Chapter 2
GAVAN
When the sensation of wanting both to puke and curl into a ball finally abates, my eyes drop to the floor.
Mother. Fucker .
Everything goes silent as I stare at the shattered remains of what was once the “Imperial Shield” Fabergé egg that Vadim left me. The room continues to spin, and the throbbing pain in my balls lingers as I slowly close my eyes and suck in a slow breath.
I could chase her. At least, I think I could chase her, given the swollen state of my fucking nuts right now. But she’s already gotten a head start, and I know she’s fast. So I let her run, knowing she’s not actually getting away for good.
My eyes open, my gaze taking in the smashed pieces on the floor. Fury begins to swirl like molten fire in my chest. My vision tunnels, teeth gritting as my lips curl into a silent snarl.
There’s no going back. There’s never been any going back for me. Only forward. Only upward, until I burn in the fucking sun like Icarus.
Leaving the pieces where they are, I turn and walk slowly toward the bar cart in the corner of the room. I pour a very heavy splash of vodka and bring it to my lips as I move to the window, glaring out at the city below.
It never ceases to amaze me that this is where I stand now, a king and vengeful god high above it all.
It wasn’t always like this. Not for me, the product of violence and cruelty. A bastard son that a man I didn’t deserve took in and cared for as if I were his own flesh and blood.
My mother was Kristina Reznikov. She was also the mother of the half-brother with whom I now rule this empire. Konstantin and I don’t share a father, but we both were victims of our fathers’ malignant cruelty when they were still alive.
It was Semyon Belsky, a rival Bratva king, who raped my mother twenty-five years ago.
When she found out the assault had left her pregnant, she hid it from her husband, Konstantin’s father, the unimaginably heartless Antin Reznikov.
Antin, being the callous and merciless piece of shit that he was, would have seen—and eventually did see—the assault as infidelity on my mother’s part.
So she carried me to term and gave birth to me in secret. And then it was Vadim, one of Antin’s top avtoritets , who raised me like a son. Not just because he loved my mother from afar, in his own secret way. But because he was a good man.
My mother spent the rest of her sad life interacting with me as if I were Konstantin’s best friend. As if I was “the brother her son never had”, even though in truth I was . Unable to openly love me in the way she wanted to, for fear for both of us.
Vadim taught me how to be a man, as well as the ways of the world and of the Bratva.
But when Konstantin and I discovered the truth about my parentage six years ago, my life changed.
Vadim, being a top captain whose loyalty had always been to Konstantin over that piece of shit Antin, was wealthy enough.
But suddenly, as the rightful co-head of the entire empire, I was worth billions , and became more powerful than I could have ever imagined.
Now, Konstantin and I run the Reznikov organization like the brothers we are. But I’ve kept the Tsarenko name.
My Reznikov blood honors my mother. My last name honors the man who loved her, and who raised me as if he were my true father.
Two years ago, Vadim died at the hands of Declan Kildare.
Something lethal and vicious stirs, snarling inside me as I slam back the rest of the vodka and glare out over the city.
I’ve always had a darkness in me—from the evil in which I was conceived, from the lies that were told to me to “protect” me as a child.
From the pain and horror that were inflicted on me later in my teens that Vadim never knew about.
And ever since he died, that darkness has grown. It’s taken root in me, and surged, until its black roots are firmly tangled around whatever heart I have left, strangling it.
Almost a year and a half ago, I went out one night to avenge my father. To kill Declan Kildare with my bare hands. Instead, I saw something I was never meant to.
I saw her .
Eilish Kildare.
And I saw what she did. I saw her secret sin, her darkest moment.
I’ve been sitting on it ever since.
Waiting. Letting it simmer. Biding my time until I could use what I saw that night to destroy her family.
I’ve spent almost a year and a half being the shadow she never even knew she had. Learning her every dark secret. Witnessing each private moment, hearing each whispered hope.
And tonight, she walked right into the fucking lion’s den.
My skin tingles, my blood hot and close to the surface as I turn and stride back across the room to the shattered fragments of the Imperial Shield. My lips curl menacingly as I glare at the shards with malice in my eyes.
Gently, using a file folder and my fingers, I scoop up the pieces of the egg and then reverently cradle them in a decorative bowl from another shelf.
The safe behind my desk opens to my code and thumbprint, and I deposit the bowl and its precious contents there before plucking out the little plastic baggie and holding it up, examining it thoughtfully.
The baggie with the bullet casing of a blank in it.
My lips thin to a hard sneer.
I saw what you did, solnishka.
But the simmering feeling in my veins isn’t just from hatred and anger.
It’s the lingering heat from the proximity to her.
From touching her. From feeling her wriggle and writhe against me, and from listening to the choked way her breath caught at the sound of my wrath.
From the tumble of blonde, and the scent of Chanel No.
5, and her . From the flash of green in her eyes as she glanced back, right before she bolted from the room.
Tonight, Eilish has set things in motion that cannot be undone.
Things I will not allow to be undone.
I saw what she did. Now, her fate rests in the palm of my hand.
And I’m going to fucking squeeze .