Ruined By Sin (Empire of Blood & Heirs #4)

1. Timur

TIMUR

Morin's been sitting across from me for the better part of an hour now with his tablet open on the table between us.

Kazimir's beside him, slouched back with one ankle crossed over his knee, tapping a pen against the arm of his chair.

It would irritate me if I hadn't spent years learning to tune it out.

We do this weekly, and I've gotten used to it.

But tonight, he seems more fidgety than normal.

Yegor stands by the door watching over us like usual, though he's taking a stronger role in the family with Stepan out of town for a while. I offered him a seat, but he refuses to sit.

"Kaz... Tell me the numbers. Ro will want to know." I flick a glance at my nephew who runs a hand over his face and leans forward in his chair.

"Attendance and betting are up, but we need fresh talent soon, Tim.

If we don't get some new faces, we'll lose interest." Kazimir's fingers drum on the table as he glances around the room. We all know he messed up bad when he let the American fighter we brought in for our invitational get hurt. We just didn’t realize that twelve months out, we'd still be struggling to get men to trust our security.

"How soon?" I ask him, jotting down some notes. Our cousin Stepan is recruiting new fighters now, so it won't be long before we have fresh blood if he does his job well. He hasn't let us down yet, though his means are often unconventional.

"Two or three months before it starts showing in the betting."

Things have gotten increasingly challenging over the past year or so, taking on new alliances, fighting off old enemies.

Roman is so busy with his work growing the alliance and the Radin organization, most of this is left to me to deal with.

Half the time, I don't even bother telling him what's going on.

It'd only stress him out more when he needs to focus on what he's doing.

But he expects a report weekly and so we sit here hashing out details.

"I'll talk to Stepan," I say. "See if he can push up the timeline."

Kazimir cracks his knuckles and shoves his hands back into his pockets. "Sooner the better."

I'm so tired. I've been working round the clock too many consecutive days for too long.

I know it's making me slip up at times and miss details.

It's why I've elevated my good friend, and right-hand man, Morin, to help us out.

There's only so much a human can do before they collapse. I'm not a robot.

"Morin," I say. "Tell me what's going on...

" He's had his eye on some shady shit going on with one of our competitors, something I’d have been acutely tuned into if I had the time.

But running tech for the sheer amount of manpower it takes to keep this organization and its allies functioning has me tapped out.

He taps the tablet as he offers a deadpan expression then lifts one eyebrow. It's about as expressive as he can get, which doesn't give me a good feeling about what he's likely to say. I've known this man for twenty-one years—long enough to be able to read him like a book.

"We've got a problem with the Mirovs," he says, and his head wobbles to the side, looking up at Yegor before his eyes land on my face again.

Kazimir scoffs and cracks a joke I can't quite pick up, but it's aimed at keeping the mood light.

When bad news wafts into this space, it makes everyone tense.

The past two years of our lives have challenged us to the core.

We've had more issues and scuffles than any of us want to admit, and after so long of having a peaceful, easygoing life.

"What sort of trouble?" I ask, polishing a tooth with my tongue.

I'm not surprised to hear things are heating up.

The Mirovs have pushed us since the day Roman took over.

They never believed he would lead this family well, though he's proven time and again that he can and does.

But so long as you have power, you have enemies. It's the nature of the beast.

"They've been reaching into our bettor base," Morin continues.

He flicks through a screen or two on his tablet and then slides it across the table at me.

"And they've gotten bold about it... Three of our top-tier bettors got direct outreach.

Two of them have already moved partial action to Mirov-affiliated books. "

I pull the tablet closer and scan the names, grumbling as I recognize the few names.

Federov isn't a surprise, after the shocking failure on Kaz's part letting the man take such a bad financial hit on bad intel.

But the others, Powolsky and Deblune, are news.

I never suspected these men would turn. They attend every fight night at our club with honor.

Either they're ready to expand, or the lack of fresh talent Kaz spoke about is eating away at their interest.

I shove the tablet back and scowl, annoyed that this is even a thing. We lost so much time fielding new fighters when Stepan had to deal with the Belova alliance, but I never thought it would cause something like this.

"I get why they'd come after our fighters or our properties. But why the bettors?" Yegor is learning so much about the logistics of everything. He's always just been the muscle, but now he's really ranking up. And he's useful, because that's an excellent question.

"Well, Yegor, the most honest reason is that if they can pull the big names away, the little names follow. No one will have confidence in our club if they see men like Federov and Deblune pull out." I rub a hand over my face.

"Yeah," Morin chimes in, "and less money in the pot for everyone..." He leans over the table and folds his hands together, but he's anything but calm. I see the line of tension across his shoulders and the crevice between his eyebrows. He wants blood over this, though he may be a little zealous.

Kazimir leans forward. "You've got to be kidding me. After what happened last year?" He still blames himself for all of this, and if Mirov steps up to bat, it may well crush us this time.

In this world, the moment people start wondering whether you're as strong as you used to be, they start looking for proof that you're not.

And apparently, the Mirovs have been doing exactly that.

Everyone's confidence was shaken in us, even our own, so it's no wonder these little fires are sprouting up everywhere.

"How far has this gone?" I ask Morin, and he's eager to jump on a violent thread.

"They're out for blood." He meets my eyes and holds them.

"This isn't a test, Timur. They're not poking at us to see what happens.

They're making a move, and if we give them time, they'll poach more than a few bettors.

Right now, most folks still see us as untouchable.

They want to destroy that and have every family in Perm circling. "

Yegor pushes off the wall and finally walks over to the table to sit down.

"Well, we can't let them just waltz in here and run us out.

What are we going to do?" Yegor looks to me for an answer, though I know all of this will get back to Roman before my report now.

Yegor is his right hand, has been for a decade. He's loyal to a fault.

When I turn to Morin, he's already got a response formulated. "We have to move hard and not give them any wiggle room or they'll take it. We have to strike fast, take out as many of their businesses as we can, isolate their leader and show them we are still on top."

"Agreed," Kazimir says so fast, it makes my head spin.

Kaz's been the first one to push for action on everything since last year.

It goes against everything Roman would want, but I'm not in disagreement with them.

We let too many things slip before by delayed action.

And if our enemies are rising, we have no choice but to defend ourselves.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh hard. My brother's way of leading this family is to let situations play out thoroughly and act in aggression only when absolutely necessary. It was the way of our father and our grandfather before him. And it's a good way to lead an organization like this.

Folks start to see that you're a reasonable person who can be negotiated with peacefully. But they learn how decisive and strict you can be when they cross you too. Because when we do move, we don't make mistakes.

But jumping right into an attack with only small fires being lit doesn't follow that ideology.

Still, I could see how great a forest fire this little spark could kindle and how quickly it would consume everything we hold dear.

The city, and our club, are primed for a hostile takeover, just waiting for the right ember to fall into dry tinder.

"Roman's not gonna want a mess," I say.

"Roman's gonna lose everything if we wait.

I can keep it clean and save his ass if you let me.

" Morin's mouth works in a chewing motion.

It's his tell. I've seen it in a million scenarios over the course of twenty-plus years.

He is anxious, and for good reason. We pay his bills and keep his life comfortable.

If we go down, he's got nothing to show for twenty years of working with the same family.

It's not like the Mirovs are gonna draft him if they take over. He'll lose everything, the same as us.

That's enough to make anyone anxious.

"Give me the room," I tell them, because I have to think. "And don't say a word to Roman yet." I specifically lock eyes with Yegor. "I will tell him myself, and I will make sure everything is communicated clearly."

He doesn't look happy with me, but he nods." Yes, sir," Yegor says as he stands.

Kaz follows, slapping Yegor on the ass as he passes. "See ya at the bar," he calls over his shoulder, and the two of them waltz out together. But Morin stands more slowly, lingering as he locks his tablet and tucks it under his arm.

"For what it's worth, I think you're doing a good job of handling things while Ro is busy with the guns." He hovers over me, waiting for me to respond, and though I asked for the room, I'm not easily annoyed by his lingering.

He knows me better than my own family for a good reason.

I learned really young that I don't fit in around here.

Roman got all the praise for being a fighter.

Our grandfather saw something different in me when I would shy away from the ring, and he pushed me toward education.

I think he hoped I would get business acumen and make them money, but coding and hacking sucked me in. Hence, my security role.

But Morin and I were inseparable, anyway. He belonged in the ring with Ro, not at a computer with me. And now that we're adults, having barely survived our teenage years—no doubt thanks to his saving my ass more than once—I owe him.

"Yeah, well, the stress of it all is eating at me. I'm not sure I want this job." I chuckle as he taps the tablet a few times.

"Look, I know you have your hands full. That's why you asked me to step up, and I gave you my word that I wouldn't let you down." His eyes darken as he says, "And I haven't yet, have I?"

The vivid image of that man in the bar in Yekaterinburg who tried to kill me flashes into my mind. If Morin hadn't been there...

"No, you have never let me down," I say numbly, still feeling a mountain of debt I owe to this man.

"Then trust me to do the job. Mirov has to go, and as much of his family as possible. We're not playing games. If we take them all out, this ends everything we've been going through for years. The whole city sees us as strong again, and no one else will dare tempt us."

The intensity of his stare convinces me.

That and the fact that he's right. Squashing the first ant makes it release a chemical that tells other ants not to go that way, so they'll avoid the same dangers.

Mirov is one in a million. If we let him creep in, the others will follow.

And we may be strong, but we can't take them all at once.

"There's a meeting they do once a month, according to my sources. Tomorrow night... I'll show up with a team and wipe out the lot of them. Then we'll plan a strategy to make several clean hits, make them look like accidents, and when Mirov's strength is weakened, I'll crush the final few."

He waits, huffing a few times because I’m taking so long to answer.

It's well within my power to approve something like this, but I never have because Roman is so strict about his ways.

But if Morin says it's this big of a threat, we need to move now.

No time to try to produce evidence and convince my brother to strike.

"Do it... But it can't tie back to us... And keep it quiet. I have to tell Ro before he finds out some other way." I scrub a hand over my face and watch him walk to the door.

When he gets there, he turns over his shoulder and says, "You're making the right move." Then he nods and walks out.

I just hope he's right.

Because if we're seen as attacking the Mirovs instead of defending ourselves, the whole city will erupt into chaos again.