Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
She trusted me to protect her. And I did what I always said I wouldn’t. I failed her.
I close my eyes and feel Nikolai’s hand on my shoulder. I am too weak to turn him away, even if I should. He has been here often, in the days since. Checking on me.
But there is nothing new to report.
Life goes on. The Vory business goes on. Only I cannot go on.
I feel her numbness now. Her pain. It haunts me in her stead. My Solnyshko. The sun has gone from my life, and only darkness remains.
I am crying, I realize.
I don’t even attempt to hide it from Nikolai. He doesn’t say anything. He just takes over, bringing up the video on the screen. The same video I have also looked at a thousand times over. From that day at the meeting.
The day when all of this began.
“I had Mischa take a look at it,” Nikolai tells me.
And then he brings the cursor to a time stamp on the screen and clicks it. I watch as he slows down the video, and only then do I see it.
And I cannot believe I didn’t see it before.
That my anger had blinded me so badly from the truth.
“It’s on a time loop,” Nikolai answers my thoughts. “Whoever it was knew what they were doing. And they were fast. They came prepared.”
“How long?” I ask.
“Thirty seconds, maximum. You couldn’t have noticed it, Lyoshka. It was very well edited.”
My body falls back against my chair as all of my worst fears are confirmed. Talia had nothing to do with the video. But someone wanted it to appear that way. Someone close to me. Who knew I would not trust her. Or believe her.
Someone who wanted to rip us apart.
“There is something else,” Nikolai tells me as he takes a seat across from me.
“What is it?”
“Katya’s guard mentioned that she visited a security store a few months back. He didn’t know what she purchased, but found the trip to be out of character for her.”
“Then we need to talk to her.” I rise to my feet, even though I am still too drunk to make it down the stairs.
“I already tried.” Nikolai shakes his head. “But she was found dead this morning, Lyoshka. Hanging from the rafter in her ceiling.”
I blink at him as I process his words. Katya is dead. And someone is trying to cover their tracks. Talia told me. She told me she didn’t think it was over. And she was right. I didn’t listen to her. I didn’t listen to Nikolai.
“She wasn’t working alone,” Nikolai says. “Someone is cleaning up loose ends. Katya is not smart enough to set up that slide show and she was not in the building that day. I believe it is one of the Vory.”
I look at him from across my desk, and the name that has haunted me all my life is the only one that comes to mind. Nikolai knows what I am thinking before I even say it. His face is drawn, and I know he believes it to be true as well.
“Sergei.”
50
Alexei
The Vory has our own enforcers. Our own hitmen.
But none as skilled in the art of human suffering as the Irish Reaper. Ronan Fitzpatrick.
He is in my basement now, with Sergei.
While Viktor, Nikolai, and I watch from the camera in my office. I am feeling restless. Eager. It is all I can do to remain seated and have patience. But it is better this way. Because I have no control left. I would kill him in the first two minutes, and that would not do.
“You will end him,” Viktor assures me. “That is your right to do so, Lyoshenka. But you must be patient.”
I expected a fight from Nikolai. But I did not get one. Instead, he sits beside me. Watching as carefully as I. In my mind, I wonder if he has hope. Hope that we are wrong, and that our father did not do this. That he will somehow live.
But that is not the case.
It is evident when he finally breaks. Ronan has made him suffer past the point of all reason and strength. His mind can no longer withstand the pain.
“It was me.”
Those three little words burst from his mouth and ignite the darkness that has always burned inside of me. Because of him. For him.
This man who refused to acknowledge me as a son.
My own father murdered my wife and unborn child in cold blood. Exposed me to the other Vory as weak. And destroyed my life.
Both Viktor and Nikolai are waiting for me to get up. To rush downstairs and finish the job. But I am frozen by my grief all over again.
“Perhaps we should do it together,” Nikolai offers. “It would hurt him more if I were to help.”