Max breaks first. He lifts his head, his eyes bloodshot and wild, his hands splayed flat on his thighs like he’s afraid they might act without his permission.
Of the younger men in this room, he was closest to Igor’s son. He took him under his wing, or tried to, when Sasha started to work his own missions.
As clawed apart as my insides feel, I imagine his feel ten times worse.
“What the fuck was that detective investigating?” Max’s question scrapes the air. “Surely he wouldn’t be asking Sashawhatever he was asking the Thorne women.” His gaze cuts around the room, sharp as a blade. “So what the hell is going on? Why is this cop showing up everywhere?”
Every eye in the room slides to me. My fingers tighten around the gift box Jordan and I found in Alistair’s safe. The one that shouldn’t exist.
I don’t have the answers, though I wish I did.
Mikhail’s face twists, disgust carved into every line. “All this on account of what went down on that damn island.” He spits the words like poison.
Roman turns slowly, his heavy eyes landing on Mikhail. “Too bad you weren’t there.”
The temperature in the room drops five degrees. Mikhail’s jaw snaps shut. Old, ugly history passes between the brothers. I file the exchange away. Another piece of a puzzle I don’t have the edges for yet. Their relationship isn’t my business, but anything that might shatter the strength of the family could be.
Igor slumps in his chair. His shoulders are caved, his face haggard. He looks twenty years older than he did ten minutes ago. “There’s a cold case. Must have been reopened. That’s what the detective was asking Sasha about.”
“What cold case?” Vanya’s charm is stripped away, replaced by a contemplative expression.
“The fire at the Alibi Club.” Roman’s reply is mechanical, a recording of a man, not the man himself. “The island.”
Every gaze in the room shifts, drawn like magnets to the painting on the wall behind Roman’s desk. The beautiful face. The piercing eyes. The necklace dangling from the corner.
Silver chain, delicate links, and at the end, a key. The charm sways slightly, caught in a draft that doesn’t exist. Lilia’s pendant hangs like a question no one dares to ask.
Pressure builds in my chest. I’ve seen this portrait a hundred times and noticed the necklace without really seeing. Now this all feels significant in a way I can’t yet identify.
“We need to pool information.” Mikhail’s all business. “If this detective is circling, we need to know what he’s hunting.”
Kolya straightens and clasps his hands in front of him. “Chloe Davidson, the witness in my assignment, as you all know, was there as a child in the restaurant of the Alibi. She saw a man with a gun on the beach.” His voice drops lower. “She ran. Hid. But what she saw haunted her for fifteen years.”
He describes in more detail what he’s already told us a few weeks ago. A family dinner, interrupted by guns, panic, and a stampede. All before the fires even reached them. Bodies everywhere. A lost child’s flight through hell, and how she escaped only to tread into the teeth of a terrible storm. But nothing he recounts explains anything that’s happening now.
When Kolya’s finished, I step forward, the gift box heavy in my hands. “Whatever Jordan Thorne’s father discovered on the island got him killed. He supposedly left evidence, a cache. That’s what we’ve been looking for, and that’s why they came after her.”
“Who’s they?” Max glances up, his eyes back to the calm he lives by when he’s not rampaging. If I’m a shark, this man’s a boar. Solid and stable until he gets spun up. Then he’s unstoppable, even if wounded.
Especially if he’s wounded.
“I don’t know.” The admission tastes like failure. “Gio set his dogs on us, but he’s hiring out now. Maybe we took down too many of his own goons. But someone got to Alistair’s safe before any of us did.”
Roman lingers at the window with his back to the room, his shoulders rigid beneath his perfect suit. He recites the past in a voice devoid of emotion. “Fifteen years ago, after taking over asPakhan, I called a meeting of the families. A conclave. Neutral ground to establish new relationships, solidify alliances, and resolve old feuds. I chose the island because it was isolated. Private. Secure.”
No one moves or interrupts as Roman fills in some of the details about what happened that night on the fucking island. He’s mentioned the event recently, but not to this extent.
“The second night, a tropical storm hit. It was supposed to peter out but instead changed course and grew stronger. There was no warning except for the screaming winds. The power failed across the island. Everyone blamed everyone else. Tensions were high.”
His reflection in the glass appears ghostly, like he’s recalling the faces of long dead loved ones.
“And then the fires started.” He swallows and averts his gaze. “Flames, even in the rain. The Alibi Club went up first. Then the outbuildings. Then the homes, one by one. In the darkness, in the chaos, the families turned on each other. Old grudges. Fresh fear. Mistrust bred into the bone.”
I could see how that would happen. In a situation like that, I’d grab my people and flee while shooting anyone who even looked like they might slow me down. The meeting was supposed to be neutral, so many of the heads brought their wives and their families as a show of peace.
What an absolute nightmare.
Roman pauses for a breath. “Gunfights broke out. People running. Shouting.”
