“Wow,” I whisper.
I lift it out, and the diamond facets catch and scatter the light through the room. The white gold gleams like new. My father was rich enough to make sure it wasn't an imitation.
Something inside me whispers to me to wear it. That perhaps this is me being brave for him. Tonight I need to be, this is a big moment in my career. I need to find part of the Lily that felt loved and safe. The girl who would shoot at a target for fun.
Maybe this necklace represents that. A piece of the old me I tried to bury. A part of me that I need back.
And it’s perfect with my dress. A statement piece. A fragment of a past that still has claws in me. At least this time, it looks beautiful.
CHAPTER FOUR
Drago
Song: Suffocate – Kayzo, Bad Omens
“Drago, are you listening?” Lev grunts down the phone.
Something is off today. I stare at the flashing red dot on my map. My gut has never lied to me.
“Yeah, jotting it all down. You talk a lot, old man.”
I don’t tell him I’m watching Lily closer than usual. Lev doesn’t need more stress while he’s running undercover through Russia, dragging men out of shadows to torture answers from them.
Watching her has been part of my life since Lev took me under his wing. I was part of the team tasked to ensure she was okay in America. We’d often fly out and do wellness checks for Lev at a distance, and then simple as that, we’d fly home.
That was until her final ballet show. It was just meant to be a routine check-in. I thought nothing of it. It was the first time I’d seen her mom, Maria, in years. Something didn’t feel right tome. All the other dancers had come out of their dressing rooms, but Lily hadn’t. And Maria was already waiting in her car with the engine running.
The moment I opened the door, that’s the exact moment my world tilted on its axis. The exact second when checking on Lily for her father, over the years, turned into something more personal. A duty.
Telling Lev would have broken him. So, I kept it quiet and tasked myself with becoming her protector. She stopped being just Lev’s daughter, and she became something almost sacred to me.
An obsession that, even five years later, I cannot shake. Which is why, now more than ever, it’s important I remain in the shadows. That she never, ever, knows about my existence.
“I think I’ve hunted as far as I can in Russia, Drago.”
I sigh. We still don’t know who the Preacher is. And every day we fail, more women and kids fall into his hands. It puts all of the Quinn’s, including Charlotte and Isabella, at risk. Because the Preacher has already tried to take some of their men down, it’s a matter of time before they come for it all.
Inferno holds secrets. Inferno hosts sin. It was created to lure predators so we could take them out. But in the wrong hands, it can become a funnel for more evil.
“Drago.” Lev snaps in that fatherly tone to make me listen.
“Yes, Lev,” I mutter.
“You sure you want to go after the Preacher? There is nothing stopping you from coming back to Moscow. You’ve got an empire here waiting for you to take over.”
I frown. “Take over? Where the fuck are you going?”
The thought of him not being a constant in my life makes my chest hurt. The fact that one day, it might be my reality, having to lead the empire we’ve created on my own. A task that,quite frankly, has never been my intention. I’m his soldier. His weapon.
He tuts. “Nowhere, you twat. It’s ours. We built this together.”
I rub my thumb along my lip. We’ve poured everything into our empire, bled for it. And I’m still young enough to turn it into something else. I’ve built different routes to go into if I do decide to settle down one day.
“Charlotte and Isabella are safe now, Drago,” Lev reminds me, his voice softening.
Shaking my head. “Nope. The Quinns saved my life. This is how I repay them. My skills, my contacts. I’ll chop the head off the cunt, and then I’ll return.”
I can almost picture him smiling. Our signature move. Brutal. Effective. I was just sixteen when Lev showed me the most efficient way to dismember a body.
