43. Lev
I wake up in the back of the car with Brooke beside me. She looks dazed but unhurt. She’s sitting in between me and Maksim. In the front, one of Maksim’s soldiers is driving while Boris is beside him in the passenger seat.
I groan, and Boris looks at me over his shoulder.
“Ah, the great pakhan is finally awake. I was worried for a moment. Thought we nudged you too hard off the road and you’d sustained a head injury. Fortunately for us all, it is only a bump.” He claps his hands together. “Now, we can finally put all this ugly nonsense to an end.”
Blood drips into my eye from a wound to my brow, and I feel nauseous and dizzy, but I force myself to focus. “Let Brooke go. It’s me you want, not her.”
Next to Brooke, Maksim snickers. “She carries the heir. She’s not going anywhere.”
“Not to mention she’s a witness, and isn’t that one of the mantras you live by, Nephew? Don’t leave any witnesses.” Boris shakes his head. “Except you haven’t been living by your own rules lately, have you, Lev?”
My head throbs with pain, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about Wilson.
“You know about Wilson,” I mutter, looking out the window. There’s no point asking about my security detail. If I’m in here, then they’re dead.
“I’ve had eyes on you for months as I formulated my plan to take control of the bratva, and you know, I was surprised when you let him go. But then I met Brooke, and it all made sense. Our mighty pakhan had gone and gotten himself pussy whipped.” He roars with laughter, and even Maksim chuckles. “She’s made you weak, Lev. She’s made you go against your better judgment. And it’s your fault she is here.”
“You won’t get away with this,” I tell my uncle. “The inner circle won’t stand for it.”
“Oh, but they will. When they hear how you attacked us because you were out of your mind, they will understand that it was in self-defense. After all, they witnessed you lose control in the meeting when you pulled a gun on Vadim in front of them.”
“Vadim will set them straight. He knows what you’ve been up to all along.”
Boris’ mirth leaves him. “He will be another dead body you will be blamed for before the day is done.” He points out the windshield. “Pull in here, and let’s get this done.”
We turn off the road and take the gravel driveway down to an old warehouse. Once we stop, Maksim and Boris hustle us inside while the driver remains in the vehicle.
This tells me he’s on watch for anyone coming. Which means there’s a good chance there aren’t too many soldiers around.
Inside, it’s dark, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. The warehouse is dimly lit and empty, and I can’t see any more soldiers.
Boris takes us to a small room, an old office, similar to the one where we found Vlad earlier today. It’s empty of furniture. Water drips down the brickwork, and the air is musty. When we walk in, we step onto plastic.
It’s easy to dispose of bodies when all you have to do is wrap them up in the plastic they died on.
I don’t feel fear.
I feel rage.
Because Brooke shouldn’t be here. She wasn’t a part of this until I took her for my own selfish reasons.
She deserves more than this.
And our baby. He deserves to take his first breath. To feel sunlight on his sweet face. To grow into a man who is much better and a fucking lot smarter than his father.
Keep him talking. Stall him for time.
Feliks and Vadim will come looking for us.
“How does Vlad fit into all of this?” I ask.
“Vlad was an idiot. We recruited him, but then he went rogue on us. Kidnapped Brooke because he couldn’t contain his resentment toward you. He thought it would earn him our respect, when all it earned him was a bullet. He strayed from the plan. That’s when everything fell apart. It made him a liability.”
“So you killed him,” I mutter.
“And sent you and Vadim looking for him so I could meet with your bride.” He grins. “She’s a feisty one, I’ll grant her that. I wasn’t expecting her to get the better of me and my men. It was an annoyance, but at least we’re all here now.”
“Except Feliks isn’t here. He was with Vadim and me. He knows what’s going on and won’t stand for it. What are you going to do, kill your own son too?”
Boris nods to Maksim, and my cousin leaves the room, returning a moment later with Feliks, who is gagged. He shoves him into the middle of the room and removes the rag from around his mouth.
Feliks spits at his brother. “You motherfucking—” Maksim shuts him up by shoving the rag into his mouth before moving away to stand by his father. Feliks spits the dirty cloth out and glares at his brother. “Mudak.”
“What is this, a family reunion?” I ask, stalling for time and trying to process the scene so I can figure a way out of here.
But Boris knows what I am doing. He chuckles, his eyes sparkling with menace.
“Family? You want to know what I think about family? They get in the way.”
The way he says it makes something click in my head, and my nostrils flare.
He’s talking about my father.
“You had my father killed.”
“Of course I did. And Vadim was supposed to be with him.” His face twists into an ugly scowl. “Then I would’ve had a clear path to become pakhan.”
“But you didn’t know my father had declared me as his successor and that he would deny the bratva the hefty inheritance he had bestowed them in his will if they didn’t vote me in.”
His eyes flare with anger. “It was a thorny detail I was not anticipating. Not only did I have Vadim to deal with, but I had you as well. So I decided to start fucking with the both of you. Pit one against the other. While I remained the fun-loving uncle stuck between the two. I needed a war because it’s easy to hide the body count amongst all the bloodshed. A death here. A death there. My claim for the role of pakhan wouldn’t be as obvious.”
“Except Vadim had you all figured out.”
“Perhaps, but I knew you hated him enough to never believe him.”
I shake my head. After all this time, the man who murdered my father was the man I called Uncle. A man I trusted. “My father loved you.”
He scoffs. “Like I said, Nephew. Family just gets in the way.”
He nods to his son, and Maksim lifts his gun and shoots Feliks.
Brooke screams as Feliks falls to the floor, and I feel a bolt of panic rip down my spine.
“He’s your son,” I yell at Boris.
“My second son. Not my heir. He sealed his fate the moment he became your right-hand man.”
I glance at Feliks on the floor. He’s not moving, and his eyes are closed. I move Brooke behind me. They’re going to have to get through me to get to her.
“So this is it? You’re going to kill us all so you can be pakhan?”
Boris grins. “Yes, and then, when I’ve served my time, Maksim will step in.”
“Actually, Father, there’s been a change of plans,” Maksim says.
Boris jerks around to look at his son. “What are you talking about?”
Maksim raises his gun again and shoots his father in the head, and Boris drops heavily to the floor, blood spilling out of the bullet wound between his eyes.
Behind me, Brooke gasps and takes a step back.
Maksim stands still, looking at his father’s body before he finally lifts his cold stare to me. “He was right. Family does get in the way.”
Fuck. Me.
All this time my charming cousin was an unhinged psycho and I never even knew.
“What are you doing, Maksim?”
“I’m doing what I have been bred to do. Taking my seat at the head of the table. It’s what he always wanted. It’s what I was raised to do. But I figured, why wait for the old fuck to die when I could just do it myself? Of course, the plan was to do it after he’d done all the heavy lifting. Disposing of bodies is time-consuming and tedious. But today, I realized he was just weighing me down, and I was better off without him.” He focuses on Brooke. “I mean, the fat old fuck had you in the palm of his hand, and he let you get the better of him.” He shakes his head. “I decided right there and then I had to get rid of the old fool sooner rather than later.”
I see Boris’ gun in his suit jacket.
“You’ll be dead before you even reach it,” he warns.
I’ve got nothing left. So I use the last thing I have in my arsenal. My body. I charge at him with the fury of a wounded bull. He tries to aim his gun, but I reach him before he can get a shot off and tackle him to the floor.
We roll around in the mud, and I get a few good slams of my fist into his evil, smug face. But somehow, the sonofabitch is able to knee me in my balls, and I curl up into the fetal position.
He retrieves his gun off the floor and rises slowly to his feet. “You never could admit defeat. Even when we were kids you always had to win. But today is the day you finally lose, pakhan.” He walks over to me and aims his gun. “Your time is up, mudak—”
A gunshot explodes and reverberates around the room, and he drops to the floor like a house of cards.
I look over to Feliks, who still has his gun aimed at his brother.
“Motherfucker,” he moans before slumping against the floor and falling unconscious.