Chapter 26
ROMAN
Ihear her as I grab the gun out of the safe in the study. The sound of fighting got my attention first, then the sound of screaming. It brought me out of the fog of my drinks and the afterglow of sex like an alarm, igniting my fight instinct before I’m even fully aware of it.
But it’s the sound of her voice that sobers me. Ringing like a bell through the halls just outside the study door. I shove a full magazine into the gun and grab two more from the safe and put them in my pockets.
I turn to see Ivan opening the study door. “What the fuck is going on out there?” I ask him. “Where’s Ares?”
“We’re under attack,” he says. “Is that the only gun you have?”
“Of course not.” I turn to go back to the safe to grab him one. “You should know better than to walk around without one.”
“Duly noted.”
As he says that, I catch movement reflected in the glass of the drink caddy. It’s a quick movement, an arm shooting up and pointing toward my back…
I duck and dive, knocking the caddy aside as I take cover behind one of the couches. Above me, gunshots pop. Bullets break through the cushion of the couch over my head.
Before I can process what’s happened, Ivan says, “You might as well come out. Make this easy on yourself.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My brain keeps trying to excuse it. Something came up behind Ivan or…
No. It happened too fast to be anyone but him. I pull my gun out of my belt and roll over, pressing my back against the wall. I cock it. “This is a surprise,” I say. “Out of them all, I would have sworn you’d be the most loyal.”
“You should know better. Bratva are loyal to no one. Not even their own brothers if it serves their cause.”
He’s moving slowly, but I can tell by his voice that he’s almost on top of me. “Seems to me that you’ve lost the plot, Ivan,” I say. The caddy is right next to me. I wedge my free arm behind it as he approaches. “The Bratva has always been about loyalty.”
“That was only ever true when I learned to be Bratva at my father, Pyotr’s, feet. You do remember my father… don’t you? Pyotr Durov?”
My blood turns to ice. It all makes sense now. The mole I was searching for, the one who knew about the meeting and handled all of Kostromo’s books. I don’t know how much of that is in the hands of the Feds, but I do know the most important thing.
He’s Ivanovo. And now, I understand exactly how much danger I’m in.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “After ten long years, vengeance is finally upon—”
As he finishes the sentence, he steps around the couch, gun drawn. I push the drink caddy hard at the same time. It flies toward him as the gun goes off. Sparks and glass fly as the caddy hits him and the bullet ricochets off the glass.
It only buys me a few seconds, but that’s more than I need.
He angrily topples the cart over and as it crashes in a cascade of glass and ice shattering.
I aim and fire my gun, hitting him squarely in the chest three times.
He grimaces and tries to return fire but stumbles back and falls to the floor instead.
I’m up on my feet and moving over to him as he groans and bleeds out on my floor. His eyes roll to mine as he struggles to lift the gun in his hand.
I have no parting words for him. He spent ten years plotting his revenge only to fail. May he burn for it. I raise the gun, aiming for his temple, and pull the trigger. His head jerks as the bullet tears a hole in the side of his head. His eyes go dead and his body goes limp.
I rush to the door of the study and run down the hall toward the living room. One of the men I had on patrol around the front of the house lies dead on the floor near the stairs, his neck twisted around at an unnatural angle. I step over him and rush up the stairs.
There’s no one in the main hall, no one in Sasha’s room, and in my room, Ember’s suitcase sits by the bed, untouched.
“Roman!” Ares’ voice booms through the house. I run out of the room and to the staircase.
Ares is downstairs, holding his gun in one hand, a wild look in his eyes. He hears me before he sees me and instinctively, he points his gun up in my direction. The moment he sees it’s me, he relaxes.
“Are you all right?” he asks me in Russian.
“I’m fine,” I say as I come back down the stairs. Several of my men come in behind him, guns drawn, ready for a fight. I give the order for them to spread out and search the house, then I notice the body on the floor. It’s Boris. He was supposed to be taking Sasha to school today. Shit.
“Poor bastard. I heard a noise out back so I went to check. When I came back, he was gone and the door was open. What the hell happened here?”
“Ivan,” I say. “He’s the mole. Or at least he was. What’s left of him is in the study.”
“What?” Ares says in disbelief.
“That’s not all. I think they took Ember. Probably Sasha, too.”
“They?”
I nod. “Sergei and whoever else has aligned with him. This revenge for that business ten years ago. Sergei and Ivan are Pyotr’s sons.”
In all these years, I’ve never seen Ares’ face go slate before now.
Vengeance is a powerful thing when it’s due.
And we know all too well the cost once its evil eye turns to you.
But there’s no time to prepare for whatever war that will ultimately come when we find Sergei and his men. We’ve got bigger problems.
“I want them found,” I say to him. “They can’t have gotten far. I just heard Ember and Sasha screaming a little while ago. They probably just left the property—”
“Got it.” He pulls out his phone and dials a few numbers. After a few seconds, he speaks in Russian to whoever just picked up. “They just left. They’ve got the Pakhan’s daughter and Ember Lorenzo…”
I step away, looking for the others. We need the grounds secure in the meantime.
I don’t know how many men are in Sergei’s employ.
I don’t even know if they are remnants of the Ivanovos or if they are mercenaries or others he convinced to follow his cause.
I don’t know what army he’s managed to amass over the course of the last decade or even how he’s gone about moving in silence after all this time.
All I know is that his father was the man responsible for taking my wife from me and in return, I took away his entire family… or so I thought. Now Sergei means to finish what his father started all those years back. What poetic vengeance to go after Sasha and Ember.
I need to get them back. I need Ember and Sasha to be safe.
It’s been an hour since it all happened.
The bodies of Ivan and my guard have been taken away and are being disposed of, and those who are not out scouring the town for Sergei are here, keeping the house and me under heavy guard.
I don’t know what the entire gameplan was supposed to be.
The more I think about Ivan’s betrayal, the more I start to wonder how we could have missed either of them.
Ivan had been a part of this Bratva since before me.
And when everything happened, he wasn’t one of my soldiers.
His job had never been to be boots on the ground like the others.
But what must he have been thinking when I went after his family?
He wouldn’t have had time to warn his father.
That first attack had been swift. I gathered any of my men who were in my immediately vicinity and we laid siege on him the night that my wife was killed.
But the rest of it, when I went out and searched for every single family and associate of their gang… where was he then?
Had he and Sergei been working in secret for all these years?
I think back to the last time I saw Sergei.
The kid with the gun on my doorstep. It was a normal Sunday afternoon.
Mila was a week buried and Sasha was asleep in her room.
I answered the door and the little shit was standing there with a gun trained on me.
The gun jammed. It’s the only reason I’m not dead. I pulled out my knife and sliced his face for his insolence. Then I took his gun and kicked him off my property.
Was there some grand plan that was set in motion the moment Pyotr was killed? Maybe Ivan met with Sergei after that and they started planning. Perhaps. Or perhaps, they had been waiting all these years for the perfect situation to disrupt my Bratva.
I’m in the living room, my eyes turning to the window every so often.
Watching for one of my men’s cars to return with both Sasha and Ember in the backseat.
I have eyes and ears all over this town.
I know that it’s only a matter of time until someone’s seen them, and reasonably speaking, an hour is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to this sort of thing.
But right now, from this side of the fence, it feels like a million years have already passed me by.
Ares comes walking into the room, but I hear him before I see him.
He’s on the phone speaking rapid Fenya. “… All right. Keep me posted.” He hangs up as he stops in front of the couch.
“The county lines are all covered. If they even think of heading anywhere near any of them, we’ll be alerted within minutes. ”
“Good,” I say. “The house is secure as well.”
Ares nods. His brow furrows as he looks me over. He’s got a question on his mind.
“What?” I say wearily. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he says, backing off. “I’d better do another walk around the perimeter.”
“Just say it. I don’t have the bandwidth to try and interpret what you’re thinking right now.” I think I already know what’s floating around in his head. If our positions were reversed, it’d be what was on my mind.
He sighs. “It’s not exactly the right time. And I doubt that you want to hear what I have to say.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He hesitates, then with a sigh, he goes, “Do you really want us to rescue Ember as well? After what she’s done? It would be nothing to leave her to Sergei.”
I can’t explain the emotion that comes over me. Anger? Righteousness, perhaps? I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m insulted at his query. He’s totally right to ask, after all.
When I don’t respond, he says, “Sorry, Brother. But I had to ask—”
“No, no. It’s fine. After all, it’s not unreasonable to ask what to do if you do find Ember.”
“Might be a good idea to know ahead of time, yes.”
I think about those last moments we were together.
I’d told her that I loved her. I hadn’t even done it to appease her.
It was what I felt. What I have been feeling.
And ultimately, it was the reason I wanted her to leave instead of having to dole out the punishment that I would normally give a krysa.
Maybe it was more than that. I’m no fool. Whether she was the mole or not, she could still go right back to the Feds and sell me out. She could do it out of pain or spite or just for the common fucking good. That’s why we don’t let them live. That’s why snitches always pay for running their mouths.
I let her go because I knew that I didn’t have it in me to kill her. I could never give that order. I’m as wrapped up in her as she was in me.
I also can’t stand the thought of someone else killing her.
“Just bring them back here,” is all I tell Ares. “Alive and unharmed. I’ll decide what to do with her then. Is that clear?”
“Crystal.”
My phone buzzes. I pull it out of my pocket and freeze. Unknown number.
“What is it?” Ares asks. I glance at him, then I answer the call.
“Hello?”
“Well. Hello, Roman. It’s been a long time.”
I don’t need anything at all to tell me who it is. Smug bastard.
“Sergei, I presume,” I say glancing at Ares. “We were just discussing you.”
“I knew my ears were burning. All good things, I hope.”
“No such luck. I was just discussing with my enforcer what parts of your body I wanted chopped off and fed to a pack of angry pigs.”
“Ooh, violent. I don’t know how wise it is for you to upset me given I’ve got a gun to your pretty little girl’s head.”
My stomach drops. I don’t even want to picture a gun to Sasha’s head. “If you hurt either of them, I will kill you.”
He scoffs. “Oh, don’t get so bent out of shape. They’re fine. For now, anyway.”
“What do you want?”
“You. Alone and unarmed. We can meet after dark and settle all this once and for all. Let’s say around your warehouse. We can settle our unfinished business there as well. Are you game?”
I’m grinding my teeth. Walking into his trap unarmed and alone is the last thing I want to do. But, by God, if he hurts them…
“You got it,” I tell him.
“Don’t be late.”
He hangs up and Ares immediately says, “What’s going on?”
“He wants to meet at the warehouse,” I tell him. “Alone and unarmed.”
“There is no way in hell that’s happening.”
“Oh, I’m going,” I tell him. “But not without a plan.”