Viktor. I didn’t know his surname. Only that he was a lieutenant in the Russian mob. That his boss had once been Alexei’s.
His face was unfamiliar to me too. He’d come to the hospital to see Cam after Saint had been hurt, but I’d been so strung out on pain meds that even now, months later, I still wasn’t sure anything I remembered from those horrible days was real.
He didn’t look like Alexei. That was my first thought as I entered the chapel to find him sitting opposite Cam, unaffected by Cam’s dark glower. He had finer features, an even slimmer build, and yellow-green eyes that made him look like a cat.
A pretty cat, granted, but I didn’t know him well enough to appreciate that.
I took my seat and appraised him, noting the empty chairs in the room. Saint, Rubi, Mateo.
Alexei.
None of them had claimed their seats at the table. A sign of disrespect?
No. Suspicion. A meeting that took the attention of every council member was dangerous, and right now, Cam distrusted this dude enough to face him with just me and Nash for back up.
Cam leaned forward, elbows on the table. He was dressed in the workout gear I always thought softened him more than denim and leather, but his gaze was sharp. Lethal. “Did Sidorov send you?”
Pavel Sidorov.The Russian mafia boss who’d once owned Alexei. Who’d declared loyalty to his former hitman and prodigy to save Cam the night I’d been shanked and Cam had been shot.
Was my life even real?
Maybe it should’ve bothered me that nights like those were easier to believe than the one I’d spent in Mateo’s arms on the roof.
It didn’t.
I focused on Viktor. His answer was a half nod that could’ve meant anything. “This is not an official visit, but it is unlikely he does not know my every move.”
“Would he approve of you sitting at my table?”
“It is hard to say. Pavel is fond of Alexei.”
Cam bared his teeth, a visceral action that he caught before a possessive growl rumbled from his chest. “Alexei has no interest in speaking to you, so if this is about him, get it over with and fuck off.”
“It is not about Alexei. I have news from the Sambini family.”
A different tension crept over Cam. “News important enough to bring you all the way here? In person? In the middle of the day when you could’ve called like you did last time?”
“It is evening, my friend. But I take your point. I was in the area, and the second part of my news was something I believed you would not want to wait for.”
Cam’s gaze narrowed. He lit a cigarette from the box in front of Nash and gestured for Viktor to continue.
Viktor surveyed the room, glancing at the exits, at Nash and at me, before settling on Cam again. “It has happened. Lorenzo has split from the main family, taking a large portion of their top men with him. I do not know if it has crossed your radar, but he has also swept up any hostile Dog Crows we left behind, recruiting them into a... conscripted force, of sorts. The first men in. Cannon fodder, yes?”
“I get the gist,” Cam said flatly. “And if he needs that force round these parts, your estimation is that he’s coming for us first?”
“Possibly. The deal Sidorov made was withMarioSambini, who was under duress because Alexei had a blade to the throat of his only son. Lorenzo is less attached to his cousin or, indeed, to anyone he shares blood with, and technically he did not make that deal.”
“Technically?” Nash’s surfer aesthetic was hardened by the sharp stare he levelled across the table. “Is that enough to get him out of it?”
Conflict lit up Viktor’s strange eyes, brief but unmistakable, and that was my job at this table—to watch him, dissect him, making note of all the things Cam and Nash wouldn’t see while they absorbed everything else.
Viktor had just given away that he had information he didn’t know if he should share. That he didn’t know if he trusted us any more than we trusted him.
Fix it.
I got up and moved to the kitchen at the rear of the room. In the fridge, I found bottled water and Alexei’s favourite vodka in the freezer.
Back at the table, I placed a water bottle and a shot glass in front of Viktor. I poured him some ice-cold vodka, then served my brothers and myself.
