33. Micah Shine

The bitter feeling that I'd picked the wrong side when the families went to the mattresses crawled up my neck as those fucking mercenaries prodded us through Mary Varvara Bell's office toward the building elevators to the lobby.

The problem with power is that it doesn't just corrupt people. It also causes arrogance.

I'd been careful of that, making sure I was scrupulously polite to everyone as befits a mafia boss when I was in New York and Philadelphia, constantly thanking people with a humble nod and placement of my hand over my heart, just like my father always did when he ruled the New York underworld.

It's important to remember that when you come from the streets, the streets can take you back.

Mary Varvara Bell had lost that insight. With her fancy Le Rosey Swiss boarding school education and Black Sea dacha summers, she'd forgotten that the bratva are criminal enterprises, and the title for the chief of the bratva is Vor, which means thief.

Blaze was right, calling her out for Evil Overlord mistakes.

But she was making so many more.

That's why I made sure that my people were always stationed in the parking garage and the building lobby, waiting for just such a mistake and opportunity as this.

She didn't deserve to be the head of White Russian Holdings anymore.

It was time to burn it all down.