Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
The rage flooding my veins comes second only to the relief I feel that she is out of danger and in my arms.
I inhale the subtle scent of her and close my eyes. I would burn down the world for this woman.
She gasps when she sees the car parked a few yards away from us. Inside, two armed men keep an eye on us. It’s my security detail.
“Who are they?” She cries.
I hold her tighter and press a kiss into her hair. “They’re here to protect us. You’re safe now.”
I don’t want to let her go, but she takes a step back. She has questions.
She swipes at the tears streaming down her face. “I don’t understand what’s going on. I thought Boris and Maksim were the good guys.”
“No, I was wrong to trust them.” The words are hard to say because I know this mistake almost cost me everything. “It was Boris who organized the hit on me. He and Maksim have been conspiring to get rid of me.”
My relationships with my uncles made me blind to the truth. Boris was always the fun-loving uncle and seemingly disinterested in the prestige of being pakhan. Whereas Vadim was always aloof and resentful, or so I thought, and this prejudice made me oblivious to the fact he was working all this time to uncover the truth and expose the lies.
“Boris wasn’t the man everyone thought he was,” Vadim says, walking toward us. Enya walks beside him, looking shaken.
“But how did you know he was the one behind all of this?” Brooke asks.
“I always suspected Boris was up to something,” he says as he reaches us. “He is my brother, and I’ve always known what he was. As kids, he was the sneaky one. Conniving. The one who hid his crimes behind his charm and an easy-going smile. But in reality, he was cold and ruthless, with no regard for life. He liked to hurt things. Animals and humans. He was always in trouble. But he got smarter as he got older, and as an adult, he hid those dark urges behind a fake jovial persona. Everyone loved him, but I knew the real Boris. I knew what kind of evil ran in his blood. That kind of darkness doesn’t just go away.”
“You’ve been watching him?” Brooke asks.
Vadim nods. “One day, I saw him meet with Vlad Bhyzova, and I knew Boris was getting ready to do something. It was a gut feeling. Like I said, I know my brother. So I used Vlad’s arrogance and vanity to get closer to him so I could find out what Boris had planned. I appealed to Vlad’s need for recognition as someone important, and he lapped it up, the stupid mudak.” Vadim’s eyes sharpen. “It was tiresome listening to him go on about himself and how important he thought he was. But I knew if I waited long enough that he’d slip up, and I didn’t have to wait long. One night, after too many vodkas, he told me things were about to change. He didn’t say what, but he did say that the cracks in the bratva were about to widen. I knew it involved Boris, and it confirmed my suspicions that he was going to make a move to overthrow Lev.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to Lev?” Brooke asks.
“Because I didn’t know what was being played out. All I had were my suspicions, and I figured if I kept playing along, Vlad would slip up again, and I would find out something concrete. But in order for that to happen, I couldn’t risk Vlad or Boris or Maksim figuring out that I do support Lev as pakhan. I had to keep them thinking that I was at odds with it.”
Brooke nods and nestles deeper into my shoulder, gnawing on the inside of her mouth as she processes everything he is telling her.
“Vlad is dead,” I tell her.
“How?”
Vadim replies, “I received a text message with an address. When I arrived, I found him dead.”
“Boris sent me and Feliks there too,” I explain.
“But why send all three of you?” Brooke asks.
Vadim glances around, scanning the waterfront and the shadows under the bridge for any signs of approaching danger. “I think he knew I was onto him.”
“And he sent Feliks and me there as a distraction to keep us occupied while he—” I stop. She doesn’t need a reminder of what she just went through.
Vadim steps forward. “But it worked against him. When I told Lev and Feliks my suspicions, we realized Boris had orchestrated it so there would be some kind of altercation between Lev and me. Something that would keep his focus on bratva business and not you.”
I add, “When we found Vlad, I called you. But when I couldn’t get hold of you or the bodyguard assigned to you, I knew something had happened. And I knew that something was Boris.”