16. Arsen
16
ARSEN
“What is my daughter doing here?” Rolan spits the moment I walk through the door.
Natascha’s body looks strange under the artificial glow of the shed’s light. Someone cleaned the blood away, but the gold chains are stained red and nothing can hide the gaping hole in her throat where the bullet tore through.
“This isn’t fit for her. This is where you bring criminals and rats to shake them down before you kill them!”
His face is puffy, his jowls hanging low. But it’s not grief that has him out of sorts.
It’s that he was woken from a deep sleep to the unpleasant news that his get-out-of-jail-free card was dead.
“Otets…” Feliks places a calming hand on his father’s shoulder. Despite the fact that he and Natascha were twins, he’s always been the exact opposite of his sister in terms of temperament. Calm and quiet, content to linger on the periphery. Which is why it’s been so easy to forget him. “Otets, we should take her body home.”
Rolan shakes his son off and rounds back on me with a snarl. “She is your wife, Arsen. She should be inside your house in a place of honor.”
He’s doing a good job of playing the grieving father, but I know him too well to buy the act. His sorrow isn’t for Natascha; it’s for everything he’ll lose now that she is no longer Arsen Adamov’s wife.
“You should have protected her,” he accuses when I stand still and silent in the face of his wrath. “What kind of man—what kind of pakhan —can’t protect his own woman?”
Before I can respond, Dominik beats me to it. “Careful, old man. You’re treading into dangerous waters.”
Rolan’s wide eyes teeter from Dominik to me. “This is a conspiracy, isn’t it? You planned this. You’ve always wanted to get rid of her. This is a ploy to get her out of the way so you can fuck the whore you got pregnant!”
This time, I move before Dominik does.
In an instant, I have Rolan pinned to the wall by his fat neck. I can feel his pulse thundering against my palm.
He wasn’t wrong about the purpose of this shed. It’s seen many interrogations and the soundproofing is excellent.
No one would hear him scream.
Feliks takes a half-step forward, more out of obligation than any real desire to insert himself in the fray. He has the good sense to shrink back a moment later when I scowl in his direction.
Rolan’s eyes bug out as I squeeze his neck.
“Too far,” Dominik warns behind me.
He’s talking to Rolan, but I hear it like he’s saying it to me instead. I know how it looks—I’m defending my surrogate’s honor. There are already rumors about my relationship with Laila, and shit like this will only validate them.
Regretfully, I release him before I choke the life from his lungs. He collapses against the wall, gasping.
“You’re reeling from Natascha’s death, Rolan, so I won’t hold this outburst against you.” I swallow down the rage still swirling just under the surface. “But believe me when I tell you that I take my duties as pakhan very seriously. She was under my protection, and the men responsible for Natascha’s death will be held accountable.”
Rolan massages his throat, casting Dominik a dirty glare before peering back at me. “If you were protecting her, how did the bastards who did this get away?”
“If you’d bothered to stop long enough to ask the important questions instead of spewing accusations, I could’ve told you that one of the shooters is sitting a few feet away in one of my cells.”
Rolan and Feliks both stiffen like dogs on the scent. “One of them is here?”
Wordlessly, I gesture for Dom to bring the man out.
Within seconds, a wiry man with a stringy, blood-crusted beard is kneeling in front of us. Dominik keeps hold of him by the scruff of his neck.
Rolan spits at the man’s feet. “Why target my daughter?”
“We have reason to believe this mudak works for Alessandro Calcagno,” I inform him.
The man doesn’t even look at Rolan. His eyes are narrowed at me as he vomits a stream of Italian at us. I don’t have to speak the language to know he isn’t exactly singing our praises.
Rolan backhands the bastard. The crack of flesh on flesh resounds throughout the stifled air of the shed. “Italian scum. Speak English so we can hear what you have to say.”
“ Coglione !”
That translates easily enough. Rolan whips out his gun and presses it against the man’s forehead. “Say that to me again, and I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”
“Otets—!”
Rolan whips around, turning the gun on his own son. “Your sister lies dead before you and you just stand there. What kind of man are you? Fucking useless!”
“Rolan.” I barely raise my voice and yet it carries in a way that Rolan’s didn’t even when he was screaming. “Put the gun away before you hurt yourself.”
“I want answers!” he protests.
“My men spent hours questioning him. He won’t break.”
“Then why is he still alive?”
“I thought you should have the honor of killing him.”
Rolan doesn’t hesitate. He spins around and pulls the trigger before the Italian can even flinch.
The man’s body has barely hit the floor before Rolan has rounded on me again. “It will take more than the killing of some low-level grunt to appease me.”
“This is just the beginning,” I promise him. “The Italians will pay for this attack.”
Rolan glares at me. There are two choices in front of him. I watch as rage twists his face… and he makes the wrong one.
“Why should I trust you? You never wanted to marry Natascha,” he snarls. “Why would you care about avenging a woman you hated?”
Behind him, Feliks closes his eyes. He knows what’s coming, even if his father is too revenge-drunk to realize it.
“Your daughter was a nightmare that I didn’t wish to subject myself to. But I agreed because the benefits of an alliance with you outweighed the drawbacks of a marriage to her,” I explain icily. “But despite that, Natascha was my wife, and she was targeted for that reason alone. An attack on her is an attack on me, and I won’t stand for it. I will always protect the people who are loyal to me.”
It’s a code I chose to live and die by during my five years in prison. From the moment I set foot in there, I was a target. Men thought they’d make a name for themselves by cutting me down.
Few got far.
But no matter how tight the walls I built around myself were, a storm that batters long enough will find a way through.
I was showering when they came for me. Naked, alone, defenseless. The noose was around my neck and the shiv pressed to my jugular before I could even turn to see who was wielding it. I would’ve died on that filthy linoleum had it not been for a stranger who decided to help.
Had it not be for Jasper intervening.
“Why did you do it?” I coughed to him afterwards, their bodies littering the floor around us, blood sluicing away down the drains, foamy with soap.
Jasper spat at them. “Four against one ain’t right. The only thing they proved is that they’re too weak to fight you like men. They came at you like dogs. So we slaughtered them like dogs.”
I expected him to make his own play at me now that we were alone, now that I was weak and in his debt. The shiv he took from my would-be murderers was still in his grasp. It would’ve been easy.
Instead, Jasper extended a hand. “Relax. I’d rather have you as an ally, brother.”
In the present, Rolan swallows. I blink away the prison memories and focus on him. “I’m a man of my word, Rolan Kiselev. If you remain loyal to me, I’ll remain loyal to you. On my honor . ”
His chest heaves, but he takes a wary step back. “Then I’ll go.”
“I’ll have Natascha’s body moved to your home. I don’t intend to deny a grieving mother’s request to have her daughter’s body back.”
Rolan scowls, but Feliks speaks before his father can. “We appreciate that, Arsen . My mother will be grateful.”
The moment the door closes behind the two of them, Dominik turns to me. “We need to watch him now.”
“We always needed to watch him.”
“Yeah, and that was when he had skin in the game. The alliance stands, but he’s lost his bartering chip now that Natascha is dead. You know as well as Rolan does that if he becomes more trouble than he’s worth—which the old bastard definitely will—you’ll find a new partner in an instant.”
“Or a new wife.” Gedeon enters the room, leaning against the doorway. He sighs down at the dead Italian currently cooling in the center of the room. “There’s always another mess to clean up.”
“Arsen has an heir. He doesn’t need a wife.” Dom turns to me. “Do you?”
I turn my back on both of them, intangible thoughts running through my head. Natascha’s death changes things. The shackles that once bound me have been stripped away.
Now, I get to decide what happens next.