Chapter 2
Alexei
What a fucking disaster.
I sit down with a groan, tilt my head back, and pop two painkillers into my mouth. Then wash them down with a shot of vodka.
I drop my head against the back of the couch. Getting shot in the stomach hurts worse than I expected. I’ve been shot before but never there. Felt like something ripped open from the inside.
Turns out I can’t trust anyone, not even my brothers.
I have four of them, and none are useful.
Mikhail and Daniil, the younger two, scouted the warehouse and came back whispering about weapons being moved.
Not a working brain cell between them. My father sent me to confirm it since apparently suspicion is all they could manage.
In and out, quiet. Get eyes on it, report back, then we move properly. Simple.
Apparently not simple enough because I got shot.
I pull out the ID card. Didn’t know anyone worked nights there. Just needed to stop bleeding before I dropped. Passed out anyway, and he still didn’t call the cops.
Either he’s stupider than he looks, or he’s got his own reasons to avoid law enforcement.
His photo’s grainy, expression flat, but the dimples are still there.
Same ones he had when he smiled after pulling the bullet out of me.
His hair doesn’t show properly in the picture, but I remember the color—sandy-blonde, a little wavy.
Freckles across his face. Eyes bright green that looked like sea glass in the fluorescent lights.
Kelly Francis Mackey. Five-ten, twenty-seven—same age as me.
I snort. What kind of parents name their son Kelly Francis? Sounds like they wanted him to get his ass kicked in school.
I should have killed him. I know exactly how mistakes like him end. That’s the truth. I made the call, and now I’m paying for it. I don’t leave loose ends. Ever.
Though I can’t shake the way he looked at me. The way he showed me something close to kindness while I gave him nothing back.
The front door opens, and I shove the ID into my pocket and get up from the couch with a groan. Everything goes gray for a second. I grip my stomach and limp toward the sound, steadying myself against the wall.
Mikhail and Daniil are late, which pisses me the fuck off. I move down the hall and catch them at the door, kicking off their shoes. Daniil’s hunched under his hood, head down. Mikhail doesn’t bother looking at me until I’m right there.
One glance and I know. His pupils are blown wide, eyes glassy and red-rimmed.
Mikhail’s the most dangerous of my brothers. He has temper issues and zero self-control. The drugs make him unpredictable in the worst way, and right now, he can barely keep his eyes open, which means he was useless on the job that got me shot.
I move toward him, ignoring the sharp pull in my side where the stitches are still healing, and grab the front of his shirt. Then slam him into the wall so hard the mirror rattles next to us. Then I wrap my hand around his throat and pin his shoulders back.
“You were supposed to make sure the warehouse was clear. Instead, I got shot in the stomach. Want to explain that?” I snap.
I let go of him and punch the wall beside him. My knuckles split, and the drywall cracks. He looks at the damage, then back at me, eyes narrowing.
“You got shot?” He blinks. “But you’re alive and dramatic as fuck, so what’s the actual problem? We checked that place twice. You’re standing here yelling at me, so clearly, you’re fine.”
He tries to shove me back, but I barely move. I go for him again, already swinging, but Daniil’s faster and gets between us. He pushes me back, and I toss a glare his way.
Daniil’s the only one who doesn’t pick fights or run his mouth.
He and Mikhail are attached at the hip, always backing each other up no matter what stupid stunts one of them pulls.
They’ve been like that ever since he was adopted into the family.
My father brought him home when he was two, covered in bruises, and wouldn’t stop crying.
Mikhail latched onto him immediately. Annoyingly inseparable ever since.
“You were supposed to handle the intel,” I say, pointing at both of them.
“That was it. One job. I got shot because you fucked it up. It was supposed to be clean. Simple. But you were too high or too distracted or too stupid to do basic recon. So tell me, what exactly did you accomplish? Because I nearly bled out and died.”
I pull at my shirt and show them the mess. Blood’s already soaking through again. The stitches are useless, the white fabric crimson.
Mikhail scoffs, arms crossed, already defensive. “Why the fuck are you blaming us like we set you up? You think I’d want that? And since when do you not call for backup? That’s on you.”
I let out a deep sigh. “Because one of the bullets hit my phone and fucking shattered it. I had to run for over thirty minutes with a bullet in my stomach just to get away.” I almost start to say more. Almost mention the clinic, but that part’s mine, and I’m not telling them about that.
“I don’t care how many times you tell me you checked the cameras or verified the rest of the intel. If I end up with a bullet in me, then something went wrong. I don’t care whose fault it was. That means you missed it, or someone fed you garbage and you were too stupid to catch it.”
Daniil glances between me and Mikhail, chewing at his bottom lip. He opens his mouth, closes it, looks at the floor, and shakes his head.
He’s always been like this. Doesn’t talk to anyone but Mikhail. Whenever he tries with the rest of us, he can’t get a word out without stuttering. I’ve only heard him speak normally to Mikhail, and that was when he thought no one was listening. He just shuts down. Has since he was little.
“The others can’t know. We need to find out more about this before we involve them,” Mikhail says before I can speak.
“I’m not telling our father you two fucked up and almost got me killed. Let’s be honest, he probably already knows. He always does. He just waits to see who’s stupid enough to finally admit it first.”
Mikhail groans, tilts his head back, and rubs his face with both hands. “Can you just explain what happened without being a dick about it?”
I feel unsteady. Too much blood loss to stay upright while recounting this bullshit.
My hand finds the wall for support as the room tilts slightly.
I nod toward the living room and head down the few steps into the sunken part of the room and drop into the couch.
I grab the vodka bottle and take a long pull.
“The moment I stepped inside, I knew. Something was off. Should have turned around, but I didn’t. Kept walking like a moron. First foot through the door, they lit the place up. This wasn’t random. They were waiting for me specifically.”
Mikhail shifts forward, elbows on his knees. “We kept it tight, I swear. Only the three of us knew. We didn’t give names, didn’t drop anything to the officers on our payroll. I don’t know how they knew.”
I clench my jaw. “He trusted us to not mess this up. You get that? Do you know what this means for us if he finds out? Someone just made him look weak. He doesn’t tolerate that. Ever.”
Mikhail mutters, “Fuck.”
He grabs the bottle out of my hand, tilts his head back, and drinks, then walks off. I hear him in the hallway a second later, picking up his phone, voice low as he makes a call.
I glance at Daniil who’s about to follow him. I don’t know how he does it, how he puts up with Mikhail without breaking something.
“Wait.”
He stops and looks over his shoulder. His black hair’s a mess under the edge of his hoodie, sticking out in every direction.
I push myself off the couch, biting back a groan, and dig into my pocket. Pull out the ID and hold it out. He takes it, looks at it, and then back at me.
“Get me everything on him. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Where he lives, where he works, his family, school. Tell me his fucking star sign. I want all of it.”
He snaps a picture of the ID and hands it back to me.
Mikhail returns, pocketing his phone. “I called Calder. He’s going to help us. He owes me, and he said he won’t take it to the others.”
Calder and I are my father’s go-to for the jobs he won’t acknowledge. We’re assigned together most of the time. Interrogations, torture, cleanup. Two-man operations that stay off the books. At least Mikhail did something right for once.
Mikhail starts to speak, but I cut him off with a sharp flick of my hand. I’m not in the mood for either of them.
“Save it. Fix this. Text me updates. And Daniil, I want that file in my inbox within the hour. Not later, not whenever you feel like it. One hour.”
I limp down the hall with stitches pulling at every step, jaw clenched, vision swimming. I’m over this whole thing. The fact that I trusted these two to not screw up and almost died for it. I should have handled this alone.
Daniil keeps his word and sends the files within the hour. I sit up against the bed frame, tablet in hand, and open them.
It starts normal. College, veterinary degree, grew up in New York.
His mother died a little over a year ago from breast cancer. His father sold everything after, moved to Vegas, and is drowning in debt now. I blink at the numbers. Not sure how one man racks up that much financial damage by himself in under a year.
Kelly’s all alone now. No family to miss him if something happened.
Then it shifts and gets more interesting.
The last six months stand out. His record was clean before that. Perfect little veterinarian with his perfect little life.
Then suddenly he’s arrested three times in half a year. Trespassing, disorderly conduct, public intoxication. Not major charges but messy.
On top of that, there’s a stack of harassment complaints filed against him. Unpaid fines piling up, enough to seriously fuck with his finances.