Bought By Sin (The Volkov Bratva #3)

1. Lev

LEV

Green lines showed a roller coaster on the black screen. Other numbers on the monitor gave the vitals for the man sleeping in the bed, the only occupant in this private wing of the Volkov mansion.

His weak blood pressure was listed too. His pulse. Respirations. It demonstrated that an old heart and a pair of lungs were still working, but Dmitri Volkov no longer resembled the person I used to know.

The leader I followed and respected.

The uncle I trusted and loved.

The Pakhan who had stepped in as the only fatherly figure I’d had for the majority of my life.

How can this be the end?

Why did you keep your cancer diagnosis a secret?

Why do you have to go now?

I hung my head, resting my elbows on my knees as I failed to reconcile that this sleeping man was the same boss and uncle I’d always been so close to.

He wasn’t dying right this minute. Life—or death—couldn’t be that cruel. Or it wouldn’t be that merciful.

My cousins and I struggled with how inhumane this could be, keeping him alive in this coma until his body would decide that enough was enough.

My older brother, Alexei, had debated with our eldest cousin, Adrik, whether this was just. whether it was right for us to keep him alive, just barely, like a shell of a man stuck in bed until his heart stopped.

I glanced up at Alexei as he stood next to this chair that I’d claimed to the right of Uncle Dmitri’s bed.

Like always, my only brother stayed put with his emotionless yet somehow peeved stare on the nurse who checked on our uncle.

Maybe she was taking too long and he wanted her gone while we visited.

Or perhaps he was standing there and wondering how just this was to let Uncle Dmitri stay hopeless and helpless, trapped in his failing body and never likely to have another lucid moment again.

But it’s what he wants.

It’s in his living will. His demands are that we’d let him go naturally.

“He’s as comfortable as he can be,” the nurse said quietly, sounding slightly nervous with us watching over her.

I nodded once, just to have mercy on her in this tense, awkward moment of a visit.

Alexei and I weren’t here to hover over any nurses.

There were too many coming and going for the specialized and personalized private care that we’d arranged for Uncle Dmitri.

I’d come to visit and Alexei had just tagged along with me.

It wasn’t up to us to determine if keeping him stable in this coma was right or wrong. He’d clearly and sanely written his expectations in his living will, and we always followed and obeyed his orders.

Even in death.

Or almost death.

Despite my obedience to the one man who’d always been there to love and guide me through life, I couldn’t turn off this greedy voice in the back of my head, that nagging insistence that suggested it was a really bad twist of timing for him to not be able to lead us while his brother would seemingly come back from the dead to antagonize us.

The nurse stood and stepped back from the bed. She dipped her chin in a demure nod, and it was the only farewell or gesture that she seemed ready to give us. Without another word and taking her tablet that she used to record vitals, she left the room.

I waited until the door closed with a definitive click.

“Of all times for him to not be able to guide us,” I griped.

“I imagine that any time he chose to let himself die, it would be too soon.” Alexei shifted his weight on his feet and crossed his arms.

“But right now. With our…” I scowled, twisting to look at the wall and unable to utter the word in Uncle Dmitri’s presence. He wasn’t conscious and likely couldn’t hear us, but merely speaking that one word felt like a transgression I couldn’t allow.

Father.

Gregori Volkov ceased being my father since the day he planned to plant a bomb at a large meeting for crime family bosses. The day he plotted to kill my uncle. The day he succeeded in taking out my grandparents.

He was no father to me.

My dying uncle in this bed was the only person who’d ever earned anything close to that title.

Calling Gregori my father was a crime I couldn’t willingly commit.

“Right now, with Gregori forming a shadow network against the Bratva…” Fury raced through me as I trailed off, heating my blood and raising my pulse. Tremors of adrenaline filled me as I bottled in the urge to roar my anger. “He has already caused so much trouble for us.”

I vaguely tracked Alexei’s movement from the corner of my eye as I stared at Uncle Dmitri resting. Nodding his head, my brother heaved out a deep sigh. “There will always be trouble facing us.”

Sure. That was a truth none of us in the Volkov Bratva could deny. We led violent lives and that would never change.

I narrowed my eyes at him, almost mistaking his platitude as dismissal of what Gregori represented. Enemies would never disappear. We had too many to count. The ones we fought valiantly would never stay gone. And the ones we anticipated causing hell would one day be our worst nightmare.

“He’s not just another version of trouble,” I replied, hating that he could sound this dismissive. “Gregori is a valid threat who could end the Bratva.”

He shook his head slowly but held his tongue.

“Ever since Elena discovered that news of his network, ever since we realized John Morovov was siphoning money to him, and ever since we caught Arturo Garcia discrediting our trade agreement to favor him—”

“Fine. You want to argue about how much a pain in the ass this is? You win. You are right. I agree with you that this bullshit we’re facing now is fucking annoying.”

I stood. “Annoying?” That was all he could sum it up as?

“Gregori is the reason Uncle Dmitri almost lost his standing.” I flung my hand out to gesture at him.

“Because of Gregori, the Bratva could’ve been changed and ruined by his greed to have the throne.

A greed that he’s still using as a motivation. ”

Alexei grimaced and looked away. “He’s not—”

“Gregori is only doing this because he wants to claim the throne,” I argued. “All these years while Uncle Dmitri rebuilt the Bratva and fortified the empire, Gregori’s been hiding and scheming against us all.”

Pacing away from the bed, I ran my hand over my hair until I could grip the back of my neck. To feel this out of control was tantamount to a fucking mental breakdown. But this was out of control.

Gregori was supposed to have been dead.

I pivoted and glanced at the bed.

And you’re still supposed to be alive. Leading us.

I swallowed hard against the pressure of wanting to roar or scream. Nothing was going as it was supposed to. Nothing was “normal” anymore. And I fucking hated it.

“Gregori can cause trouble all he wants,” Alexei said with his signature gruffness. “Anyone who wants to target the Bratva can try whatever they want. They won’t succeed.”

“The only reason the Bratva is the success that it is today is because Uncle Dmitri miraculously survived that one day when the bombs were detonated. The single event that has given me a lifetime of a cause to loathe Gregori for being such a fucking traitor to his own flesh and blood.”

Alexei shrugged and shoved his hands back into his pockets. “Loathe him all you want. Doesn’t change the fact that he’s alive.”

I gritted my teeth, hating that he could be this passive about Gregori being our enemy. That I could be so threatened by Gregori’s return.

“If he’s going to carry out this plan to take the throne, he’s got a lot of obstacles in his way,” he added.

Not obstacles. People. In order for Gregori to claim the throne as Dmitri’s younger brother, he’d now have to eliminate all four of my cousins first.

“If he’s making his own network to compete with us and weaken us, we won’t take that challenge without a fight.”

We already had been fighting the beginning of what Gregori’s network involved. Through the financial side of business, then with trade and the Cartel.

“I’m not in the mood to discuss it any further.

” He lifted his head and met my gaze directly.

Looking like any other impatient and frustrated older sibling, he dared me to drag out this conversation for a second longer.

He’d never been fond of talking about feelings or anything deeper than what lurked at surface level, but he wasn’t fooling me.

He wasn’t cold and unfeeling. He simply shoved it all down and preferred to let things simmer into nothing.

I couldn’t.

I truly fucking couldn’t.

I was too much of a control freak to trick myself into thinking that shrugging and rolling with the punches could be a wise approach to addressing the problems that arose.

Adrik was taking over as the interim Pakhan and doing his best to lead.

Maksim was proving to contribute as our problem solver.

Whereas Alexei just wanted to be a follower and do whatever was asked of him.

With zero passion that could be borne out of fury, like me.

I shook my head as he walked away from Uncle Dmitri’s bed.

He could be as cool and detached as he wanted, but personally, I couldn’t stand the idea of a complication like this.

I couldn’t accept the ugly reality that Gregori could be alive and able to threaten us at all—whether it was to take the throne or to make our lives hell.

“Maksim says Dean’s requesting assistance at a collection operation,” he said, looking up from whatever text he was reading on his phone as I stared at my uncle.

That was probably why my phone had buzzed in my pocket, too.

An alert for backup. We always worked as a team, but if Dean, one of our main men who handled smuggling runs and shipments, needed backup, it probably meant that Maksim was too busy to help him himself.

Ever since Carina learned that she was pregnant, Maksim had reduced his time in the field.

“Collection for what?” I asked, finally walking away from Uncle Dmitri.

I couldn’t tell if Alexei was using this text as a way to jar me out of being here and dwelling on Uncle Dmitri’s demise and Gregori’s return, but it worked.

As one of the main enforcers for the Bratva, if backup was requested, I would typically be included.

“Something between the Garcia and Hernandez Cartels,” Alexei said.

“Of course,” I muttered, exiting the room with him.

Carina Garcia had been arranged to marry Maksim mere months ago, but the Cartel she’d left had undergone many changes.

Presently, we could all be confident the new Cartel boss, Jorge, was more sensitive to remaining our allies in the region.

The Hernandezes, though, would forever be a problem to monitor.

“You want me to go?” he offered, probably assuming I didn’t have my head in the game at the moment.

I shook my head. “No. I’ll go.” It’d do me well to get out of this house and out of my head.

After I drove out to the handoff location where Dean was supervising a collection of debt that the Hernandezes owed a couple of Garcia Cartel runners, I immediately realized that this standoff at the border was more than just a minor argument.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I got out of my car and approached Dean.

He didn’t turn to face me, keeping his eyes on the literal standoff.

Two members of the Hernandez Cartel faced off with a Garcia Cartel member.

Guns were out. A woman’s hands were raised in surrender.

Most noticeably, on the ground, a large bag that should’ve likely held money was empty.

Blue canvas flapped in the wind around the sacks of sand weights that had been put in as decoys.

“They’re not paying up?” I guessed. The Garcia Cartel was once more an ally of the Bratva, so if they were being fucked in a collection attempt, we would need to intervene.

“No. Some of the Hernandezes already ran.” Dean tipped his chin at the short woman who held her hands up.

Her short bob of chestnut waves partly covered her narrowed eyes, but when the breeze calmed down, the defiance on her face stayed the same.

She stood there stubbornly, not flinching or cowering at the Garcia Cartel member who pointed a gun directly at her forehead.

“She’s not budging. Not saying where they ran off to, either. ”

Interesting.

Even under gunpoint like this in a standoff, under the hot desert sun, she won’t buckle under pressure?

The Hernandez thug behind her had his gun trained at the Garcia Cartel member threatening to shoot the woman. In terms of proximity, the Garcia Cartel member was closer.

She was caught. A captured drug runner. In those filthy, worn, ripped jeans that molded to her legs and the tan shirt that was stained red from the terrain’s dust, she didn’t budge an inch.

Interesting, indeed.

I stepped forward, shoving the idea of my uncle and Gregori behind me as I approached the situation to intervene. To enforce.

To sate this intrigue that I couldn’t silence or rein in as I took in the sight of this defiant woman staring down the end of a gun barrel like nothing in life ever scared her. Like she was completely unafraid, intimidated by nothing and no one.

Not even the promise of death.

Let’s see if you’re as impervious to me.