His Ruthless Vow (London Bratva #3)

Chapter 1

Laszlo

This isn’t punishment.

It’s business.

Practical. Honest.

The concrete sweats in the cold, and the bastard tied to the chair is shivering hard enough to make the metal legs scrape across the floor in tiny, irritating jerks.

His mouth is split. One eye is swollen shut.

He’s already had a difficult evening, and I haven’t even started asking the interesting questions.

Lev, one of the Voronov cousins, stands to my left, arms folded over his chest, expression flat as a grave marker. He’s good cop.

Which says a lot about me and my role.

The man in the chair makes a wet, desperate sound. “I swear to God, I gave you the name—”

I crouch in front of him and smile. That usually makes it worse. “If you swear to God in this house, you’d better be telling the truth. He doesn’t like competition.”

He blinks at me through panic and blood. I study him for a beat, dragging out the silence until it frays his nerves even more.

I shrug out of my coat, hand it to one of the men by the door, and start rolling up the sleeves of my black shirt. “If you have told me everything, then why do I still feel unsatisfied?”

“Because he’s lying,” Lev says, saving me the trouble of stating the obvious. I’ve always liked that about him.

The man lets out a ragged breath that catches halfway and turns into a cough. “No. No, I’m not. I told you about Goran, I told you about the shipment, I told you—”

I rise and drive my fist into his stomach.

He folds as much as the ropes allow, gagging, boots scraping, chair shrieking over the concrete. I wait for the noise to die. Then I grip his jaw and force his head up until his good eye meets mine.

“Here’s what’s bothering me,” I say mildly.

“You’re a third-rate broker with a gambling habit and a mistress in Hampstead who likes expensive shoes.

Men like you don’t suddenly grow principles.

So, when Goran’s route got burned, and three of our men ended up in black bags, I asked myself a very simple question.

” I tilt my head. “Who paid you enough to become brave?”

His eye widens.

Fear has texture. That twitch. Tiny. Involuntary. But I catch it.

I smile wider.

“See?” I murmur, glancing at Lev. “That’s the face of a man remembering who I can visit next.”

His breathing goes thin and fast. Men crack in different places. Some at the thought of someone else paying for their mistakes.

I straighten and pace once around the chair, slow and unhurried, as if we’re discussing wine instead of treachery.

“Let’s try this another way,” I say. “You’re not smart enough to invent this betrayal yourself.

That’s not an insult, by the way. Most people aren’t.

Treachery on this scale requires organisation, money, timing.

Which means somebody used you. And now you’re faced with a deeply unfortunate decision. ”

He shakes his head violently. “I said everything.”

I stop behind him and rest my hand on the back of his chair.

“It isn’t whether you talked,” I say. “It’s when.”

His whole body goes rigid.

Lev shifts his weight with a slow smile. “That got your attention.”

I tap two fingers against the metal and watch the tremor start up again. “If you sold Pakhan Voronov out before the shipment moved, you’re dead. If you sold us out after it went wrong, you’re still dead, but I’ll at least respect the instinct for self-preservation.”

“Please.” His voice cracks open on the word. “Please.”

I come round to face him again. Blood glistens at the corner of his mouth. He’s sweating now despite the cold. Pain tells me one thing. Panic tells me the rest.

“Name.”

“I can’t.”

I hit him again. Not wild. Precise. His head jerks to the side. The chair screams across the floor.

Lev catches it with a boot. “Idiot. He’s offering you a quick death, and you’re acting like you’ve got options.”

I give him a second to feel it. Mercy is useful. I let the silence sit between us until it turns ugly.

He’s crying now. Not loudly. Just water leaking from the one eye that still works, mixing with blood and spit. It annoys me more than the begging.

“Who?” I ask.

His lips tremble. “If I tell you, they will kill my sister.”

I bark a laugh. “And if you don’t, I do.” I flick his forehead. “Why do you arseholes never get this?”

That lands. Hard. He knows I mean it. Men always know when I mean it.

Lev steps closer and crouches beside him. “Give us the name,” he says. “We save your sister.”

I roll my eyes. That’s why he is good cop. He knows the right way to say things.

The broker looks from him to me, trying to decide which one of us is lying. His chest heaves.

“Viktor,” he whispers.

I stare at him. “You’re going to have to narrow it down.”

He swallows and shuts his eye as if that might protect him. “Viktor Rusanov.”

For one second, the room goes very still.

Lev rises slowly. “Fuck.”

Yeah. Fuck about covers it.

I straighten, wipe my knuckles on the bastard’s shirt, and take a step back. Rusanov. Not some desperate little street rat trying to skim off the top. A proper name. Old blood. Old money. Men who know how to bury a knife and smile through dinner afterwards.

I look at Lev. “Say it.”

He does not hesitate. “If he’s telling the truth, this just got ugly.”

“It was already ugly.” I flex my hand once. My knuckles ache. “Now it’s political.”

The broker starts sobbing harder, as if speaking the name has cut the final rope holding him together. Pathetic. But useful. Men say the most when they think they’ve already signed their own death warrant.

Gripping the Glock at my back, I pull it out, level it and fire. The bullet hits him between the eyes. The sound echoes through the basement and leaves a high, clean ring in my ears.

What is left of his head slumps back against the chair. Blood sprays the concrete behind him in a dark fan, then starts its slow run downward. His body twitches once. Then nothing.

I lower the gun and breathe out through my nose.

Lev looks at the corpse, then at me. “Bit abrupt.”

“He’d outlived his usefulness.”

“You could have let me finish pretending we were saving his sister.”

“You can still save her if you want to feel holy.”

One of the men by the door gives a short laugh, then stops when I look at him.

I shove the gun back in the holster. “Get this cleaned up.”

The two soldiers move at once.

Lev waits until they start untying the body. “You think he was telling the truth?”

“I think he believed he was dead the second he said the name.” I shrug into my coat when it is handed back to me. “That usually helps honesty.”

“Rusanov making a move in our territory is bold,” Lev states.

“Either he’s bored, or somebody thinks we are.”

Lev snorts and scrubs a hand over his mouth, eyes on the dead broker as the men haul him out of the chair. “Baron won’t like this.”

“Uncle Baz doesn’t like most things.”

“He especially doesn’t like being tested.”

“No.” I head for the stairs. “He really fucking doesn’t.”

Lev falls into step beside me. The air changes as we leave the basement. Less blood. More polish, cigar smoke, old money, old violence dressed up in good furniture. The club above us is thumping out the bass, tempting me to go in and down half a bottle of vodka.

But duty calls.

I cut through the private corridor at the back of the club, past framed mirrors and gilt panelling that have seen more threats than compliments.

Men step aside when they see me coming. They know better than to ask questions when I’ve still got blood drying across my knuckles.

Shoving the side door open, I step out into the warm London night and cut across the car park at the rear to my Lamborghini.

Baron hates it. Calls it a mini midlife crisis. I keep it because it pisses him off.

Unlocking it, I fold my six-two frame into the seat and fire up the engine. It roars to life like the fucking beast it is, and it makes me smile.

I pull out into the alley and hit the road fast enough to annoy every cunt who gets in my way. The city slides by in streaks of light and black tarmac. Midnight London. Pretty from a distance. Rot underneath.

The drive from Fulham to my house in Mayfair takes minutes at this time of night, in this car, taking the bends like it’s glued to the road.

The gates open as I pull up to the multi-million-pound townhouse and roar to a stop in the drive. I kill the engine and sit for a second, listening to the tick of hot metal and my own temper settling into something colder.

The front door opens before I reach it.

Leonid stands inside in a dark suit, hands clasped in front of him, face carved into its usual expression of patient disapproval.

He has worked for my family since before I was old enough to lie properly.

He used to hand me sweets when my mother wasn’t looking.

Now he mostly hands me information and the occasional warning.

“You’re late,” he says.

I pass him my keys. “You sound like my wife.”

His mouth tightens. That is close enough to amusement for him. “Your uncle is in the study.”

“Figured,” I mutter. Baron is nothing if not impatient behind a facade of patience that could make a grown man squeal his secrets. Ex-FSB, he’s old-school and an extremely badass motherfucker. I’m lucky he thinks of me as a son. He indulges my whims but still treats me with respect.

Strolling into my study, I see him standing by the window, staring out onto the garden where a fountain bubbles under a spotlight. “Well?”

“We got the name,” I say, stripping off my coat and throwing it onto a chair in the corner of the room. Baron turns from the glass with the kind of stillness that makes other men start confessing to things nobody asked about.

“Who?”

“Viktor Rusanov.”

His expression does not change. That is how I know it matters.

For a moment, the only sound in the room is the ticking of the clock on the mantle. Then he moves to the desk, pours out two vodkas.

He picks one up and takes a sip. “That is a serious accusation.”

“I know.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I believe the broker thought speaking the name signed his death warrant.”

Baron takes a measured drink. “And now?”

“Now he’s dead.”

His eyes lift to mine. Pale. Hard. Unimpressed.

“He was done.”

“He might still have had use.”

I smile without humour. “If you wanted him alive, you should have come down to the basement yourself.”

That earns me a long look. Not anger. Assessment. He has spent my entire life deciding exactly how much insolence to tolerate from me. The answer, apparently, is always a bit more than he should.

“Quite. So, we are at war.”

“I think that’s a bit extreme, wouldn’t you say?” I ask carefully, picking up the second glass.

“Is that what you think?”

“I think it needs dealing with, obviously. All-out bloodshed on the streets of North London is overkill.”

“So how would you fix this?”

I freeze. That is a trick question. No answer I give will be correct. I throw back the shot of vodka and slam the glass down. “I’m not the heir. Ask Roman.”

He snorts before he tries to cover it up with a cough.

I smile. I saw it, and he knows it. Will I mention it ever? Will I fuck. I like my head attached to my neck.

“Leave it with me,” he says. “If you think there is a better way, then I will find it, and we will reconvene shortly.” He places his glass down and strides out with that stiff gait that calls him out to those who know.

If you think there is a better way, then I will find it.

This is going to come back and bite me on the arse, I just know it.