Chapter 21 #2
“To send message to you all! To make it look like Russian internal thing or maybe it is one—I do not know. I swear. The request came that way,” Viktor explained.
“Who made the request?”
“A woman handled the first contact. Later, a man took over.”
That made me pause for a minute. A woman.
It could be misdirection, someone intent on making me look at her ex’s family, at the woman who led their criminal enterprise, when it wasn’t that.
It could be some Russian pussy using a woman to hide himself.
Whatever it was, I knew to be on my shit.
Women in our world weren’t harmless just because they sounded soft.
“What woman?”
“I do not know her name. The first call, she used a scrambler. The second time, she spoke with her real voice.” He winced, eyes squeezing shut like he was trying to remember. “She sounded educated. Southern.”
Interesting.
“What did she want?”
His eyes opened. Fear rolled off him so heavy I could feel the shit.
“She wanted to create conflict within the family. Between you and the woman. Between you and the pakhan. The house first, but not to kill. To make you feel…” He trailed off.
I put my hand around his throat. “Feel what?”
“Unprotected,” he croaked. “Distracted. Weak.”
The room was suddenly even quieter.
“And the road? Explain.”
Viktor’s eyes shifted to Maxim, like maybe he thought my brother would save him. Yeah, the fear had to be getting to him if he felt that.
“I do not know. I was not told. If I had to guess… I think your woman was just first target. They see the women as your vulnerability. A way to strike at the heart. The house job was meant to make you feel like your woman could be touched whenever they wanted. Like all this power around you still could not keep her safe. That maybe this power did not value you, the younger son, enough to keep you safe. After that, the same woman came back. She said the house job failed to give what she wanted. The road job—it was meant for after the reception yesterday, but something was off. I do not know how today was chosen, but I know they wanted you questioning everything around you, your ability to protect her. Your family’s ability and willingness to protect you. ”
I wanted to kill him right there. Instead, I released his throat and stepped back.
My hand rubbed the back of my neck. For one second, all I could see was Theory bent low in the seat, glaring up at me and still grabbing my thigh when she was scared, still reaching for me.
Still trusting me. Someone wanted to ruin that trust, that sense she had that I could keep her safe.
I turned back around so fast Viktor flinched before I touched him.
“Capture or kill?” I asked.
His lips trembled. “The instruction was… if they could get her out without losing men, take her. If not, hurt you bad enough that you would wish they had.”
Maxim’s gaze grew cold.
“Take her where?” he asked.
Viktor shook his head frantically. “I do not know. I swear I do not know. I only arrange first layer. Vehicles. Men. Burners. I only know what I know because sometimes the men talk. And because anger loosens the lips, and these people—they are angry.”
“What—” I began.
“Oh-oh-oh!” His face brightened, like he had something that might save him. “There was supposed to be a second pickup point if they succeeded in taking her.”
“Where?” I demanded.
He gave us an address and description outside Houston, some abandoned service station off a frontage road. Lev wrote it down without comment.
I stood there, my mind reeling. It was just like she said. My work, my title, my family had put her in danger. They wanted to show me that I could be touched through her.
They were right.
I looked over at my brother. If you didn’t know him, you might miss the signs of his rage, the fingers drumming slowly against his leg, the muscle ticking just a little bit in his jaw.
I was focused on Theory. He was focused on the fact that someone was trying to shake my belief in my importance to and role in this family.
My brother had never been a hater, never been jealous, and I was the same.
We argued, yeah. But the blood tie was solid.
The fact that someone tried to shake it…
Nah.
My smile came slow enough to make Viktor gulp.
“Who kept calling me ‘the younger son’?” I asked softly.
His eyes widened. “The man.”
“What man?”
“I never saw him.”
I looked at Maxim. He looked back. We were thinking the same thing. This was someone who had studied us carefully, who hoped they were on to something. It didn’t feel like family, but it didn’t feel random, either.
I stepped forward again and Viktor started shaking harder.
“Please,” he whispered.
I ignored that for now. “You met with the woman in person?”
He hesitated. That was enough for us. My brother threw the knife before anyone else in the room was ready. I caught it by the handle, ripping it out of the air. Viktor screamed as I buried it in the desk right beside his hand.
“Did. You. Meet. Her?”
“Yes!” he sobbed. “Once. Just once.”
“Where?”
He gave me a restaurant in the Galleria area.
They met in a private room. He said she wore dark glasses, a wig, and gloves like she was in some ridiculous movie.
She was a Black woman who could’ve been any age from her thirties to her fifties.
This was not the time for that damn “Black don’t crack” shit.
His description told us nothing… and something all at once.
“Did she give a name?”
He swallowed. “No. I swear, Mr. Sidorov.”
I wasn’t sure what to think; it could be a dozen directions still. But we had enough to move. I bent down until Viktor had to meet my eyes again.
“If any part of what you told us is a lie, I’ma come back and take this place apart around you. Then I’ma find whatever family you got and make them watch me work.”
He nodded hard as hell, tears and blood everywhere. This nigga was pitiful.
I straightened and finally looked at Maxim. “Alive. Against my better judgment,” I said grudgingly.
Maxim’s eyes narrowed. “Targen—”
I meant to walk away. I really did.
Then I saw that little streak of blood near Theory’s hairline again.
The rage came back so fast I didn’t even think. I turned, grabbed the knife, and planted it in Viktor’s eye. He didn’t have time to react—not voluntarily. The sound that came out of him sounded like something dying slowly.
Maxim shook his head. I shrugged.
“You didn’t say how long ‘alive’ had to last. If you’ll excuse me, unlike you sad bastards, I got a wife to slide up on.”
And then I walked out.