There’s no hiding now.
So I tell them. I tell them about the boy who killed his brother after being ambushed. How the attacks kept coming, one after another, until the boy learned to fight back.
“Explains why the fucker lived in the gym,” Nikolai mutters, shaking his head. “I thought he wanted to be a prime fighter. Didn’t realize he was learning to survive.”
No one asks why Matthias never told them. They don’t need to. Killing a brother, even one who tried to kill you, is a wound words can’t touch. And it sure as hell isn’t the last secret buried under his skin.
“What about the documents?” I press, dragging us back to the present. “What was on them? Why did you need the Bratva network?”
Mark frowns. “Mostly birth and death records. Even decrypted, they’re in Russian. I couldn’t read them, so I made a copy for you.”
“Okay,” Roman finally speaks up. “We know what the agent wanted. But why use Ava? Why arrest Matthias? You said you had a plan to get him out, or was that bullshit too?”
“Nope.” Mark’s frown twists into a wicked grin. “Not sure why Ava had to deliver the SD card. My guess? He wanted her to look guilty. Wanted Matthias to question her loyalty. She only did it to protect me, and she had no idea what was on it.”
“And Matthias?”
“Oh, that’s handled.” Mark leans back, smug. “I may have hacked into the FBI mainframe, deleted the evidence, and left a…surprise.”
Leon narrows his eyes. “What kind of surprise?”
“The kind that’ll have them chasing their tails for weeks, hunting someone who doesn’t exist.” Mark grins wider.
“So the video doesn’t prove Matthias killed Elias?” I ask, weighing the angle.
“Nope. The whole thing was staged,” he sneers. “I don’t know who did it, but they were good. Manipulated Elias’s body to make it look like Matthias slit his throat. There arediscrepancies, but it was easier to wipe everything than hope your lawyer would catch them.”
I nod. I can understand that. “Good work. Doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, but you proved your loyalty. Even forced to betray us, you bent it back around to help.”
Mark flushes red, looking down. “I’ve never had a family,” he admits quietly. “My mom was drunk or high most of my childhood, and when she did get sober, I was the one…whatever. You could’ve killed me in that warehouse, but you didn’t. You saw potential. So yeah, I owe you.”
“Fuck yeah, you do,” Nikolai booms, grinning. “And you’ll answer for what you did, but I’m proud you came forward. We all are. You could’ve kept it to yourself or run. But you didn’t. You faced us, knowing we might kill you. That’s what makes you a Dashkov.”
“Now that’s settled,” Dima says, raising his glass, “how about we focus on finding Ava?”
The cheer around the table dies when they see my face.
“You gotta be shitting me,” Maksim growls.
“Matthias ordered no men be used to rescue her.” My jaw tightens at the memory of our last conversation.
“Dammit.” Leon swears. “He thinks she’s actually in cahoots with them?”
“Cahoots?” Roman snorts. “Who the fuck says that?”
“You’re about to say nothing when I knock your teeth out,” Leon snaps. Roman just smirks, hands raised in mock surrender. Those two never quit. But I don’t have the patience for their bullshit. Not tonight.
That’s a problem for future Vas.
“Vas, we can’t leave her with them,” Mark pleads. “She didn’t do anything wrong. Not really.”
“I know,” I sigh, sinking back into my chair. “But my hands are tied.”
“Did he say don’t go after her,” Maksim asks, stroking his beard, “or just not to use our men?”
“He said ‘our men,’” I mutter, replaying it. “Told me to stop looking. Stop compiling.”
Maksim grins, pulling out his phone. “Perfect. Then we don’t use our men. We use someone else’s. Someone who wants her free as much as we do. Plus, we’ve got an inside asset.”
