Chapter Seventeen
Leonid
The smell of blood always lingers after a fight. It doesn’t matter how many men scrub the floors or how much bleach they use. Blood always leaves a mark, though it’s not always where people can see it.
I step over a shattered piece of crystal from the chandelier and survey what’s left of my foyer.
The bodies are gone, and even though the floors and walls have been mostly wiped clean, the stench of death still haunts the house.
It’s a reminder of Vasili’s arrogance, and that will eventually be the cause of his death.
He didn’t send those men to kill me. No. He’d be stupid as shit to think he could get rid of me that easily. He sent them to make a statement. He wanted to let me know my home wasn’t far from his reach, and that he could infiltrate it whenever he wanted.
Weeks ago, I would’ve sat back and enjoyed the show. I wouldn’t mind what he could or couldn’t infiltrate because the more he crossed me, the more fun I’d have putting a bullet in his skull.
But that doesn’t excite me now.
It enrages me because Elena could’ve gotten hurt tonight. My wife was less than thirty meters away from armed men moving through my house, and the thought of what could’ve happened if Petrov hadn’t alerted me on time makes something dark twist inside my chest.
“Sir,” one of the cleaners calls as he approaches. “The east hallway is finished.”
I nod once, and he quickly disappears.
I put Elena to sleep thirty minutes ago. She’d been too shaken by everything tonight that I couldn’t let her stay awake a moment longer after we both took a shower.
Mikhail and Artem went with some of my men to deal with the police after disposing of the bodies, and Igor is wherever the hell Igor wants to be. I can’t say for sure where he went off to, and that’s the least of my worries right now.
I spent millions of dollars on my security system, and if Vasili could breach it that easily, it means there’s someone on the inside working for him and giving him information.
Elena mentioned one of the mercenaries had gone straight to the home office, which means he knew exactly where to look for her.
There’s a mole in my circle, and I need to sniff the bastard out.
I head straight for the security room, and the steel doors swing open. To my surprise, Igor’s already here.
He glances at me. “Mikhail called. I came as soon as I heard what happened.”
The two men on duty when those bastards invaded my home scramble to their feet and mutter greetings like they’re afraid of what I’ll do to them for neglecting the duty I pay them for while my wife was almost killed right under their noses.
I’d love to punish them, but that can wait for another time.
Six monitors display feeds from around the estate. Igor’s already reviewing the footage. He looks exhausted as fuck, and I’m guessing I probably look worse.
“Thank you.” I sit on the chair next to him. “What do we have?”
He gestures toward one of the screens. “Three cameras were compromised.”
My gaze narrows on the security feeds. “Only three?”
“To the best of my knowledge, yes.” He scrolls through the feeds a few times, pausing and pointing out the issues with each one. “What I find surprising is that the system wasn’t hacked. Not at first, at least. To access these feeds, someone had to have done something from the house.”
I nod. “I suspected as much. Do you think Vasilii has someone on the inside?”
“I’d be careful jumping to a conclusion, but it’s the most probable explanation I can offer right now.” He cranes his neck to look at me. “Tonight’s attack wasn’t a coincidence. Vasili knew you wouldn’t be home. And I’m guessing he knew who would be.”
“So they came for her?”
He nods in agreement. “Those fuckers thought she was a weakness, and someone must’ve leaked that information to them. I don’t see why they’d target her otherwise.”
I nod slowly, rubbing my jaw as the pieces of the puzzle all come together in my head. Elena was the target of tonight’s hit, and Vasili marked her as a target because someone told him she was important to me.
The question is who.
“Don’t you think it’s high time you get rid of the girl?” Igor asks. “The war with Vasili is on. As long as she’s here, she’ll always be a vulnerability. She’ll be the death of you.”
My jaw clenches as I look at Igor. Fury burns through my chest like a forest fire, and if he weren’t my cousin, he’d be bleeding out on the floor right now.
“She’s my wife, and you do not talk about her like that.”
“She’s your prisoner, and you should know when to let go,” he counters. “You only met this chick when, two months ago? And you’re already willing to risk it all for her? What if she’s behind this?”
“Use your brain, asshole. She almost died tonight. What, she risked her life just for laughs?”
Igor shakes his head in disbelief. “It could be a ploy to win your trust. You were always careful. I spent just a couple of months away, and so much has changed.”
“You’re right. So much has changed.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended, but I don’t give a shit.
I need to get this message through to him right here, right now.
“That woman is the only light in the middle of all this fucked-up shit. I don’t care what or who I lose, but unless you want to lose your fucking head, you’ll treat her with respect because she’s family, now and forever. Do you fucking understand?”
He glares at me, the tension in the air growing thicker for a heartbeat before he sighs. “Ty psikh!” You’re crazy.
“Spacibo tebe, pridurok!” Thank you, idiot.
He flies up to his feet and plants his hands on his hips. “Let me remind you, if you end up dying because of her, I’ll kill her and bury her right beside your grave.”
After his heartwarming threat, Igor storms out of the security control room and slams the door behind him.
I let him go, since it’s an empty threat.
Despite his temper, Igor would never hurt a woman or child. It’s the moral standard we’ve lived by since we got initiated into the bratva as teenage boys, and it’s the moral standard we’ll die by.
I know Elena will be protected by my brothers even when I’m gone, and that gives me even more courage to fish out the rat sneaking around my place.
I review access logs, security authorizations, and shift changes for the last couple of days. Nothing in particular seems off until a minor adjustment on one of the cameras catches my attention.
Fifteen hours ago, the south perimeter patrol moved west, and I didn’t fucking authorize that change.
I pull up another report, and my stomach sinks. Everything’s different from the last time I checked, which was over a month ago.
There’s additional cameral maintenance, revised gate schedules, and temporary blind spots that couldn’t have gone undetected unless…
I turn to one of the men behind me. “Who authorized this?”
“You did, boss,” one of the men answers. He hurries to a stack of documents on the shelf, rummages through it, and pulls out a folder. “A month ago.”
I flip the folder open and skim through it. Every authorization here bears my credentials and has my stamp on it, along with my signature.
On the surface, it’s hard to detect that it’s fake.
A sudden tremor racks my body as the weight of betrayal starts to sink in. “Bring me the security logs for the last six months. Now.”
The other guy hurries to the storage room without a word and reappears moments later with a basket full of well-arranged papers.
I look through each of them carefully, and it’s almost morning by the time I’m done.
The patterns aren’t random at all. In fact, they’d be hard to detect if not for tonight’s hit.
Someone carefully made changes to my security system over the last six months, maybe even longer, and whoever is behind this understands my security systems intimately.
A sick feeling settles in my gut, because there are only three people with that level of access.
Igor.
Myself.
And Artem.
Mikhail never had any interest in tasks that didn’t involve pulling a trigger or plunging a knife into an enemy’s chest, so he never learned how the system works.
I immediately dismiss Igor. It can’t be him. The man has saved my life twice, and the last time, he almost died.
That leaves one name.
One impossible name.
I lean back in my chair and stare at the monitors.
Artem.
Although we’re not blood relatives, I consider him my brother, one of the few people I thought I could trust with my life. We’ve been through life and death together countless times. There’s no way he would’ve betrayed me like that. He has no fucking reason to.
“No.”
The word leaves my mouth quietly, because if I’m right, Vasili already knows my weakness, and Artem helped him exploit that weakness—Elena.
My fists clench, my nostrils flaring with more fury than I know what to do with, but as much as I want to call Artem and have him return home for his execution immediately, I can’t act rashly.
If I play my cards right, he may end up becoming the perfect bait for the trap I’ll set for Vasili…and as for the rat, I’ll deal with him the bratva way, but I need to know beyond reasonable doubt that Artem is truly behind this before I move against him.
Rising to my feet, I turn to the two guys behind me. “Not a word of what happened in this room to anyone else. Do you understand?”
They both nod before one of them asks, “Including the logs?”
Rage courses through my veins. I’m one second away from blowing this idiot’s brain out of his head. “If I hear a fucking word about anything that happened here, neither of you will live to see another sunrise.”
“Yes, boss,” the both answer in unison, their voices trembling with fear.
I don’t say another word as I leave the security room and make my way to my bedroom, opening the door quietly so I don’t wake Elena.
She’s curled up on the bed with the duvet still draped over her, right where I left it. Her back is turned to the door, so I can’t say for sure if she’s asleep.
I slide off the new suit I changed into right after our shower and sink into bed beside her. The mattress dips under my weight, the warmth of her body welcoming me.
She stirs and jerks awake with a gasp. “Leo?”
I wrap my arm around her. “I’m here,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to the back of her head. “I’m right here, baby.”
She turns around on the bed to face me, strands of her brown hair spilling over her face. The room is dimly lit by the streak of moonlight cutting in through the open drapes.
Elena’s lashes flutter, casting a shadow over her cheeks. Her eyes glimmer in the darkness, and I can hear the pounding of her heartbeat in the chilling quiet inside the room.
“Did you…go out?” she asks. She was fast asleep when I left for the security room. I couldn’t risk waking her up considering how hard it’d been to calm her down earlier.
“I went to make sure everything’s in order,” I tell her as I tuck the loose strands of hair behind her ear. “And to see how our security system was compromised.”
She sucks in a shaky breath. “Did you figure it out?”
I nod. “There’s someone on the inside working for Vasili.”
Her eyes widen. “What? Who is it?”
“One of my men. Not someone you know well,” I lie, not because I don’t trust her, but because I don’t want her to start being too careful around Artem and risk alerting him that something’s wrong.
She throws one arm around me and moves closer, until our bodies are pressing together.
My cock hardens instantly, the rage I felt earlier turning into a dire need to be inside her. To claim her.
She feels it too, because she moans and bucks her hips. Her pussy rubs against my dick, and rather than soothe me, I throb even harder with need.
Fuck. I hate what she does to me.
“What are you going to do now?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper. Her breath hitches each time she moves against my erection.
I lean my face closer to hers. “I’ll figure it out later.”
For now, there are more important things to do.
Things like claiming her lips without warning, devouring them with a searing kiss, reveling in the way she climbs on top of me, straddling me like I’m a stallion and kissing me like her life depends on it.
My thumb traces her neckline, then slides down her back.
She stiffens, a soft cry escaping her lips as she positions herself on my cock and starts to grind against me with her panties still on.
When she breaks our kiss, her eyes meet mine and a dark smile curls her lips, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip.
God, she’s beautiful. And she’s mine.
I came so close to losing her last night. I hadn’t realized how much of a weakness she was until that moment in the foyer when I saw that fucker point his gun at her.
The fear that hit me still hasn’t stopped pumping adrenaline through my bloodstream.
I’m coming for you, Vasili.
And there’ll be no mercy for that son of a bitch when I get to him. There’ll be no mercy for the traitor rat he planted in my home, either.
They’ll die a bloody death at my hands.
Both of them.
And my face will be the last thing they see before I send them straight to hell for daring to hurt my woman.
Elena tugs on my briefs and my cock springs free, throbbing almost painfully when she glides her tongue over it and licks a bead of precum off the tip.
A groan rumbles in my chest, whatever control I had slipping loose as I flip her and take over.
Tonight, every sound she makes, every shiver beneath my touch, will become a silent promise of the revenge I’ll exact on the men who tried to hurt her.