Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 97448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
He slips on his coat without paying me attention. “Not today.”
“Why not?”
“I have an errand to run.”
“Oh, okay.”
He stares at me.
I shift beneath his gaze. “What?”
“Don’t go out like that.”
He means like a woman. I refuse to dress as a man again. I don’t care if I have to die for it.
“I’m not doing that anymore. You stopped being Yuri, and I stopped being Aleksander. If we’re going to do something, we’ll do it while being ourselves.”
He shakes his head but says nothing.
“Bring me candy, Antosha!” Mike asks. No, more like he demands.
My brother offers him a warm look and nods. “Okay.”
“And cake!”
“What type?” Anton actually indulges our cousin.
It’s weird to see him this patient with a kid, especially since he’s stoic to a fault.
“Strawberry, chocolate.” Mike counts on his fingers, his brows drawn with concentration. “Cheesecake and…and…all the cake!”
“I’ll see what I can find.” Anton pats his head and leaves.
Mike grins with triumph, goes to the adjoining room, and turns on the TV. Soon after, the sounds of cartoons fill the house. It’s so tiny that you can hear everything from anywhere.
My uncle pats my shoulder. “Never mind Anton, Sasha. You know how close-minded he can get.”
“There’s something I still don’t understand.” I toy with the jam jar, even though I have no actual appetite. “He spent over six years in Kirill’s company. How come he never took action? He could’ve easily killed him.”
“It was only five. He spent the first year recovering from his injury and devising this plan.”
Right. My brother was hurt badly in the shoot-out that I thought killed him. Anton has a gash on his back that’s covered by some tattoos. Everyone back in New York believes it’s from the accident he supposedly suffered. But it is, in fact, a souvenir from the massacre, after which Anton slipped into a coma for a few weeks, and Uncle hid it from us because he didn’t want to give us false hope.
After he woke up, Anton told Uncle to keep his survival a secret and went on to infiltrate Kirill’s men's ranks.
“At first,” Uncle continues, “we had no concrete evidence that Kirill was the one who informed his father of the plan to annihilate our family. We only knew that Roman had something to do with the massacre.”
“Are you going to tell me what he was talking about that day?”
He purses his lips.
“I deserve to know, Uncle.”
“You know that our family is special, right?”
“Because of the noble blood, yeah.”
“Not only the blood but also everything that comes with it. See, we don’t just do business. We invent business. We’ve been the puppet masters of many politicians and have controlled the government. The president and his ministers needed to pay respects to us and ask our permission before they pass any law. We were—no, we are—Russia’s secret royalty.”
“What does that mean? We’re a cult?”
“Not a cult. Royalty. We’re what every government needs.”
“But governments are supposed to be elected by the people.”
“You really believe that nonsense? Every society has a secret order that controls politics and politicians. They might have different agendas, but the concept is the same.”
“If we were that powerful, why did I have to see my own parents and the rest of my family butchered in front of my eyes?”
“Because we made a mistake and allowed outsiders into our family business.” A distant look crosses his features. “We made a few investment errors, and the wrong person got into power, and that wrong person is now the president of Russia.”
“Fyodor Petrov?”
“That’s the one. He doesn’t like the concept of anyone controlling him or his decisions. In fact, he dedicated his youth to the KGB, trying and failing to get any incriminating information about us. It was a disaster that he came into power, and we had to finish him before he finished us.”
“And how did you plan to do that? Unless…you planned a coup?”
He nods. “We needed outside help for that. We had weapons and moles in higher positions, but not enough manpower to flip the Kremlin upside down.”
“Let me guess, Roman was one of the outsiders?”
“Unfortunately, yes. He was acquainted with your uncle Anatoly, and he offered his mercenaries and logistic support. Until he stabbed us in the back. The government only needed to issue the order to the general, Abram Kuzmin. Slap ‘elimination of a possible terrorist group’ on the operation and come after us.”
“So once Anton recovered, he decided to take things into his own hands?”
“Yes. However, like you, he believed Kirill had nothing to do with it until very recently.”
“What…changed his mind?”
“The attack on us and you a month ago, maybe?”
I clear my throat. “Right.”
“Just recuperate for now. There’ll be a chance for us to finally get Kirill.”
My heart aches, but I nod. Why the hell did I have to give my heart to the man who destroyed me? Not once, but twice.