Chapter 21
I shouldn’t have left her at that bar. Not even with Juvie and Mikhail and Real there.
Not even with all them women around her, glaring at me, ready to give her love and advice, while their husbands sat close by, watching the room like hawks.
Theory had told me to go, told me she needed space, time to think, and I had given it to her.
Hell, I was a husband who wanted to stay married, so I had to know when to back the fuck up, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
It damn sure didn’t mean I wasn’t still thinking about the little bit of blood near her hairline and the way her body shook when she let me hold her on the side of that road.
By the time I got her back to the compound, I was damn near desperate to talk more, even though she was quiet.
That quiet worried me. I had to give her some kind of peace offering, so I showed her the office I’d designed for her.
My milaya liked it, even though she was too stubborn and mad to say it.
She’d told me she was going out with family.
As badly as I wanted to go, I had shit to handle.
The longer I sat thinking about what happened, the more enraged I got.
By the time I searched out my brother, I was furious, and my fury was quiet, but deadly.
Maxim took one look at me and knew.
He was waiting in his study when I walked in, sprawled in an oversized leather chair like the king he thought he was.
He looked calm, a drink in one hand and a file open on the table beside him.
Kael Walker, our crazy ass associate, stood near the windows, hands clasped behind his back, his face as blank as ever.
Lev was at the door, looking like an armored truck.
I barely glanced at any of them. I looked at the file, then at my brother.
“Where?” I asked.
Maxim’s silvery eyes lifted to mine. “No greeting, brat? Dr. Joia would be appalled.”
I stared at him, eyes narrowing. “Don’t fuck with me right now, Maxim,” I warned.
“Oh, but it is so much fun.” He took a slow sip, then set the glass down. “But I have arranged something productive for you.”
See, that was one of the things about my brother. The nigga was annoying ninety-eight percent of the time, but he was useful one hundred percent of it. Maxim didn’t waste my time trying to calm me down. He just pointed me where I needed to go.
He handed the file to me. The first thing I saw was a grainy photo of a little nondescript warehouse.
The next pic was of a balding man with a puffy face and beady eyes.
A third picture showed a black SUV being unloaded off a transport truck two days earlier.
It was the same make and model as one of the vehicles from the road.
“The man’s name is Viktor Semyonov,” Maxim said. “He is a middleman who arranges for things. Vehicles. Weapons. People sometimes, especially men to do jobs and women to do men. He operates in Houston, Galveston, parts of Louisiana. He is very careful not to be loyal to anyone.”
“So, he’ll talk,” I said.
Maxim’s mouth curved. “Eventually, with your amazing power of persuasion.”
I looked back down at the photo. Viktor looked like the kind of man I would enjoy hurting, the type of nigga who was dirty as fuck but liked to pretend his hands were clean.
“Same people for her house and the road?” I asked.
“Likely.” Maxim leaned back. “The men at the road were better than the break-in crew, but the vehicles, some of the comms equipment, and a few other things connect back to Semyonov.”
I thought about my baby’s house, the turned over furniture, the broken things. Somebody trashed her space like it meant nothing… like she meant nothing. I felt myself tense as a fresh wave of anger spread through me.
“So, Viktor knows who hired them?”
Maxim shrugged. “He knows something.”
I nodded. “That’s enough.”
I turned to leave, but Maxim’s voice stopped me.
“Targen.”
I looked back.
The deceptively relaxed pose was gone. In its place was a man who was more serious.
“Do not kill him immediately.”
I stared at him.
“He may have more value alive than dead, at least for an hour,” he coaxed.
My shoulder lifted. “Depends on how he answers.”
My brother sighed like I was the difficult one. “I am serious.”
“So am I.”
For a moment we just looked at each other. Two brothers. Two sons of the same dangerous man. Two niggas with the same gray eyes and different ideas about how this shit should go. Finally, Maxim gave one little shrug.
“Try,” he said.
I’d try, since he asked nicely.
That was the best he was getting.
We found Viktor in that warehouse. It looked empty from the outside but was tricked the fuck out on the inside.
There were lots of soundproofed rooms and a too-clean office in the back.
We saw security feeds on three big ass monitors.
He even had a weapons locker tucked behind a false wall.
This nigga sold access to a lot of shit.
Grigor, Timur, and Kael had gone in first to clear the outer space.
Kael just happened to be meeting with Maxim when shit unfolded.
Nigga would never turn down a chance to be involved in a little murder and mayhem.
Two guards lay zip-tied and bleeding near the loading bay.
Another had made some mistake. He was on the floor, the life strangled out of him.
I shook my head. Kael and that damn garrote.
I was the last one to step into the office.
Viktor looked up from where he sat handcuffed to his own chair, his face already swollen from however Grigor had introduced himself.
His gaze hit Maxim, then me behind Maxim.
His face changed then as the realization set in that he was probably about to die.
“Gentlemen,” he said, trying to sound calm.
I closed the office door behind me before walking over to him.
“You know who I am?” I asked.
He licked his lips. “Mr. Sidorov.”
That could’ve meant my brother or me, but his eyes stayed on me.
Good. Let him know exactly whose attention he had.
I took off my jacket and folded it over the back of a nearby chair.
I stared at Viktor as I rolled my sleeves once, then twice, all nice and neat.
My mama raised me right, even if my life had taken some ugly turns.
Viktor watched all that closely. “That is a bad sign?” he asked, trying to joke.
I smiled. “It is for you.”
I moved before he could brace himself and hit him hard enough across the mouth to snap his head sideways.
Blood sprayed across his desk. He cried out, chair scraping as he tried to move away from me.
I leaned down until Viktor had to look at me through tear-filled eyes.
“You provided men and vehicles used for a break-in at my wife’s house and an ambush on the road today. Start talking before I lose patience.”
“I don’t know what—”
I hit him again. This time a tooth came loose. Hell, maybe more than one. He whimpered and tried to spit blood. I wanted him to choke on it.
“I don’t like repeating myself,” I said.
Viktor coughed, his breathing panicked. “Mr. Sidorov, please. I am a broker for a lot of things—”
I grabbed his jaw. Hard. My thumb pressed into his cheek, into those now fucked up teeth.
He whined a little. I would forever hate a bitch ass nigga, especially a lying one.
Men like Viktor pretended to play the background, pretended not to know the big picture, just the small part they played.
But it wasn’t true. He wouldn’t have lasted this long if he weren’t smart enough to know exactly what he inserted himself into.
Someone had paid him enough to plot against my family.
He would not have taken the risk without knowing the plan.
“Let’s make it easy. Same source hit the house and the road?” I asked.
His eyes dropped. “I—I just arranged logistics.”
I smiled. The eyes, the stammer. He was lying. There we go.
“What logistics?”
“Vehicles, comms equipment, a temporary location. A few men.”
“A few?”
He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “I do not hire them all directly. I subcontract. It protects everybody.”
I drove my fist into his ribs a couple of times, stopping when I heard something crack. He screamed.
“Now, look at you. Unprotected.”
Maxim finally moved, just enough to walk around behind me and glance at the monitor feed, like none of this concerned him much. That was his way—nonchalant. At least, that’s how he seemed, until it was too late to realize how dangerous he was.
“Who wanted my wife’s house hit?” I asked.
Viktor shook his head too fast. “I do not know. There are questions I do not ask, Mr. Sidorov. Surely, you understand.”
Another lie. I could hear it. That’s one thing pain does for people. It makes their guards drop, keeps them from being as careful as they’d like.
I looked over my shoulder. “Lev.”
He stepped forward, calm as fuck. He laid a burner phone and a printed screenshot on the desk.
The printout was of a message thread. There were payment confirmations and a time- and date-stamped note requesting three black vehicles with clean plates and “men who move discreetly and understand Russian.”
Viktor went pale.
I smiled at that. “Look at that, Viktor. You keep lying and evidence keeps showing up.”
He started breathing harder, panic finally overwhelming him. That was good.
“Why Russian-speaking men?” I asked, lifting a heavy paperweight from his desk and studying it.
“I don’t know,” he lied.
I slammed his hand flat on the desk and brought the paperweight down on it full force. I swear, he shrieked loud enough to echo.
Maxim sighed behind me. “So subtle, brat.”
“You ain’t say subtle. You said alive. He’s alive,” I retorted without looking back.
Viktor was sobbing now. I let him. Tears didn’t bother me. Sometimes they helped.
“Why Russian-speaking men?” I repeated.