Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Severin Volkov
Iwas pretty sure I was looking at my father’s penis. His severed penis with the word whore burned into it. But saying it was a penis… was a stretch. It looked like a taxidermied dildo, like a mold of one with the skin stretched and sewn over it.
It was a horrifying sight… just not enough. My father didn’t deserve a cock. I honestly wanted to shake the hand of the person currently torturing him, cutting him into pieces and sending them to me.
Although that last bit, I could live without.
Someone was threatening me… and my men. But I didn’t know why.
I hadn’t pissed anyone off recently—at least not to this extent.
Except the Italians…
It could have been the Carusos, but it didn’t feel like them.
Then there were the cartels, Albanians, and Serbians.
But we were on fairly good terms with all of them.
And the Irish were nearly our allies—I was very close to finalizing an alliance with them, and now with my father out of the picture, it should be easy to solidify that pact.
I rubbed my chin. As much as I appreciated someone torturing and dismembering my father, I couldn’t let it stand.
As the acting Pakhan of the Russian mafia, I couldn’t allow someone to kidnap the highest-ranking man in the organization.
It reflected poorly on me and the Volkov house, and there were always vultures circling, waiting for weakness and readying to strike.
If I didn’t hunt down the vigilante and make an example of them, people would whisper that: “I wasn’t strong enough to lead the Bratva.
” Since I was the newly minted leader of the Volkov family, I didn’t have room for weakness.
Weakness was deadly. The sharks were circling and waiting for the chance to take over my empire.
I shouldn’t mix metaphors. Xeniya wouldn’t approve. My jaw tensed. I shouldn’t think about her. Not now. Not here. Not staring at my father’s severed cock, but then, I always thought about her. Every day of my life since she punched me in the face when we were eight years old.
Fuck.
I slid my hands into my pockets. I needed to summon the Bratva and begin the hunt for this ghost. If the hunt ended with my father dead too, even better.
At the very least, I wouldn’t save him.
But I had to appear like I wanted to.
Still, a smile lingered on my face, just a little too long. My father would be furious that this ghost had cut off his cock, and that knowledge was far too amusing to stifle.
“Oh god,” Ilya said and then cursed in Russian. “That is disgusting.” He absentmindedly hovered a hand over his groin, a sour expression twisting on his face. “I assume that’s your father’s?”
“That’s what the note said.” I turned to look at my second-in-command, Ilya Morozov, my fingers sliding along the edge of my mahogany desk. “Any leads?”
“No, not yet, sir. So far, she’s a ghost.”
“She?” I arched an eyebrow.
“No man would cut off another man’s penis and leave it as a gift for his son.” But it wasn’t Ilya who spoke this time. It was Veronika, his younger sister. She leaned forward slightly, getting a better view.
“Maybe.” I adjusted my cuff. “I do think it’s a woman, but not because of the penis.”
“Oh?”
“It’s the planning, control, and expert-level of emotional manipulation.”
Nika’s brow furrowed. “I hope you are not calling women emotionally manipulative.”
“Of course not.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “I am saying women are far better at handling emotions than men. This…”—I pointed at the box—“is emotional but controlled. It’s not reactive. It’s planned, vicious, patient, and brilliantly maneuvered.”
I always appreciated a highly skilled opponent.
Life was like a game of chess, and I usually wanted to hold all the pieces—or, at the very least, understand the entire board.
And that’s why this situation was so unsettling.
I knew almost nothing. It was like playing chess blindfolded, with half the pieces missing, and the game already underway. I despised playing from that position.
Nika nodded. I highly doubted she was actually annoyed with me. She was an intelligence analyst and a woman in the Bratva. She was undermined and undervalued at every turn.
Because my father was a sexist dick.
She tilted her head and stared at the word whore burned into the appendage. “This is highly amusing.”
“My exact sentiments,” I said, turning to her brother. “Send for your father, Mikhail, and the head brigadiers. We need to strategize.”