Chapter 16 Ruslan
RUSLAN
“Kraven!” The doors slam open, bounce against the wall, and swing closed behind me as I stride through, almost taking out Raven who walks behind me.
Several Russian guards spill out of the woodwork, but there’s hesitation. Uncertainty.
Do they try and stop me and risk the wrath of the Suit or do they let me pass and risk the wrath of their Pakhan? Loyalty is a fragile thing.
One man tries to stop me. He gets in my face and I floor him with a single punch. Once down, he stays down and squeaks as Raven steps onto him as she passes, not even sparing him a look.
I kick open the next door, pull out my gun, and stride the few feet to Kraven’s desk. As soon as I shove my pistol in his face, the guards in the room all pull their own guns with a musical fluctuation of clicks and metallic snaps.
I’m their target, but no one dares pull the trigger, not yet.
Raven stops just behind me, cocking her hip to the side as she rests her weight and studies everyone else in the room.
“Kraven,” I growl furiously. “You lied to me.”
Kraven finally lifts his head from the papers on the desk and his dark, cold gaze locks onto mine. “Choose your next words carefully.”
“I’m thinking I would rather plant several bullets right between your eyes!”
Kraven’s eyes dart from me to the barrel of my gun. “You come into my office, call me a liar and you think you will be the one pulling the trigger?”
“I know I will be. You sat there on your fat fucking ass and swore to me that you had nothing to do with any of this, that it was all the Italians!”
“I did not lie!”
“Then tell me why my team were picking up Russian garbage from the front lawn of a house our Jack was inside, huh? First me and now Jack? Once can be an accident. After all, I’m new, right?
” I lean back, brandishing my gun in an arc.
“No one really knows my face, so how could anyone know who they’d kidnapped?
But the Jack?” My gun swings back to Kraven. “Everyone knows him.”
“They were your men, Kraven,” Raven pipes up from behind me. “Your men. Your guns. If you’re starting a war with the Suits, then I should remind you that you’ll also be starting a war with the forty-eight families we protect.”
Kraven’s jaw clicks back and forth for a moment, then he glances off to the side. Slowly, very slowly, his guards lower their weapons, but I keep mine raised and firm.
“I did not lie,” he snarls. “I told you the truth.”
“Liar.”
“No! I swore it was not us and I meant it.”
“Liar.”
“Stop!” Kraven slams his hands down on his desk and stands with a roar. “You dishonor me! You spit on me with such baseless accusations?”
“Baseless? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I saw their tattoos, Kraven. The ones you mark all your men with!”
“So what? Everyone knows my family crest! I guarantee if you ask anyone how old those tattoos are, they will tell you they are fresh! So fresh because they are not my men. These Italians, these snakes come up with all these ways to throw you off the scent!”
“Bullshit. You really think I will see all this in my face and not know I’m looking at the man trying to kill my team? Trying to kill my people?”
“Your people?” Kraven sneers. “That bitch you protect is no more worthy of that than some random whore off the street!”
I surge forward onto the desk, bracing with one knee as my hand slams into Kraven’s neck. I force him back into his chair and shove the gun against his forehead as the music of weapons raising rings out behind me once more.
“Keep playing dumb and see where it gets you,” I snarl. “You insult her and I take that as a personal insult against me, understand? I walked away once, Kraven. I’m not fucking doing it again!”
“Ace!” Raven’s hand appears at my back, clutching the back of my jacket.
“Three bullets and I bet I never hear from your sniveling family ever again!”
“Ace! He’s not worth it!”
“Take that fancy badge away from you and you’re just a fucking pitbull,” Kraven snarls. “I tell you it is not us, it is not us! You let the Italians make a fool of you!”
I press the gun harder for a second as the temptation to kill him surges like a wave of bile inside me, but Raven’s sharp tugging at my jacket finally pulls me back an inch.
“You’re lucky we have rules,” I snarl, spitting my words in his face.
“You’re lucky we need undeniable proof, and you know what?
I’ll get it. And if I find out you’ve lied to me again, Kraven, your entire organization will be nothing but dust on the bottom of my shoe by the time I’m finished dismantling you, do you understand? And then I’ll come for you last.”
Kraven’s face purples with rage but he keeps a lid on his response, instead slamming his meaty fist on the desk after I slide off it. “I will await your thorough and sincere apology,” he growls. “Now get the fuck out of my house!”
“Fucking hell,” Raven breathes out once we’re outside and Kraven is safely far away from my fists. “I didn’t know you had a temper.”
I shrug, stomping stiffly toward the car. “I don’t like being lied to.”
“Are you confident he’s lying?”
“Seriously?” I glare back at her. “How much proof do you need?”
“You know just as well as I do how easy it is to fool people,” Raven replies, utterly unfazed by my anger.
Her lack of reaction immediately breeds guilt in my chest and I sigh deeply as we reach the car. “Sure.”
“Do you know what you’re doing, Ruslan?” Raven stops in front of me and her lips pull into an easy smile. “You didn’t like that he called Ivy a whore.”
“No, I didn’t. And yes, I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re pretty protective over her.”
“Can you blame me?”
She shrugs. “Not really. But you also barely know her.”
Scuffing my foot against the ground to rid myself of some frustration, I lift my head. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. You’re really protective over a woman you’ve just met. Is she worth all of this?”
“Absolutely. And it’s not just her. Look at what happened to me and Cassian. You can’t tell me this isn’t important enough for us anymore.”
Ravan raises both hands. “I’m not saying that. I just want to understand where your head is. You really like Kraven for this?”
I nod.
“Then we have to prove it.”
“So you have my back?”
Raven laughs and pats my shoulder, then opens the car door. “I never didn’t. You just have to remember that the Suit only works because we have the respect of all the leaders. We keep everyone in line, which means we can’t be losing our cool and slamming Pakhans in their own homes.”
She’s right. Annoyingly. “Sorry.”
“You’ll owe him one hell of an apology if you’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong.”
“Okay. Either way, he’s challenging us. Those threats question our effectiveness, which means we have to get this right, Ruslan. We can’t make a mistake here or everything the Suit stands for will crumble. If we fall for manipulation, then no one will ever trust us again.”
“So what do I do?”
“Well…” Raven leans against the door, balancing her arms on top. “If this were a computer program, I’d run several analyses to make sure I had all the data I could possibly get.”
I lift my brow, confused.
“Ivy. You need to make sure you know everything. The whole truth, not the half truth.”
“She doesn’t know anything.”
“She says she doesn’t know anything, but maybe she doesn’t know that she knows.”
Thinking back to the picture of her father, I nod slowly. “You think she’s hiding something.”
“Unintentionally, maybe. Either way, you need to be sure. You’ve primed Kraven to explode, so you have to be certain he’s the fuse.”
“You’re right. I’ll talk to her. Properly, this time.”
One way or another, I have to get the whole truth out of her.
One more misstep from me, and the entire criminal underworld will implode and no one will walk out alive.