Chapter 26 #2
Two guards rush inside with their guns drawn, and all I can do is shove Andrei and Luca back down to the floor as I dive toward it myself.
Shots ring out, bullets flying over our heads.
I crawl behind a nearby armchair and pull my gun out, waiting a second until I hear them reloading. I pop out from my hiding spot and fire, hitting one guard in the chest and knocking him backward.
Andrei tackles the other guard to the ground.
The guard struggles beneath him and fires beside Andrei’s head.
“Fuck!” Andrei shouts as he grabs at his ringing ear. He grunts as the guard lands a punch to his face, throwing him off balance enough for the guard to roll them over.
Luca rushes over and slams into the guard, throwing him off Andrei. He glances at me over his shoulder. “Go! Find Victor before he escapes!”
I nod and hurry out of the room, keeping my gun ready as I navigate through the dark house. My free hand feels along nearby walls, guiding me down a hallway.
A faint thud sounds up ahead.
I pause for a second, hearing another light noise in one of the rooms ahead of me. After taking a deep breath, I advance and step into the first room on the right, my eyes sweeping across what looks like a bedroom.
It’s empty.
Or so I thought.
Pain explodes through my head as someone hits me from behind, sending me down to the ground with a shout.
My gun tumbles across the floor away from me.
I quickly flip over, black dots teasing the edges of my vision, but I can still make out Victor’s face full of rage as he approaches me with what looks like the base of a lamp.
“What are you doing, Dmitri? Are you this desperate to get married to that Irish whore?” Victor questions as he approaches.
I glare at him as fury races through my veins. He’ll never respect her or our marriage, making me even more determined to end him.
“Did you really think that I wouldn’t find out about your little assassination plan?” I ask him as I push myself to my feet. “I’ve already paid off your shooter.”
Victor’s face twitches a little. “It seems like the Bratva is full of traitors.”
“They’re not traitors. They want better leadership than what we have now,” I say before chuckling. “Or did.”
Victor narrows his eyes at me. “You have blood all over you.”
“That would be the blood of all your little Council friends,” I tell him.
“You son of a bitch,” Victor growls as he tightens his grip on the lamp base.
My muscles tense up as I prepare myself. “You shouldn’t have fucked with me or Cara, Victor. None of you should have.”
He swings the lamp base at my head.
I duck out of the way and bring my knee up, driving it up against his stomach to make him fold over. With gritted teeth, I shove him back as hard as I can, sending him crashing against the nearest wall.
Victor loses his grip on the lamp base, his balance wavering.
I hit him hard, crushing him back against the wall. My fist hits him in the stomach and then the face, raining down punches wherever I can strike him.
Victor tries to push me off, but he’s at least twenty years older than me. He isn’t as strong or as fast.
I grab his head and thrust it backward, making it strike the wall.
Victor’s legs collapse from underneath him. He slumps at my feet. “You…fucking…”
I snatch his hand and twist his arm roughly, hearing the bone crack. As he cries out in pain, I look at his ring. My heart immediately stops.
The winged sword.
The ring Cara saw.
“It was you,” I say as my eyes lift to his. “You were down in the basement with her. You fucking beat her for information about me!”
Victor glares at me. “And she turned out to be fucking useless!”
Rage blacks out the edges of my vision as I punch him again and again.
Victor lets out a strangled sound of pain.
But I don’t stop.
I strike him over and over until my knuckles feel numb, blood coating my hand as his face becomes more beaten in and swollen.
His muffled noises become panicked as he tries to grab me, but his strength gradually fades away.
“Fuck. You!” I bite out as I hit him one more time before letting him fall against the wall.
Victor slumps to the side and stays there.
I stumble back from him, breathing heavily as some feeling starts to come back to my hand. My adrenaline doesn’t let me feel all the pain, though. Not yet at least.
I breathe in sharply through my nose, steadying myself enough to grab Victor’s ring off his finger. Footsteps sound behind me, making me whirl around just as Andrei, Luca, and my men pour into the room.
“Shit. Looks like a damn massacre,” Luca says.
“It was,” I reply as I show them the last ring. “The Bratva Council is dead.”
“Good,” Andrei says. “Now take what’s left and make it yours.”
My men nod in agreement.
A slow grin crosses my face as I pull the family rings from my pocket and let them rattle in my palm.
“I still miss Mikhail, but I know he would’ve wanted better than what these bastards turned the Bratva into.
So, I’m taking it. I’m Pakhan now. If anyone wants that title from me, they can come try to take it. ”
“Fuck yeah,” Luca says.
“Let’s get cleaned up. I think we deserve a drink or two.”
“Just two?” Leo asks with a laugh as everyone starts to leave the room.
Once we clean up at Andrei’s place and have those promised drinks, I finally take a second to process what I accomplished tonight.
It’s one hell of a thing we did. Not something I ever would’ve imagined before Cara came along.
She was an unexpected surprise I wasn’t sure I deserved to have in my life.
But now, more than ever, I know she’s meant to be my wife.
The thought of another marriage that never happened sends me over to Luca, who’s sprawled on the sofa with his feet on Andrei’s glass table, much to Andrei’s dismay, a whiskey sloshing in his hand.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” I say to him.
Luca stills, then says, “What’s up? Did Andrei ask you to kill me?”
“I’m serious,” I tell him. I draw in a breath trying to decide where to start.
“My men have been digging around to make sure we don’t have any other threats lurking.
Some of them were looking into Ferro and the Italians tied to him.
Something came up about you and Ferro. About a woman you were both connected to. ”
Luca frowns as his shoulders sink a few inches. “Mia. I was supposed to marry her, but someone killed her. Enrico blamed me. Said my enemies went after her.”
I place my hand on his shoulder as I shake my head. He’d been lied to too, just like the rest of us.
“That’s what they found,” I tell him. “Mia isn’t dead, Luca. She faked her death to get out of the wedding.”
Luca’s jaw drops. “You…you’re certain? She’s alive?”
“I’m certain. I don’t know how you feel about that, but I’ll have Denis send you everything we found on her whereabouts if you want it.”
He nods and swallows. Then he just sits there for a second, stunned, his drink forgotten in his hand.
“All this time,” he says quietly. “All this fucking time…”
I nod once. “Yeah.”
He looks up at me then, something raw and shaken in his eyes. “You really know how to end a bachelor party, amico.”
With a dry laugh, I leave Luca to his shock and Andrei to his liquor and step out into the thinning night.
Tonight, I slaughtered the Bratva Council and crowned myself Pakhan.
Tomorrow, I get to marry the love of my life.
And the whole city will wake up to a new order.