Chapter 49
PETYR
Glass explodes around me as the first bullets tear through.
Light fixtures explode. The dishes on the table shatter. Jagged shards rain down on us all, drawing blood whenever they find bare skin.
The plaster wall behind us splinters and coughs dust into the air. My ears ring with the crack of gunfire. The world narrows to flashes of light and the acrid bite of gunpowder.
Instinct takes over. I draw my weapon in one smooth motion. With my free hand, I grab Lev by the collar and drag him down with me. He hits the floor hard with a grunt, but I don’t give him a chance to protest. Better bruised than dead.
My eyes cut through the chaos and lock onto the shooter.
Time slows. Adrenaline sharpens everything: the way his arm jerks with the recoil, the sweat beading at his temple.
His jaw twitches as he bears down on us. He’s too close. Reckless.
I squeeze the trigger, just once. The bullet punches into his stomach. He folds over with a sharp wail.
I fire again. The second shot slams into his head. It snaps him back, and he crumples like a rag doll to the polished floor. Blood blooms dark beneath him.
For a heartbeat, the restaurant is silent except for the ringing in my ears and the pounding of my pulse.
Then life resumes.
Ivan pushes back his chair and gets to his feet. He brushes glass splinters from his suit with steady, deliberate motions.
Lev is already up, too. He bends over the shooter’s body, kicks the gun away, and nudges the man with his boot to make sure he’s not getting back up.
I’d say it’s unlikely. Hard to stand when half your skull is inside out.
Mikhael moves toward the front. He checks beyond the door and returns a moment later, face grim. “Boris’s men are down. Outside. Shot clean.”
I scan the room again. My gaze snags on a shape near the entrance.
Fuck.
Boris lies crumpled in a heap. Blood is pooling beneath his head and spreading fast across the tile.
The sight drags me forward. I kneel down beside the man who was almost my father-in-law, though the word means nothing now.
The back of his head is blown open. Execution-style. The poor bastard never had a chance.
“Nikolai Danilo’s man was waiting,” I say. “Took out Boris’s guards outside, dragged him in front as cover. Then put a bullet in the back of his head.”
Boris had been pathetic, but he was still a pakhan in his own right. Not anymore, though. Now, he’s just a gaunt, dead-eyed carcass bleeding out on the floor of his own restaurant.
I look back down at Boris’s body. His hands are curled, nails broken, like he fought against being dragged in here. There are powder burns at the edge of the wound. Close range. Brutal, impersonal.
Perfectly in line with the Danilo M.O.
This was a calculated hit. Not chance, not fate. Someone knew we were meeting here tonight, and wanted to do away with all of us in one fell swoop.
I straighten up. “Lev,” I bark, “check the exits. All of them. Now.”
He moves immediately to obey. No questions, no hesitation.
I turn a slow circle and scan every shadow of the restaurant, every shattered glass and bullet hole. Unease crawls up my spine.
How the hell did this mudak know we were meeting here tonight?
Did Boris set us up, trade his life for the hope of taking me down with him? Or was it someone closer?
My gaze lingers on Mikhael, who is still brushing drywall dust off his jacket with exaggerated care. But his smirk is gone, expression closed.
Could it be him? Does he resent me enough to stab me in the back? My own blood, my own cousin?
I don’t know. I can’t know. Everyone is a suspect and no one is. It’s the shittiest possible outcome, short of us each biting a bullet, and it makes my stomach knot.
Then I realize someone else knew.
Sima.
No. I shake my head almost imperceptibly. That’s paranoia talking.
And yet, the question lingers. This wasn’t random. Danilo’s man didn’t just stumble into the right place at the right time. Someone leaked this meeting. And I hate that I can’t be certain it wasn’t one of my own people.
Or my own fucking wife.
She already betrayed her family once, didn’t she? If she can do that, why shouldn’t she do it again?
Why shouldn’t she do it to you?
Lev comes back a moment later, breathing hard. “All clear,” he says. “No more shooters inside.”
Ivan pulls out his phone. He’s already scrolling through contacts. “I’ll call in my crew. Lock this place down tight before the cops sniff their way here.”
For once, Mikhael doesn’t have some smartass remark. He just eyes me carefully and asks, “You good, cuz?”
“I’m fine,” I answer curtly. My suspicion doesn’t ease, not one bit. Out of everyone here, Mikhael had the strongest motive to put me in an early grave.
From now on, I’ll have to watch my back twice as carefully around him.
“Get me answers,” I growl at my men. “I want to know which one of the Danilo mudaki ordered this. I’ll tear their head off and send it back home in a gift box.”
“Yes, pakhan,” everyone answers in unison. For once, there don’t seem to be any disagreements.
But I can’t find it in me to be relieved. Because someone here talked. Someone I trusted. Someone I considered a friend.
Someone I considered a—
I shake my head hard. Sima had nothing to do with this. It makes no sense. She’s sick and hasn’t had contact with any of the Danilos for years. More than that, she’s my wife. Who’s trying to get pregnant with my child.
It makes no sense for her to want to kill me. If I die, our deal dies with me.
How do you know that’s not what she wants, though? She doesn’t need your money. Not if she has Nikolai’s.
I grit my teeth and push that ugly thought squarely out of my mind.
As I stride out of the restaurant, I look around at the wreckage. At the corpse cooling in a pool of blood, the faces of men I should trust. That trust I thought I could count on has proven itself to be worth less than the ruined glass under my boots.
Someone leaked this meeting. I don’t know who yet, but I will.
And when I do, I’ll carve the truth out of their flesh myself.