Chapter Four
Igor
One year. Three hundred and sixty-five days.
Fifty-two weeks. That’s how much time has passed since I lost the last of my family, and today was the anniversary of their deaths.
It had been a wretched fucking day, and rather than inflict my bad mood on my men, I decided to take a moment for myself.
This melancholy mood was one I could only indulge in complete solitude.
I couldn’t let my men see me like this. I had to project strength unless they got the idea that they could take what was mine. My legacy.
My blood right.
So I made my way to my favorite spot in Georgia.
It was an old dilapidated antebellum house on the outskirts of Atlanta.
It used to belong to some southern gentleman who made and lost millions nearly a century ago.
The place wasn’t falling apart but it needed a lot of work from a paint job on the house to a professional landscaper on the entire grounds.
The property itself though, was gorgeous.
The overgrown grass reached my knees, and I trod through it on my way to the manmade lake that sat behind the old mansion.
It was large and so serene, peaceful. The perfect place to think and strategize without outside interference.
Of course my men realized that my brother’s death hit me hard, but they didn’t need to see the evidence of it.
Tonight I wasn’t here to think or strategize, oh no, tonight I was here to remember.
Boris and his wife Nikita were staples in my life.
They were my closest friends as well as my family.
I enjoyed dinners at their home a few times a week and I was my brother’s closest confidant.
I tolerated Nikita’s attempts to set me up with so-called good girls.
I missed them fiercely, including the nephew I would never get to meet.
Now, thanks to that fucker Voronov, Boris was gone and everything he’d been taught, been groomed for, now rested on my shoulders. It was a burden I happily bore even if I resented the reasons behind it, because as Boris used to tell me, I was well suited to the role as a leader.
Control. Power. Brutality. It’s what I did best. Back when my brother was alive it was always my job to make sure that the world knew and understood that Boris was the boss, that his word was to be followed to the letter. That he was to be obeyed.
Or else.
Dmitry Voronov was my biggest enemy as well as my largest competitor in the underground trade.
He was also the man responsible for the death of my family.
I would make him pay. I had thought about little else for the past three hundred and sixty-five days, and when the time came to exact my revenge, I fully planned to enjoy it.
But first, I needed to secure the Romanov bloodline with an heir. At least one heir. Two would be ideal but right now the goal was one.
Shots rang out in the distance, pulling me from my thoughts of revenge and succession and Boris.
Instinct was, well instinct for a very good fucking reason.
My right hand went to my side and pulled my gun from the holster under my jacket before my mind had consciously assessed the situation as I rushed toward the shots.
Anger and disbelief pulsed through me as I raced forward, determined to take out my anger and my sadness on whoever it was that had the balls to attack me out here. This place was mine, dammit.
More shots sounded and I realized it was coming from the other side of the lake, and I raced forward, ready to rain hell down on whoever I found.