Prologue

PROLOGUE

MARKO ROMINOV

LONDON - THURSDAY MORNING - EARLY MARCH

M y eyes drooped as I dozed in my chair, my mind numb from running one tedious report after another for my brother Miki. Tax time was the bane of my existence, especially when it involved hiding the money we laundered among our legitimate businesses. However, at last I was almost done. Just another few minutes should do it and then I could head to bed for a well-deserved rest.

I rubbed the back of my neck as my heavy lids closed and my head bobbed as consciousness slowly ebbed from me.

"Beeeeeep!"

A blaring alarm jolted me upright. I scanned the screens in front of me with a renewed alertness. Finally, there was movement in the bank account I'd been monitoring.

My fingers flew over the keyboard, hacking into the account with growing excitement to match the widening grin on my face.

"Yes!" Fist-bumping the air, I nodded. I knew I was right to keep an eye on it.

Being the leaders of the Bratva in the UK, my family had many enemies, including some we hadn't even known existed. The last couple of years had been a bloody nightmare as we faced one enemy after another. We had finally killed the man who had supposedly been behind everything, late last year.

The few months of quiet since had felt ominous for me, like the calm before a storm. I had never quite believed our problems were over.

That's why I was monitoring this account. It had belonged to Aiden Mathieson, a corrupt lawyer who ran a human trafficking organisation. He was also an enemy who, unbeknown to us, had held a grudge against my family and spent the last couple of years trying to cause trouble for us and our ally, the head of the Polish Mafia, Janusz Glowacki.

Things had started with Mathieson backing an attempt by Glowacki's second, Lev Petrov, to overthrow him. However, the night before Petrov planned on killing the entire Glowacki family, he and two of his co-conspirators, Piotr and Simon Nowack, had gone out partying and abducted, raped, and murdered my sister Krissa.

However, as drugged up as they were on excitement and cocaine, they were careless and left DNA evidence behind and had been caught by the police. That had effectively put an end to their uprising against Glowacki and secured his family's lives, but left a gaping hole in ours.

My gaze flicked to the photograph of Krissa I kept on my desk. Her beautiful smiling face, so full of life, made my heart clench. It was so unfair that such a kind soul had been taken in such an awful way.

"Fuck!" I slammed my fist down hard. I should have protected her better.

Guilt and anger warred for control inside me. My chest felt constricted, and my breathing laboured as I looked at the image of my sister.

Of course, Krissa's death was only the start of things. Via his go-between, another lawyer called Nigel Simpson, Mathieson had also been behind more recent attacks on my family and our businesses and almost caused the death of both my cousin Romi and Glowacki in the process. Not only that, but his cronies had kidnapped my other sister, Sonia. Thankfully, she was okay, but it had brought back terrible memories for my whole family.

Rage boiled inside me, but I forced it down, reminding myself that all the men who had murdered Krissa or caused harm to my family more recently were all dead now. Or so we hoped, provided Mathieson was the last in the long line of enemies, as he claimed when we'd tortured him. However, neither my brothers nor Glowacki and his sons were entirely convinced and not knowing for sure had been eating away at me.

Picking up the photograph of Krissa, I removed the back of the frame, then slipped a knife out of my pocket and flicked it open. Pricking my thumb, I spread the blood over the pad before pressing a bloody fingerprint to the back of Krissa's image.

There were several such prints there, all made with every vow to her to avenge her death. Now, I made a further vow that nobody else would die on my watch. My family had suffered enough, and I was determined to ensure they never had to worry about enemies taking us unaware again, not if I could do anything about it.

After replacing the photo, I returned my knife to my pocket, feeling more in control of my emotions.

My eyes flicked back to the screen, and I hacked into the branch of the bank where the money had been transferred.

Mathieson had kept several secret bank accounts. However, the reason I'd chosen to watch this account was that it had differed from the others. Whereas all his other accounts had been opened under false identities for himself, this one had been created in the name of a woman, Jessica Adams. The difference had made me curious. Hence why I'd set up an alert to tell me if anyone accessed it. And now someone had, and the money had all been transferred elsewhere.

My heart raced as I followed the money trail from the Jessica Adams account straight into another account under the name of Melissa Martin.

Another woman? Who was she, and what was her connection to Mathieson?

Frustration gnawed at me. Despite my efforts, I had found no link between Jessica Adams and Mathieson. Now, Melissa Martin had entered the picture.

I resumed typing and hacked into the branch where Melissa Martin's account had been opened. After a while, a grin spread across my face as I studied the transaction. A bit more digging and I had enough information to tell Miki.

Unlike Mathieson's other accounts, we hadn't divulged this one to Interpol with the others, choosing instead to monitor it. We didn't want to profit from human trafficking; we might be criminals, but human trafficking was a big no-no for us.

So, we'd made Interpol aware of the money in the others, just keeping this one to ourselves for a reason. If Mathieson had a partner, it was possible this account could lead us to the person. And if it didn't? Well, I still suspected whoever this woman was, she'd be the key to us finding out once and for all if we had anything else to worry about or not.

Excitement surged through me as I raced to Miki's office.