He pauses, his eyes shaking, bottom lip trembling. I’ve knocked him off his square. A good sign that he’s not as in control ashe thinks. “We have unfinished business,” he says. “There’s the matter of your manager and your daughter.”
“You don’t want them. You want me. Let them go. They’re not important.”
“Oh,” he says, stepping closer to me, “but I think they areveryimportant. You wouldn’t waste your time if they weren’t. You know, it’s funny. I wasn’t planning on taking them both. The girl was enough, really. She was supposed to be a down payment for the revenge I’m owed… but then I ran into your manager. Ms. Lorenzo.”
His smile broadens and my stomach drops into my shoes. Seems this rotten son of a bitch is smarter than he looks.
“I have to say, Roman. She’s pretty hot. But that’s no big deal. You’re surrounded by quality pussy day in and day out. I figure there has to be something more to her. I also figure there’s no way you’re not fucking her. She’s got a vibe to her that just screams Bratva Queen. Beautiful, intelligent… very resourceful. She’s perfect.”
“She’s nothing,” I lie. “Just an employee.”
“Get the fuck out of here. You’re definitely hitting that.”
“That door swings both ways, Sergei. I might have a way with the ladies, but they have to have a way with me, too. I don’t waste my time on silly love stories anymore. It’s like I said. She’s just an employee.”
He narrows his eyes at me, trying to figure out my game. I wish I could say the same about Sasha in a convincing way. If he thinks they mean nothing, then the hold he thinks he has over me is broken.
“I see,” he finally says. “Well, maybe then I should give her back to you. Piece by piece.”
“That wouldn’t be wise.”
“It wouldn’t? Pray tell, why?”
“I still need her. She brought my club back from the brink of bankruptcy in less than a year,” I say. “Help like that is impossible to find. I’d hate to lose her.”
He chuckles and nods slowly. “Touché, Roman. Touché. Still. I can’t let her go. I can’t let any of you go. You know that, right? After what you did, what you cost me… I have no one. Everyone I have ever cared about is dead because of you.” He regards me carefully. “On your knees.”
I hesitate, but then I get down on my knees. “How did you escape me, anyway?”
He tilts his head as he walks toward me. His gun is still pointed at my forehead. “Excuse me?”
“What went down with your father? When I and my men came for him, I thought he only had three sons. And when I looked for all of his other relatives, I scoured the city and damn near the planet looking for all of them. Thought I tagged them all. And yet you and Ivan were able to get by me. Now, Ivan, I understand. His bad luck put him with the wrong Bratva for all these years. But you? I should have found you years ago.”
He stops in front of me and arches an eyebrow. A few seconds go by as he debates telling me. Finally, he says, “I was overseas when he died. School trip to France. And no one knew about Ivan. He was, what’s the word… an affair baby. My father never publicly claimed him for my mother’s sake.”
He sighs as he lowers his gun for a moment, his own backstory distracting him. “Ivan joined your ranks because my father’s associate had a debt that needed to be paid. I don’t know the specifics, but I do know that Ivan tried to go to our father first for help. When he was rejected, our father offered his services up as payment.”
“Huh,” I say. “And he still wanted to kill me.”
“He loved him. As did I. A few years after he died, he was filled with vengeance. I guess he had some plan to eliminate you himself, but… I guess he was never able to pull it off. And then, one day, he finds me and we put our heads together. Decide that the best way to get our revenge, finally, was to do it together.”
I nod. “I see. You know, Ivan went rogue and sic’d the Feds on me. He was getting impatient with your process, wasn’t he?”
Sergei narrows his eyes at me again, his hand moving anxiously around the handle of the gun. “He was impatient. Always has been.”
“So he was. If only he’d trusted that his brother had it handled, he might still be alive.”
That’s the straw. His eyes harden and his mouth twists in anger. He brings the gun up fast to shoot. I flinch as the shot rings out…
And a burning hole appears in his shoulder. He staggers back, a look of shock on his face as blood starts oozing from the hole. In the seconds of confusion, he looks up and over my head. “You fucking?—”
Another shot and this time, he’s hit in the forehead. The hole appears just as a splash of blood and gore erupts from the backof his head. His eyes roll up and his legs stumble back, working on their own. He finally drops to the ground.
No one moves until Sergei is down, and that’s a shame for them. I’m already reaching for the hidden knife in the heel of my boot. It flies from my hand and hits the closest of them in the throat, knocking him back as an arc of blood shoots from him and to the ground.
Gunshots from Ares’ sniper rifle in the darkness ring out, hitting three more in succession. Two of them have panicked and are trying to get back in their cars. The other two have decided to open fire.
I dodge out of the way, catching a bullet in one of my arms. The burn makes me flinch, but it doesn’t slow me down as I run over to one of the other fallen and grab his gun.
