry.” My timbre wavers, yet my words are sure. “I need you.”

The rattle of keys and thunder of footsteps come through in bursts from the background. “Where are you?”

“Not far from home.” I peer past Caroline to the hillside beyond. “My car went off the road. I’m afraid to climb up in case the men are still here.”

“What men?” The roar of a V8 starting precedes his phone switching over to Bluetooth.

“I think they were Italian from how they spoke.” I flick my attention back to my deceased best friend. “I don’t know what they said, but they were after me.”

Tires squeal. “How do you know? Keep talking to me, Nastasya. What did they say?”

My shoulders hit the roof of the car behind me, gaze fixed on where Caroline’s blood drips in a steady beat on the exposed skin of my knee. “They shot her through the eye, Dmitry.” My throat thickens.

“Who?” He pauses to holler at someone in his native tongue—Russian. “Who did they shoot?”

My voice breaks, free palm upturned to catch all that remains of a beautiful life. “Caroline. They took my bliznets , Dmitry.” They took my twin.

Stunning, with a mane of pale golden hair, Caroline’s fine features kept the boys chasing after her—even when she proved her heart belonged to her studies. We’ve often been told that we could pass for sisters—a detail we’d use to our advantage when the urge to be mischievous overtook us.

Ultimately, a fact that got her killed.

Whoever the men here tonight were, they got the wrong woman—a simple mistake that will ultimately be their undoing. The authorities won’t know about this accident tonight. No. Once Dmitry gets here, the details become the responsibility of our family. Come morning, the car will be gone, the undergrowth showing little sign of disturbance.

My father will be told.

And once the report reaches his ears, there’s no turning back, no chance for forgiveness.

Kuznetsov men never back down from a fight. And Kuznetsov women?

They never forget.