Chapter 30
Artem Voron
I’ve gotten used to leaving the office door open, only so I can hear the melodies Ekaterina plays on the piano, sometimes for two hours.
And whenever she takes little breaks, my body tenses until she resumes the song or appears before my eyes to give me a kiss, letting me know her little concert is over for the day.
She knows how much I love listening to her. Just as she knows I adore everything about her. Today, she’s moving through a range of slow
melodies. Not sad, only calm, carrying me into the right state to review a few reports regarding future shipments.
In the last two weeks, ever since Oliver became the one being held captive, the attacks carried out by the Birds of Darkness have doubled.
Just like our expansion, which is drawing closer to the doors of Mother Russia, the place where we learned all this rot began.
Someone there wants the extermination of Bratva, as we know and respect it, all of us raised under this tradition.
Or at least some of us.
I put the most creative torture methods into practice, on Oliver as well as on Serioja, even though the latter was already wounded. It was more entertaining for Sasha to dig into his wound with a fork and then with a knife, until he finally gave in from blood loss.
Oliver was reserved for me alone.
As I had promised myself, I started by cutting off the pads of his fingers. It was downright embarrassing to see his tears from the moment I started on the first finger. He talked without giving me the chance to ask, spilling the names of everyone he knew.
That is the problem with those raised in a different world than ours. Especially those raised in luxury, like the little lord. They don’t know pain. They are not used to death from childhood, and they fear her. So much that many of them, like him, wet themselves when they feel her near.
Unfortunately, the information he gave me didn’t bring answers to all my questions. I still don’t know who started this entire war inside Bratva.
Oliver’s father, Sir Malcolm Prescott, has vanished completely, and I couldn’t uncover the other details he apparently chose not to share with his son. He was supposed to do that after the wedding that never happened.
All I know is that someone is sheltering both him and his daughter, whom we lost track of during the chaos created in the cathedral.
Ekaterina made me promise I wouldn’t hurt her, telling me she had always liked the girl, sensing that she too was trapped in a vicious game played by her family, just as she had been.
I couldn’t promise her that, but after she kissed me and made my voices sing to the rhythm of her whispers, I fell into her trap. I agreed not to kill Olivia, but she didn’t specify other torture methods, in case the girl knows something.
I don’t like hurting innocent people, especially girls who have barely come of age. But in her case, I am forced to make an exception to the promise I made myself to exterminate the entire Prescott bloodline from the face of the earth.
Sasha is delighted to hunt her down, even though I told him not to kill her. He wasn’t happy about that part and even stretched out on the floor, kicking his arms and legs like a spoiled little child.
Yaroslav limited himself to kicking him in the ass and telling him in his cold way to get to work.
Suddenly, the melody accompanying me stops, and every thought inside my head stops with it. Fortunately, another one begins only a few seconds later. This time, a sad one, almost dramatic, with accent on the low notes.
Only this vibration comes with a call that makes me frown.
Oleg Kuznetsov.
My father’s right hand.
Immediately, I instantly enter a state of silent alert, one I have never allowed to show, covering it with a neutral voice.
“Voron,” says the old man, the same age as my father, a man who proved his loyalty to my family before I was even born.
“Oleg,” I answer in greeting, trying to understand the purpose of his call from his grave voice alone.
“I have bad news.” He has a small hesitation in his voice. “Your father was killed an hour ago. The house was attacked.”
I freeze.
I don’t know how I manage to keep that same cold calm when I speak.
“And Mother?”
Silence, then his deep voice is filled with more regret. “I’m sorry, Artem. They died quickly and didn’t suffer.”
I clench the pen in my hand until blue ink spills over my fingers and onto the desk. My heart is caught in a painful claw, and rage takes possession of me.
“How?” I ask, strangled by that heavy feeling.
“One bullet to the heart and one to the head. Each.”
The air stops in my chest, and I narrow my eyes. The image he describes is too familiar, reminding me of the way Ekaterina’s father was killed.
“The same signature as in Borislov’s case.”
“So it seems,” he confirms. “And both of them after they started asking questions about the people involved in the partnership with Malcolm Prescott.”
I frown, taking advantage of the fact that he cannot see me.
I have been asking questions about this whole story too, but no one has tried to put a bullet in my head.
Aside from that little game of Russian roulette I took part in with Ekaterina.
Which makes me realize the following: either I need to triple the security around the house, or my father, just like Ekaterina’s father, found out something that brought him too close to the main culprit.
And I am heading in the same direction.
I look toward the window, knowing that someone is breaking rules written in blood.
And they will pay in blood, because one by one, they are taking the people we love away from us. For now, in Russia, but it will not be long before they reach here too.
If someone imagines they will take me away from my wife, they are bitterly mistaken.
I am not going anywhere.
Everyone knows Death has one gray eye and one brown.