He shook his head and once again raised his eyes to meet Gedeon’s. “To clean up a territory like the one I have taken over requires brutality. Ruthlessness. Becoming the kind of psychopath I was raised with. You know what that kind of violence breeds.”
He’s one of us, Meiling,Gedeon told her, certain it was true.I don’t know how he can be when his cousins aren’t, but he is. He knows what we are because he is, and he recognized us.
If that’s true, he’s stayed hidden in plain sight, even from his cousins. I don’t think they have a clue what he is. Why would he hide his true self?
Stay where you are.
Gedeon wasn’t risking Meiling. He took the lead as he normally did when they were on a dangerous job. Crossing the room, he pulled out a chair and sat opposite Gorya, leaving Meiling a clear shot to the man if there was need. Gorya did nothing to protect himself from Meiling, although he had to know she was in a perfect position to kill him.
“You do realize if I killed you, your cousins would hunt me to the ends of the earth,” Gedeon said.
Gorya shook his head. “I would make certain they were aware I hired you specifically for that purpose.”
“Gorya, seriously, think about what kind of men yourcousins are. Do you think that would deter them? You’re family. You don’t talk about emotions in your family, but they have them for you. Their women have them for you.”
“It is necessary, and you know why. They will know why as well. They made a choice years ago, long before I did, to live by a code. I wasn’t certain I wanted to live without the violence of thebratva.I fit. Once I was old enough to hold my own against thepakhan’smen, I could slide into the shadows and do what I wanted. I was in my teens when I became faster and stronger than all of them. I could outthink them. Outsmart them. My leopard hated them as much as or more than I did.”
Gedeon understood that and the need for revenge. It burned bright and fierce. Deep and cold. Smoldered and never went away.
“Patience,” Gedeon said.
“Exactly,” Gorya said. “It became a game of wits. I am a deceiver. My leopard is calledMoshennik, which is why I call him Rogue.We learned to bide our time. One by one we took out the worst of them. Unfortunately, the two of us thrived on violence. We reveled in it. My first memories were of blood and death, and I don’t recall much else. The only good thing I can say for myself is, I could never stand seeing what was done to women and children. That was a trigger for me. Again, unfortunately, I’ve become a monster, and I can’t seem to hold that side of me back when that happens.”
Gedeon noted Gorya didn’t sound remorseful, only matter-of-fact. He’d accepted himself for who and what he was, just as Gedeon had.
“This territory I’ve taken over was run like the ones that I came from in Russia. The women and children are sometimes abused, but often the women are complicit in the crimes. I’ve retaliated in kind when there is abuse. It hasn’t been pretty, but I’m cleaning things up fast. On the other hand, it’s brought out every negative trait Rogue andI have. The rush for us has fed the continual need for more. We’re deteriorating very fast.”
There was stark honesty in that mesmerizing voice. Gedeon understood exactly what Gorya was telling him. He’d been there. Before Meiling, he’d grown more violent, barring his doors and windows with steel to keep Slayer from escaping. He’d taken refuge in rough, emotionless sex to try to relieve the ever-building need for violence. Like Gorya, he knew the only answer for him was to end his life before he killed an innocent. He’d been lucky to find a miracle—Meiling.
“Your cousins were each able to find their leopard’s true mate. Why do you believe you won’t find Rogue’s?” Meiling asked.
Gorya twisted the bullet back and forth until it spun between his fingers, not touching his skin but remaining in the air, a hairsbreadth away from his thumb and finger. He didn’t appear to notice while he contemplated his answer.
“My cousins are brutal, violent men out of necessity,” he finally said. “They were raised in an environment that didn’t allow for anything else, so to survive they were forced to learn those ways. They didn’t like what they had to become, but they became good at being those men. That wasn’t the case with me.”
Abruptly, Gorya pinched the bullet between his fingers and carefully set it on the desk beside the gun. “The story of how my parents died isn’t true. My father didn’t murder my mother. She was acquired in the way most of the women were in that lair. She was bought with the idea that once she provided sons, she would be murdered by her husband to show loyalty to thebratva.As my father had no problem killing his first wife with the help of his two sons, he expected to do just that with his second. Not only did he expect that he would kill her, his sons also expected it, as did his brothers.”
Gedeon couldn’t detect any emotion at all on Gorya’s handsome features or in his unusual eyes. Amur leopards typically had amber or even blue eyes, but Gorya’s eyes, although shaped like a cat’s and just as focused and piercing, maybe even more so, were slate gray. The strange and rare color made reading him more difficult than ever. His eyes could appear as pure frost or reflect back as a mirror. Gedeon would bet his last dollar that the undercoat on Gorya’s leopard was gray to match those eyes, making him nearly impossible to spot when he wanted to disappear.
“No one expected that she was his leopard’s true mate, or that he would fall in love with her.”
“Do you have any idea where she came from?” Meiling asked.
Gorya shook his head. “No one cared. She was considered expendable. My brothers, Dima and Grisha, hated her and hated me when I was born. I knew they wanted me dead. They would sneak into the room where I was sleeping and pick up a pillow to smother me. Rogue always tore his way through the pillow, even when he was a cub. They couldn’t let their leopards loose on him because it would have woken my father or mother. She always seemed alert. She watched them closely once she found the pillows ripped.”
How terrible to know from the time you’re born that your own brothers want to murder you,Meiling whispered into Gedeon’s mind.He was just an infant. So was his leopard.
Gorya had had the awareness of a much older child from the time he was an infant, and he hadn’t forgotten. Gedeon knew what that was like, although his earliest memories were happy ones. He’d been given that same gift.
“My father, Filipp, fell in love with my mother. That was enough to brand him a traitor with his brothers. Shewas his leopard’s true mate. Patva conspired with Dima and Grisha to murder them both. Dima and Grisha broke Filipp’s spine so he was helpless, and then, while Patva watched, they beat my mother to death in front of Filipp. I have no idea why Patva decided to keep me alive. Dima and Grisha were very angry, but Patva took me home and gave me to his wife to raise along with Fyodor and Timur.”
“This might answer the question of how you are so different from your cousins in that you have tremendous gifts,” Gedeon pointed out, “but it doesn’t answer why you think you won’t be able to find your leopard’s true mate or yours.”
“Patva was the cruelest of all the brothers. He reveled in brutality. He allowed the leopards in his lair to be whipped into killing frenzies. They hunted humans and fed on them. Each atrocity he committed was worse than the one before. His power grew, and so did his reputation.”
Gedeon heard loathing in Gorya’s voice for the first time, but he suspected the loathing wasn’t for Patva; it was for himself.
“When I was a child, Patva beat me, had his men beat me. They subjected me to as much cruelty as possible without killing me. I learned to stay quiet and bide my time. Rogue obeyed me. We needed to learn from them. From all the leopards. We were sponges, soaking up the knowledge they had, the experience. After a while I barely felt the beatings, although I made certain to put on the appropriate show and then fade into the background as quickly as possible.”
