Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JACE
I lick my lips, relishing the flavor of Vivian on my whiskers, hoping there’s a cage in some zoo that can contain my hunger for her.
This beast needs to be imprisoned.
But I’m not.
I’m roaming free and following Vivian in an entourage of luxury cars as I steer the one I rented down Ocean Boulevard.
The sun can’t rise and fall fast enough for me. I need this mission to be over. I need her to be safe. To be free.
To be with me.
According to a text from Delphine, we captured another server. If our guess is right—it better be fucking right or a hundred bloody heads will roll—it leaves us with one more to go.
DJ, the cousin and restaurant owner, must be housing a file somewhere. His social media looks like a kindergarten chef. Sloppy food shots. Blubbering reels about boy kibble. Embarrassing rants about traffic. The jerk is an amateur.
With no desktop in the background of his shots at home.
Ruby has combed through everything online about the jerk. The poor queen. I owe her a night of embarrassing tales about young Axel.
Like the time Sire bet Axel that Axel couldn’t suck his own dick. Well, Sire lost, because Axel, the limber, long-dicked fucker can.
But our poor mom. She walked into Sire’s bedroom, thinking we were learning yoga, and walked out, calling over her shoulder, “Lord, you boys would scare the beard off Jesus.”
Yeah, think I’ll tell Ruby that story as payment for her dedication. I know she won’t give up while me and Vivian are trapped in a pompous paradise.
It hasn’t been the worst way to distract the men while the queens scour every property they own.
But what if there’s another file somewhere? What if we score all three servers from the shithead’s cousins, but David still has a copy of the video and releases it?
That’s when I’ll shackle him to a wall in our hidden bunker and torture him for a year. Killing him right away would be no fun and not fair.
Vivian and every woman like her deserves to feel the magnetic poles of this planet shift to where there are fewer assholes like him, preying on women.
Speaking of…
Brake lights fill my vision as the row of luxury automobiles queues to pass through the security gate to his parents’ estate.
Politely, I wait, flicking my glance to the rearview mirror.
There it is again.
The same sinister black Rolls-Royce Wraith. I noticed it three days ago.
As the line of cars passes through the security gate to the property on my right, and with the ocean on our left, there’s only one way to go.
Figure out who the fuck is following me.
As soon as the rose gold sedan chauffeuring Vivian and the bride is safely inside the gate, I accelerate, passing the last vehicle waiting.
Testing my theory.
Yep, like a snake, the black car slithers behind me.
I have two guesses and seventeen rounds in my loaded gun for who it may be.
After a half mile, I spot a mega mansion being built.
Whipping into the empty driveway of the construction zone, I throw my car into park.
From my shoulder holster, I take my gun out and hold it low, concealed against my right thigh.
Opening my door, I rise, turning to confront the sinister car idling behind mine, its rear passenger window sliding down.
This feels like a stunt Ruslan, our father, would pull.
It’s what he did with Loch.
Stalk him until he could confront him alone.
Sheremetev knows better than to try to negotiate with us. After what he did to our sister, it would be the shortest conversation in history. Him—opening his mouth to speak. Me—putting a bullet in it, ending his reign of terror.
“Come on out, Ruslan.” I lean against my car. “I ain’t afraid of the Bratva boogie man.”
The rear door opens, and a stocky soldier with no neck emerges, tugging at his tight black suit, his English decent. “The Pakhan would like to speak with you.”
Yep, it’s Daddy Dearest.
“Yeah, well, I’d like to have a day of ice cream, Pretty in Pink, and fucking pussy, but I gotta get up for it, and so does he. Tell him to stand and face me.”
The soldier darts his eyes down, clocking my father who must be sitting there, before he aims his stare back at me.
“He… uh…” The soldier hedges. I’m making his job hell, but that’s what he gets for choosing a life of crime. “He’s waiting, sir. Don’t make me force you.”
I laugh. “I’d like to see you be stupid enough to try. You wouldn’t escape my fist, my bullets, and the dozen cameras aimed at you right now.” He glances around as I school him. “This is Billionaire’s Row for a reason. Every square inch is armed and surveilled.”
The soldier fights the sag of his shoulders. He’s at his wits’ end, which wasn’t a long road. He’s all brawn and no brains.
Silently, he tries pleading with his eyes. Help me out here, buddy. Like I should give a shit for his sake—I don’t—but I do care about mine, and I love Vivian.
Unfortunately, this means my father knows about her. Don’t ask me how. The devil is an omniscient fuck.
The soldier opens his piehole to issue another threat, but I huff. “Shut your fucking mouth. We’re not playing John Wick in the middle of Palm Beach.” I stroll toward the other side of the car. “This should be interesting.”
The opposite rear window slides down, and I’m not prepared for who I see sitting there.
I have a few memories of my father. Most are of large, looming silhouettes, mocking my cries and locking me inside a trunk.
But one is clear.
It’s of him, sitting at the head of our opulent dining table. It was Sviat Vechir, the Holy Supper, celebrating what was to be our last Christmas Eve in Moscow before we escaped him.
We sat, formally dressed and silent, around the table—Mom, my brothers, and me—while the anxious butler and parlor maid scurried to serve us the traditional twelve-course meal.
It was excruciating and tense. We lost our appetites around our father, making it impossible to eat the sixth course of pickled herring. Immediately, Grant threw it up, making Sire turn and vomit. Axel fought the urge, and so did a very young Nick.
Our mother got up and rushed to care for them, but my father backhanded her, knocking her to the floor.
But I was the one holding Loch, my baby brother, in my arms that night.
We took turns protecting him, and I knew what was coming.
I bolted up from the table to run away with him, but our father barked, “Run, Jasha, and I will put Lyov in the trunk with you. You will survive without your mother’s tit, but he won’t. ”
I spent Christmas Day alone, locked inside the devil’s coffin.
But that’s not who I’m looking at now.
Ruslan looks like the devil’s ghost. A phantom of his former self. Swollen face. Pale skin. Iron rings around his icy eyes. His bespoke, gray tailored suit hangs from his massive, withering frame.
He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be traveling. Shouldn’t be alive.
“Jasha, you are my tallest, my biggest, my healthiest stock.” He admires my form, stating the obvious in Russian.
So I bark back, “English or this conversation is over.” He can speak it fluently.
Slowly, he blinks. Annoyed. Exhausted. Karma’s bitch.
I grin. “Damn, old man, you look like shit.” I don’t care about his feelings; he has none. “Shouldn’t you be dead by now? What are you waiting for? A litter of puppies to kick before you croak?”
I feel nothing but cold apathy. Or maybe it’s burning fury. I don’t care, and don’t care about him. He flips that murderous switch in my brain—the one he put there.
He licks his cracked lips. “You know why I am here, and I know why you are here.” His bony hand, covered in liver spots, barely waves in the direction from which we drove. “She is beautiful, talented, and comes from cultured breeding. Wise choice, Jasha.”
Vivian.
He knows everything about her, her family, their legacy. But no fucking way can he know about the video. Only the kings and queens know about it.
It makes my pulse climb, my nostrils flare. I don’t say a word. I reveal nothing.
“Funny, is it not?” He muses with a muddled smirk. “I sent your brother, Sergei, here to find his wife as well.”
He means Sire, but he’ll never say our American names. And he means Wren, how we helped Sire rescue her from a sex trafficking ring here in Palm Beach.
Fuck, I’d forgotten it was here; it’s a small, sadistic world of the wealthiest men and criminal politicians.
I’m too focused on one loser in yellow shoes.
“You were supposed to find your sister, Sasha, as well.” His voice gets a tone I’ve never heard.
There’s compassion in it. “Though I am not surprised it took one of your queens to find her.” He’s referencing Alena, who rescued Sasha.
“I have taught you all well. My kings have chosen their queens wisely. They must be strong to endure us.”
I snarl, “You haven’t taught us a fucking thing but how to hurt and hate. But funny—is it not—the only one we hate is you?”
He flinches? Hurt?
Holy fuck.
Did Sire donate a kidney and a heart to this man? He may be rejecting both, but they’re apparently making him human.
“Perhaps.” He raises a wiry eyebrow. “But you love her: Vivian Tate. You are here for her, on a mission with your brother, Grigori.” Grant. He knows about Grant too. “Perhaps you need my help, my power. Perhaps we can make an arrangement.”
I huff a cold laugh. “An arrangement for my kidney?”
He nods, hopeful, rueful, and I can’t resist.
I tsk. “Don’t know. That’ll be an awfully big scar on my pretty body.
” I lower my glare. “But then again… I’d finally match the scars you whipped across my mother’s back, burned on Sire’s chest, cut into Axel’s feet, and lashed over Grant’s arms. You ready to confront them like a man? The proof of your abuse?”
He looks away. I’ve never seen remorse on his face until this moment.
“Speak, Father, if you want me to save your life.” I say that word like the poison I’ll make him sip.
He will admit it.
“That was years ago.” He can’t look at me. “Mistakes were made.”
“Mistakes?” I could crack. I could kill him.
I could choke him to death right here. But that would be too swift when this is sure.
“No, you mean you abused children and women. You know, like my mother. Like your daughter, Sasha. Funny—is it not—how she hates you too?” I lower myself to his ear.
To brand it into his soul. “No one loves you, Ruslan.”
I say the truth we all fear.
The reason we all live is the only thing we have when we die.
Love.
And he has none.
Not even his scheming trophy wife, Katya, is here. Think she abandoned him after he gave her son with Axel back to Axel.
Ruslan’s lost everyone, and it’s clear he wants us back. He needs us. Not just for our blood and organs. He needs to know someone cares for him before he dies.
It turns his eyes to mine, and they’re brimming with pain.
Shocked, I swallow down an emotion I didn’t expect. Empathy.
Then again, it’s how our mother raised us. Our love was her victory.
I rise, remembering everything she taught us, and everything we fight for.
Staring down my nose at him, I command, “If you want an arrangement with me. If you want to see your daughter again. Your sons again. You will get on your knees and apologize to them from the bottom of the heart you’ve finally found. ”
He blinks with an imperceptible nod, but I see it. Ruslan is broken, and he wants to bury his pieces in peace.
So I give his soldier my number, and I get his.
Guess I’ve got a new plan.
Guess I’m saving my abuser’s life.
Guess I’m a better man than him.