Chapter 3
three
Blyad.
I comb my fingers through my hair, an exasperated puff of air leaving my lips as I pace back and forth in the bunker’s comms room. It’s late. Almost midnight, but sleep isn’t something I bother with lately.
There’s a lot to be done, and seeing Libby’s sweet face with a bullet between her eyes whenever mine close doesn’t shake the insomnia.
It’s been two weeks already. Two weeks since Matthias and Ava’s shamble of a wedding, and I’m nowhere near getting my boss out of jail or finding out where the hell his wife is.
After Matthias’s arrest at the venue, I rushed back to the penthouse, expecting to see the fiery redhead waiting. Crying. Rampaging. Anything—but she was gone.
The penthouse empty.
A few hours later, we found her assigned SUV in a ditch with a dead driver behind the wheel. A driver who wasn’t one of ours. It had been a setup. The SUV was banged all to hell. Windows broken, blood sprayed across the back seat, caved-in doors. It looked like it had been in an accident.
Only, there was no sign of one.
The ground wasn’t disturbed. No debris. The only thing left behind was a set of nearly washed-out tire treads.
The vehicle had been planted. But why?
And that was only the start of my problems.
If that shit storm wasn’t bad enough, video evidence of Matthias killing Elias in cold blood surfaced from an anonymous source. It was impossible. The paperwork Ben was given during discovery listed the coroner’s estimated time of death for Elias while we were all at the compound.
Not that it matters.
The fucking douche of an FBI agent didn’t care that we had video evidence of Matthias sitting in on one of Ava’s classes, as well as more than a dozen eyewitnesses. He claimed we could have doctored the time stamp and paid off the witnesses.
Slimy fucker. We know the only doctored footage was the one he gave the judge.
He’s a filthy fucking liar and doesn’t seem to care that I know.
If there’s one thing I hate most, it’s dirty, cheating asshole feds.
The entire situation is still un-fucking-believable.
Plus, I’m pretty sure Matthias has gone off the fucking deep end, so to speak. He’s starting to lose it. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, as the Americans say. There’s no way in hell I’m going to follow his orders. Not this time.
Keep telling yourself that.
I have an ample amount of respect for Matthias.
The man is not only my leader, but a brother to me.
I left Boston to follow him to Seattle as his Sovietnik, his second in command, almost five years ago, giving up my claim to the Ivankov Bratva throne in the process.
Matthias never asked me to do it. He never had to.
I’m proud to stand alongside him.
The six of us—Matthias, Nikolai, Maksim, Leon, Dima, and I—are a brotherhood. Soldiers who’ve been to war together, who’ve been through hell. We’ve always had each other’s backs.
We always will.
I’ve always known that I was never meant to lead. My father tried his best to form me into someone worthy of holding his title, but I knew it’s never going to be me.
It can’t be.
There was no uncertainty when I give up my title. No regrets when my father removed me from succession to give the title to my younger brother, Pavel. While I was busy screwing, fighting, and drinking my way through Moscow after my eldest brother’s death, he studied. Listened. Learned.
He deserved to one day hold the title of Pakhan. It just isn’t who I am. Or who I ever want to be, and now that I’ve been thrust into that unwanted position, I know I never will be.
This shit is stressful.
With Matthias behind bars at the small federal detention center, it’s my job as his Sovietnik to step into his shoes as temporary Pakhan to ensure everything continues to run smoothly.
I don’t like it one fucking bit.
Especially after his latest set of orders.
I may be the Pakhan, but it’s in name only. Matthias’s orders are still meant to be followed. Even if I don’t agree with them.
“Is everything secure?” Matthias asks from where he’s sitting, his large frame barely contained by the small metal chair they gave him. His scarred, tattooed hands sit folded congenially on top of the scratched metal surface of the table, wrists cuffed to a large ring welded to the top.
Fuck.
Even chained, he’s a threat. The FBI aren’t idiots, but if they honestly think some handcuffs and a secured room will contain a man like Matthias Dashkov, they’re na?ve and living in a world of fairy tales.
The only thing keeping me from busting his ass out of the dismal room is his orders.
He’s needed here. It’s the only way we can get access to the building to flush out where the false video came from.
“Secure as it can be.” I sigh. It’s our code phrase. Well, code phrase is stretching it a bit.
I pace the small room, sweat beading on my forehead as I wait the extra few minutes for our comms specialist to work his magic. Confinement and I aren’t known to get along, and although I know, realistically, I’m not a prisoner, my body isn’t getting the message.
Pussy.
Two long beeps sound in my ear, one tone after another.
Perfect.
Rolling my shoulders to ease the tension that’s settled there, I lift my eyes to the camera in the corner before waving my middle finger back and forth at it like a twat.
Nothing.
Good. The loop is set.
“Subtle,” Matthias snickers. Turning back to him, I catch the corner of his lip turning up just a fraction at my antics. All I do is shrug.
“Okay, now that I know we’re not being monitored,” I sit down across from him, my face souring a bit, “we have a few problems.”
Matthias lifts a brow. “You think?”
I chuckle at his attempt at humor. To the world around him, Matthias is a cold, unfeeling leader of one of the States’ most powerful Bratvas. To those who know him, there’s a small slice of dry humor he lets show every now and again. A very, very small slice.
That’s dry.
Very dry.
“The FBI is refusing to state where they got the anonymous video, and Judge Hardtford let it stand.” Again, they aren’t idiots. They know what we’d do with that information. It doesn’t help that they have the one judge who isn’t in our pocket playing on their side of the field.
“We already know who it is,” Matthias hisses. His eyes darken as he leans forward on his elbows. The table shifts under his weight. “You saw the footage yourself. She was with him. Handed the fucking thing over herself.”
Khristos. He can be a fucking idiot sometimes. And bullheaded.
Running a hand down my face, I struggle to count to ten before speaking. “You saw what he wanted you to see,” I try to point out. “How would Ava know how to manipulate footage? Where did she get the SD card? We don’t know the full circumstances. Now, I’ve been compiling some resources—”
“Stop.” It’s a command. His tone harsh and unrelenting as he bangs his fist down on the table. “Stop looking. Stop compiling. For all we know, she’s part of this and has been the entire time.”
“I don’t think…”
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Matthias snarls. “What matters is that I am giving you an order. I don’t want any of our men wasted on finding her. She betrayed me. She betrayed the Bratva. Simple as that.”
He’s dead set on this. The man really believes Ava has betrayed him.
I know better. There’s nothing in it for her.
Sure, she gave the FBI douchebag an SD card, but she didn’t look happy about it.
Then there are the obvious questions glaring at us like a neon sign that Matthias refuses to think about.
Who the fuck gave her the SD card?
How did she know the FBI agent?
“Matthias…”
“The fucking agent knew his name, Vas,” Matthias growls, but it sounds more resigned than before. “He knew…he said my brother’s name. The fucker whispered it in my ear as he led me away.”
“How would he know…”
“Ava,” Matthias snarls. “There are only four people who know about him. You, your father, me, and Ava.” Sighing, he leans back in his chair, looking exhausted. “I confessed it to her one night. She’d been having a nightmare…”
“It doesn’t mean she betrayed you, brat,” I try to argue. “He could have–”
“Enough. Vasily,” Matthias presses the button on the table to signal the guard. “This conversation is over.”
“What’s the story?”
Lost in my own head, I don’t hear the door until it shuts behind them. Careless. Too careless.
Shit. I’m losing my touch.
My four comrades spill into the room, skirting around the massive, curved table that faces the wall of monitors. No one goes near it. Not without him. Not without our fearless leader.
And there’s no fucking way I’m sitting in his chair.
We built this compound years before we set foot in Seattle. Every inch of it carved with military precision, every hallway designed with intent. That’s how we pulled off a nearly bloodless coup of the underground.
No one saw us coming.
To the outside world, this place is just a boarding school for orphans. Polished halls, uniforms, smiling brochures stamped with the logo of a charity called Funding for a Better Future. A neat little front tied to the Dashkov Corporation.
But no one on the outside knows the truth. No one ever will.
The kids here aren’t just orphans. Most are children of Bratva men and women, raised inside our walls, where they can be safe while learning lessons no public school could ever give them.
They learn to survive.
To strategize.
To be loyal.
By the time they graduate, every single one of them walks out with more than half a million to their name. Some go play at college before circling back to join us. Those are usually the ones with living parents still serving the Bratva. The rest—mostly orphans—come straight into the ranks.
Not a single one has ever walked away.
“Where to begin,” I mutter lowly as I pour myself a whiskey neat.