There’s no one in the main hall, no one in Sasha’s room, and in my room, Ember’s suitcase sits by the bed, untouched.
“Roman!” Ares’ voice booms through the house. I run out of the room and to the staircase.
Ares is downstairs, holding his gun in one hand, a wild look in his eyes. He hears me before he sees me and instinctively, he points his gun up in my direction. The moment he sees it’s me, he relaxes.
“Are you all right?” he asks me in Russian.
“I’m fine,” I say as I come back down the stairs. Several of my men come in behind him, guns drawn, ready for a fight. I give the order for them to spread out and search the house, then I notice the body on the floor. It’s Boris. He was supposed to be taking Sasha to school today. Shit.
“Poor bastard. I heard a noise out back so I went to check. When I came back, he was gone and the door was open. What the hell happened here?”
“Ivan,” I say. “He’s the mole. Or at least he was. What’s left of him is in the study.”
“What?” Ares says in disbelief.
“That’s not all. I think they took Ember. Probably Sasha, too.”
“They?”
I nod. “Sergei and whoever else has aligned with him. This revenge for that business ten years ago. Sergei and Ivan are Pyotr’s sons.”
In all these years, I’ve never seen Ares’ face go slate before now. Vengeance is a powerful thing when it’s due. And we know all too well the cost once its evil eye turns to you. But there’s no timeto prepare for whatever war that will ultimately come when we find Sergei and his men. We’ve got bigger problems.
“I want them found,” I say to him. “They can’t have gotten far. I just heard Ember and Sasha screaming a little while ago. They probably just left the property?—”
“Got it.” He pulls out his phone and dials a few numbers. After a few seconds, he speaks in Russian to whoever just picked up. “They just left. They’ve got the Pakhan’s daughter and Ember Lorenzo…”
I step away, looking for the others. We need the grounds secure in the meantime. I don’t know how many men are in Sergei’s employ. I don’t even know if they are remnants of the Ivanovos or if they are mercenaries or others he convinced to follow his cause. I don’t know what army he’s managed to amass over the course of the last decade or even how he’s gone about moving in silence after all this time.
All I know is that his father was the man responsible for taking my wife from me and in return, I took away his entire family… or so I thought. Now Sergei means to finish what his father started all those years back. What poetic vengeance to go after Sasha and Ember.
I need to get them back. I need Ember and Sasha to be safe.
It’s beenan hour since it all happened.
The bodies of Ivan and my guard have been taken away and are being disposed of, and those who are not out scouring thetown for Sergei are here, keeping the house and me under heavy guard.
I don’t know what the entire gameplan was supposed to be. The more I think about Ivan’s betrayal, the more I start to wonder how we could have missed either of them. Ivan had been a part of this Bratva since before me. And when everything happened, he wasn’t one of my soldiers. His job had never been to be boots on the ground like the others.
But what must he have been thinking when I went after his family? He wouldn’t have had time to warn his father. That first attack had been swift. I gathered any of my men who were in my immediately vicinity and we laid siege on him the night that my wife was killed. But the rest of it, when I went out and searched for every single family and associate of their gang… where was he then?
Had he and Sergei been working in secret for all these years? I think back to the last time I saw Sergei. The kid with the gun on my doorstep. It was a normal Sunday afternoon. Mila was a week buried and Sasha was asleep in her room. I answered the door and the little shit was standing there with a gun trained on me.
The gun jammed. It’s the only reason I’m not dead. I pulled out my knife and sliced his face for his insolence. Then I took his gun and kicked him off my property.
Was there some grand plan that was set in motion the moment Pyotr was killed? Maybe Ivan met with Sergei after that and they started planning. Perhaps. Or perhaps, they had been waiting all these years for the perfect situation to disrupt my Bratva.
I’m in the living room, my eyes turning to the window every so often. Watching for one of my men’s cars to return with bothSasha and Ember in the backseat. I have eyes and ears all over this town. I know that it’s only a matter of time until someone’s seen them, and reasonably speaking, an hour is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to this sort of thing. But right now, from this side of the fence, it feels like a million years have already passed me by.
Ares comes walking into the room, but I hear him before I see him. He’s on the phone speaking rapid Fenya. “… All right. Keep me posted.” He hangs up as he stops in front of the couch. “The county lines are all covered. If they even think of heading anywhere near any of them, we’ll be alerted within minutes.”
“Good,” I say. “The house is secure as well.”
Ares nods. His brow furrows as he looks me over. He’s got a question on his mind.
“What?” I say wearily. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he says, backing off. “I’d better do another walk around the perimeter.”
