Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Gregor

“Sergei, what the hell are you doing?” I demanded as we were bundled into the back of one of the retrieval vans. I had been searched, my hands shackled, and there were still four guns trained on us.

Beside me, Michelle was curled in a trembling ball around our daughter, whose face was buried in her neck. Seeing her like that filled me with more rage than I had ever known.

“You had better fucking explain yourself right now.”

He turned a grim, resigned expression on me. “I’m following orders, Gregor. The boss thinks you’re plotting against him. And these two know too much.”

“Plotting against him? That’s insane, I’m the one who nearly got blown up earlier!”

He frowned. “Look. I told you to get in to see him and sort this out.”

“I tried. He wouldn’t even respond to my calls. Has he gone completely paranoid?”

But then it hit me. Vasily set up that bomb. He and the others in the organization were the only ones who knew. It was all done under his orders. He tried to fucking kill me!

The shocked look on my face made him pause. He ordered the others to their cars and stepped forward as they reluctantly withdrew. “What’s this about a bomb?”

I told him. He looked shocked, but hid it quickly.

“I have not been plotting anything against Vasily. But there’s definitely something going on here. You made a goddamn key to my apartment, Sergei. You were spying on me. And somehow you’ve fucked up and misinterpreted everything. You want an innocent woman and a kid to pay for your mistakes? Or is Vasily finally losing his mind? You know I’ve always been loyal.”

Doubt entered Sergei’s eyes, giving me hope. But he just shook his head. “It’s my job to make sure you get picked up and brought to the boss. I don’t have any say in his decisions.”

“Even if they’re the wrong decisions?” I demanded. Beside me, Alissa sobbed quietly. I couldn’t even put my arms around her with those fucking shackles on. “Someone in our organization was working with the Ivanovs. Take a look at the laptops up in my apartment, I took them from the daycare center. You’re better at all that. Maybe you can crack the passwords I couldn’t. Whoever it is, there has to be something there that exposes them.”

He hesitated, but then he nodded and stepped back. Before I could say anything else, he slammed the van doors shut and shouted to whoever was driving. The engine roared to life, and we were moving.

I put my hand on Michelle’s back. She didn’t pull away. As we rode in darkness, my mind raced.

I had sworn myself to Vasily. Kept secrets for him. Killed for him. I had given him my whole life. And in return, that mad old man had betrayed me. Even convinced the others that I was the traitor. Why?

And what the Hell was I going to do about it?

Kill Vasily.

The thought hit me hard, in part because it felt so natural. But Vasily had allowed the situation that had led to Michelle’s kidnapping and suffering, and every other kid the Ivanovs had taken. Vasily had apparently set me up to die. Hell, Vasily had also given me orders that could have led to the death of my own child if I had followed them blindly. Whatever else was true about Vasily, he was no longer the man I’d sworn my oath to, if he ever had been.

Kill whoever you have to in order to save your woman and your daughter.

My fists clenched. I could get out of the damn manacles. I might even be able to get my hands on a gun, since I was still the best fighter and killer that Vasily had. Maybe I could even handle it all before anyone could do a thing to Alissa or Michelle.

But was I prepared to kill my way through the only family I had ever known?

I squeezed my eyes shut. Focus. I would try talking first. At least that way I would get a better idea of what kind of insane bullshit I was dealing with. And maybe if I got Vasily to talk enough, the others would see that he’d gone crazy.

“It’s okay,” I told Alissa and Michelle softly. “It’s okay. I will not let them hurt you. I’ll get us out of this, or I’ll die trying.”

Alissa uncurled a little, peeking at me through her hair. Her eyes were full of tears, and I hated seeing it. “How?”

“I have decades of loyal service. I’ll try reason first. If that doesn’t work, I’ll do what I have to. The only thing I need you to worry about is keeping Michelle safe while I get us out of this. Okay?”

Michelle turned her head to peer up at me as well. Then Alissa set her jaw, seeming to come to a decision.

“Okay. But you do it, okay? If you want me to believe in you forever, don’t fail us now.”

I nodded and leaned down to kiss both their foreheads. “I swear it.”

But saying and doing were two different things, and we both knew it.

***

Vasily’s mansion was lit up completely in the predawn darkness, like he was having a damned party. Sergei was not among the men who got us out and led us at gunpoint up to the front door. Hopefully, I had gotten through to him, and he was finding whatever information it would take to settle our crazy boss’s paranoia down and make him listen to reason.

I kept my back straight and my expression cold. The men around us knew what I could do, I could see the fear in their eyes as they kept us covered. I could see doubt there, too, when they looked at Michelle. What were a mother and small child doing here as captives? This was far off from normal with our crew. We had honor. We certainly had limits.

But where had Vasily’s honor gone?

He was waiting in his dining room, at the head of the table, with all his lieutenants there and many others. Sergei’s habitual seat sat empty, and mine beside it.

Vasily looked like he had aged ten years since the last time I had seen him. His flesh had shrunken to his bones, the lines in his face were deeper, and his complexion was the color of rotting milk except for three spots of high pink, his cheeks and the end of his nose. I wondered how much he had drunk to make himself look like a deranged clown.

His mouth was a nearly lipless gash in his face now, barely hiding something like a grimace. His eyes had a wildness to them that I had never seen. He looked scared. Like he was the one being dragged before me instead of the other way around.

I decided to capitalize on it, staring down at him in disdain as they pulled me over to him. Alissa and Michelle were brought up beside me. I stepped in front of them protectively. “What the hell is this about, Vasily?” I demanded.

“Watch your mouth with me,” he said peevishly, but there was no strength behind it. “You’ve already betrayed me, don’t make it worse.”

“Explain how I betrayed you,” I replied steadily, “because this is all news to me.”

His face darkened and his jowls started shaking with anger. “I told you to leave no one alive at the Ivanov place. No one! There were meant to be no witnesses!”

We both looked at Michelle, who hid her face against her mother.

I stared at him. “You actually meant for me to murder a child for you? Just because she was there? She’s too young to be a witness, she can’t even speak, and you still expected me to shoot her down. Despite knowing that I never hurt kids.”

The crowd at the table shifted uncomfortably. Many eyes were on Michelle now.

“My word is law!” Vasily yelled, reddening further. “You disobeyed! And then you hid it from me!”

“Yes!” I shouted back, fingers probing the manacles they had locked me into. “Yes, because you must have lost your goddamned mind to demand such a thing! And it’s a good thing I didn’t, because she’s not just an innocent child—she is my daughter.”

More rustling. Chairs squeaked against the marble floor. Men muttered to each other in Russian and English. And all the color drained out of Vasily’s face again.

“She is a witness. I gave you the order.”

“And if I’d gone through with it? Killed my own kid for you? You think anyone here owes you that?”

“It’s just a child. You can make another! The organization is more important—”

Hearing those words come out of his mouth sent so much rage through me that I almost rushed him, guns aimed at me or not. I fought for control, wondering when the man I had once admired had turned into this selfish goblin.

“Don’t bring my brothers into this. The organization has never been in the habit of murdering innocent kids who are no possible threat to us. Not under you, not before you, not ever. None of us would put up with that!”

More muttering. Nods around the table. Even a brotherhood of thieves had its limits.

Vasily looked around, nervousness growing on his corpselike face. “I am still pakhan here!” he snapped.

“Then explain yourself. To all of us,” I demanded while I unfastened one of my cufflinks and bent the toggle. Their search had been sloppy, they had looked for concealed weapons, but they had either missed the vest under my shirt or didn’t care, and they had left my suitcoat on. And with Alissa tucked behind me, no one could see what I was doing.

“Explain why the Ivanovs were able to start and operate a kiddie, snuff, and torture porn studio right under your nose for so long without your noticing. Explain why you wanted a young child dead. Explain why you warned the Ivanovs that I was hitting their other house and helped them set a goddamned bomb to take me out!”

He was going from pale to purple. I wondered if he was going to keel over with all the shifts in his blood pressure. But of course, that was probably too much to hope for.

“I don’t owe you or anyone else an explanation. I rule here!” he spluttered, and I felt my rage boiling in my belly.

Mikhail, one of his lieutenants, spoke up quietly. “It seems strange that you will not explain, pakhan.Especially when you have had no problems explaining yourself in the past.”

“Most especially when a child and one of your most loyal men are both involved,” Piotr agreed, scratching his grizzled jaw. He had been with Vasily even longer than I.

Vasily’s mouth worked as his eyes darted around. “I don’t owe any of you—”

“Yes, you do,” said Sergei as he stepped inside. His voice was utterly devoid of emotion for the first time ever. “Especially since I have evidence that the Ivanovs were kidnapping kids and making porn of them with your blessing.”

Everyone turned to stare at Vasily in horror.