Chapter Eighteen
“Jesus,” Ivan muttered over the comm unit. “I forgot how boring he is. Kirill has barely left the house most of the week. How is he running the city like this?”
Two fucking weeks. That was how long it had taken to spread the seed of doubt through Kirill’s men and put together all the information we could on him. I felt like a damn private investigator. Then again, this was what my company did.
I just didn’t.
Sitting in a car, waiting for hours for someone to make a move or not was not my idea of a good time. That was why I hired others to do it for me. I was a man of action. Not a spy.
“He had a few whores delivered this morning that still haven’t come out.” Dima smirked. “I wouldn’t say he isn’t having any fun. Who would want to leave that? One of them had breasts the size of watermelons.”
Ivan retched. “I didn’t need that particular image in my head, idiot.”
Dima chuckled. “Maybe I can grab one on their way out,” he pondered theatrically, tapping his chin. Not that Ivan could see him from his position at the back entrance. What scared me was that he sounded serious. “You know, interrogate them a little.”
Ivan groaned dramatically.
“Do you really want to be sticking your dick where he did?” I asked my enforcer, who sat next to me in our stake-out car. “You don’t know how many whores he has fucked or what kind of diseases he may have. Used pussy isn’t always good pussy.”
Another groan from Ivan.
“Eh.” Dima shrugged, tipping his hand back and forth, undecided. “I’ll risk it. I doubt he stuck it in all her holes. I’ll just utilize the ones he didn’t.”
“Khristos,” Ivan swore. “Gag him, will you?”
I snickered.
“Oh,” Dima lifted his eyebrows. “Someone has a kinky side.”
“All right, children,” Mark scolded through the video screen. “Don’t make me put you on separate comm lines.”
Dima winked at Mark while Ivan grunted. “Please do. Before I shoot him in the face.”
My enforcer gasped, drawing his hand to his chest like some Shakespearean actor. “Not the face, mudak. It’s my moneymaker, you glupyy malen’kiy gnom.”
“Who are you calling a stupid little gnome, you…”
“Enough.” My voice thrummed dangerously inside the car. “For fuck’s sake. I thought I was supposed to be the younger brother, Ivan?”
Dima sniggered, and I went to round on him next before I was interrupted by Mark’s amused voice. “He’s got a call.”
“Patch it through so we can all hear.”
Silence, a few keyboard clicks, and then the car was filled with ringing.
“Kirill.”
A bolt of hate raced up my spine at hearing his voice for the first time after so many years. The man who’d kidnapped and murdered my mother. Who tossed me on the street without a second thought to further his own greed and need for power.
His voice was hoarse and grating. He coughed, his lungs wet and rattling like a pack a day smoker.
“What the hell have you done, Kirill?” the man on the phone line snarled viciously. “How long did you think you could get away with playing me, brother?”
“Our father,” Ivan whispered through the comm line.
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Andrei.” Kirill sounded shocked; panicked. He hadn’t known this was coming. We had taken everything Libby and Ivan acquired over the years on Kirill’s work and association. From his involvement in trafficking girls under the Chameleon Agency to his current profit skimming. Every nook and cranny had been swept out from under the rug for Andrei Tkachenko to see.
“Don’t lie to me,” Andrei roared. “This was your last chance, Kirill. I’m flying there to settle this. I gave you one last shot, and you ruined it. Again.”
“It isn’t what it looks like,” Kirill began. “I swear I had nothing—”
“Are you telling me it is all lies?” Andrei hissed. “Because I am holding some pretty damning evidence.”
“It is fake,” Kirill insisted. “Men who want to drive a wedge between us, brother. They know we are stronger together.”
Dima snorted derisively. I agreed with him. The honey buttered bullshit spewing from Kirill’s mouth was as much amusing as it was frustrating. There was no doubt in my mind the man would seek to worm his way out of his crimes with Andrei. Pin them on an unforeseen enemy. Play on his loyalty to him. His help in winning against his father.
It wouldn’t do him any good.
Not this time.
“You better hope so.” Andrei was cold, his tone dropping dangerously as he continued. “I’m flying down there. You better pray I don’t find any more evidence of foul play, brat.” The sarcastic edge to the Russian word for brother wasn’t missed. It seemed tension between the two had been riding high for a while it seemed.
“You won’t,” Kirill swore. “I promise you that.”
Then the line went dead.
“Well,” Dima’s brow shot up, “I expected something a bit more.”
“Don’t go anywhere just yet,” Mark told us. “He’s making an outgoing call.”
“To where?” Ivan questioned. A few more clacks of the keyboard later, and he had it.
“Seattle.”
There was ringing, and then, “You better be calling for a good reason.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up in awareness at the harsh, feminine voice on the other end. It sounded familiar. Too familiar, but I couldn’t place where I heard it before.
“We need to move up the timeline.” Kirill’s voice was shaky, unnerved. He was afraid of this woman, whoever she was. “Someone is working against me. Sending him information.”
“It isn’t my responsibility to clean up your messes, Marius,” the woman hissed. The way she tilted her words told me she had an accent she was attempting to hide. It was slight, and I couldn’t place it, but one was certainly there.
Where the fuck had I heard this voice before?
“My messes are your mess, Caesar,” he growled. “Remember that. If I lose my position here, we no longer have the foothold we need to the docks.”
Caesar? Marius?
“Fucking Roman general names, really?” Dima muttered beneath his breath. I shot him a look. He shrugged. “What? I paid attention in school.”
Ivan’s soft laugh filtered through the comms.
“Don’t threaten me,” the woman snarled. “If you hadn’t been so careless, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
“Just send one of the legionnaires.” Kirill sighed heavily. “It must look like an assassination. Otherwise, there will be too much digging when I ascend as leader.”
Ascend. What a pompous asshat.
“And what about your nephew?” the woman questioned. “Ivan? He is next in line to inherit.”
Kirill brushed her off. “He is nothing,” he insisted. “Nothing but a disgraced outcast who hasn’t been heard from in years. I made sure he appeared to be nothing more than a disgruntled son after his father’s money. Andrei cut him off.”
“But he didn’t cut him from his will,” the woman pointed out. “Or from succession.”
Kirill brushed her off. “It is nothing. He is nothing.”
Or So Ivan led him to believe.
“You better hope so, Marius.” The venom dripping from the phone line was obvious. As was her disdain for him. “Otherwise, you might regret what is coming for you.”
“And what is that?”
“Ghosts of the past.”
“All my problems are dead,” he gloated. “Your legionnaire made sure of that.”
The woman hummed. “That may be so, but his wife sure is causing a commotion over here.”
Kirill grunted. “She won’t be a problem for much longer,” he dismissed. “Sulla will make sure of that. He took care of Elias with no problem; he’ll take care of her.”
“We’ll see,” the woman sounded skeptical. “As for your request, I’ll send 848 to take care of it. She’s proven to be efficient at taking out pests.”
“She did it in spectacular fashion for me,” Kirill agreed.
Kenzi. They were talking about sending Kenzi to take out Andrei.
“Get her on the phone,” I hissed at Mark. “Quick.”
Another beat of silence. Another moment of holding our breaths, waiting in anticipated suspense for Kenzi to pick up the phone.
Nothing.
“She’s not answering.”
Dima swore.
“Who are you trying to reach?” Ivan questioned.
“Kenzi.”
“Ward?” he asked incredulously. “What does she have to do with this?”
My forehead raised in mock surprise that my older brother didn’t know about the remaining Ward twin.
“Guess you didn’t do your research all that well, brother.” I snarked.
“Shove it and tell me what you know,” he huffed over the comm line. Dima laughed.
“Kenzi Ward was sold to the Dollhouse by her father,” I told him. “Convincing everyone that she had gone to college overseas instead.”
“She told you this?”
“Yes,” I responded. “Originally, she’d been tasked to kill Ava. Luckily, an old friend of mine had an interest in the Dollhouse as well and had been monitoring certain chatter.”
“The three of them had a strong bond,” Ivan stated. “Why would Kenzi willingly kill her sister? The Dollhouse must have known Kenzi wouldn’t follow through.”
“They twisted Libby’s death to make it appear as if Ava and I had her killed.” That organization knew no bounds. “It took some…convincing to get her to see the truth.”
“And you trust her?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in my reply.
“Okay.” Ivan took a deep, calming breath. “What do we do next? If we can’t reach Kenzi and she isn’t aware of what the target means…”
Dima beamed.
“We need to make sure Kirill goes down first.” The darkness in his eyes swirled like a hurricane, his pupils dilating at the prospect of shedding blood. Fucking psychopath, that one.
“And how are we going to convince my father that Kirill is the enemy?”
I chuckled darkly. “I’m going to rise from the dead.”
* * *
It was ridiculously easy to slip past Kirill’s defenses. The men guarding his compound were no more than Wal-Mart security guards when it came to alertness. Bone cracked beneath my hands as I separated the guard’s brain from his spinal cord, his body falling lifelessly at my feet.
There were only ten guards in total, with two active sweeping along the perimeter that Ivan had already taken care of. It was sloppy. Kirill believed himself to be untouchable, especially since he believed I was dead.
Satisfaction welled in my chest, knowing I had been the reason he had so many guards before. The moment he learned I was dead, he had loosened his security measures.
Big mistake.
Now I was a viper in his nest.
Silent. Deadly. Ready for the kill.
Andrei’s two guards stood outside of Kirill’s office, ready for action. Their eyes scanned the hallway, continuously on alert. These were the only men we would spare.
Raised voices drifted down the corridor. The two brothers were arguing.
Good.
Neither of them would hear us coming.
“Go,” I whispered into the comm line. Within moments, the men at the door slumped against the wall. Ketamine darts were highly effective in times like these.
Nighty night, fuckers.
“You expect me to believe this bullshit?” Andrei roared, his voice sharp like a crack of thunder. “You’re a disgrace, brother.” He spat the word, as if it was a foul taste in his mouth. “There are dozens of accusations here. With proof. You expect me to believe that none of this was you? That your filthy, greedy hands haven’t tainted our name with this shit?”
Kirill laughed cruelly.
“Tainted our name?” he asked in disbelief. “We are the Bratva. Not some fancy fucking corporation. We spill blood. Our name is meant to spread fear. You have made us into nothing but docile little lambs. No one respects the Tkachenko name anymore. No one fears it like they should.”
“You can’t run an empire off of fear,” Andrei snarled. “Father did that, and look how it ended for him. Too many men switched sides. They weren’t truly loyal, just afraid.”
“Fear keeps them in line,” Kirill hissed. “I have tried telling you this.”
Andrei sighed. “We can’t rule like that.”
“If we did, maybe our enemies wouldn’t be making up lies to tear us apart.” Kirill softened his voice, but I could hear the calculated manipulation a mile away. “They see our weakness, and now they are exploiting it. We can’t allow them to do that.”
“Maybe you are right.” Andrei’s dejected tone moved something within me. This man had fought for so long to stay true to some kind of value among a world where values were a weakness exploited by the enemy.
Andrei was fighting against a tide of men who had only known how to rule through fear. Men who, with the guidance of Kirill, perpetuated that cycle behind their Pakhan’s back. It was pathetic. Tomas has shown me that loyalty isn’t earned through fear. It is earned through dedication to your community. To your people.
Knots wound in my stomach, bile chasing up my throat at the thought of Kirill running the Bratva empire in Russia. The Tkachenko family ran everything. Even Tomas paid loyalty to them after his freedom from his own Pakhan. If Kirill managed to gain that kind of power, he would tear everything Tomas built apart.
The war would be brutal and bloody.
“He isn’t right, Papa.” Right on time. Ivan strode through the large mahogany double doors with his head held high. His crisp black Bespoke suit was tailored to perfection, and he wore it like it was a second skin. He might have given up the luxury of being a Bratva prince, but he never forgot what it was like. “Uncle is just trying to manipulate you. Again.”
“Ivan.” A chair scraped against the wooden floor. Andrei was standing now. I could just make them out through the crack in the side of the door. The photos I had seen of Andrei must have been older. The man in Kirill’s office was more distinguished. Older. His dark hair was tinted with gray strands that hung in his face. His salt and pepper beard and mustache were neatly trimmed.
Andrei Tkachenko exuded power effortlessly, unlike his brother, whose power came from intimidation.
“Hello, Father.” He bowed his head in respect before lifting his eyes. The resemblance between the two was uncanny. The two were closer to brothers in appearance than father and son. Then again, they were only around twenty years apart, and Andrei appeared far younger than his age.
“What are you doing here?” Kirill spat. “How did you get past my guards? Guards!”
No one came.
There was no one left but me, and I wasn’t ready to reveal my hand just yet.
Let him sweat a little.
“No one is coming, Uncle,” Ivan told him quietly. “It’s time we had a nice family chat about everything you have done. Don’t you think?”
Andrei’s gaze darted back and forth between his brother and his son.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked, his tone dipping.
“Everything you received is accurate intel,” Ivan told his father patiently. “It has all been verified by multiple sources. None of it has been tampered with or altered in any way.”
Confusion flitted across our father’s face. “How do you know about what I received?”
Ivan smirked. “I sent it.”
“You little fucking…” Kirill spat, but Andrei held up his hand to silence him. The man’s face turned an angry shade of purple, his beady eyes bulging from his head as he glared daggers at his nephew.
“There is so much you don’t know,” Ivan continued, his eyes on his father, barely acknowledging that Kirill was having a mini stroke next to them. “So much I tried to warn you about. But you were blinded by his perceived loyalty that you couldn’t see through the cracks in his fa?ade.”
“He is my brother,” Andrei reminded his son. “The man who helped me avenge the death of your mother. If it wasn’t for him, your grandfather would never have fallen.”
“If it wasn’t for him,” Ivan sneered. “There would have been no war.”