"Who is 'he'?"
Peter whimpers as I put pressure on his chest. "Marius. Marius asked for ideas on the best way to get to Leah, to get her to trust him. I thought he was asking for you!"
"When?" I snarl, leaning even more weight on him.
"A few weeks ago? I don't remember!"
"We both know that's a lie," I snarl.
"I swear I have no idea what he's planning! I just gave him a few ideas. He doesn't want her around any more than I do! He's helping me teach her a lesson! She shouldn't have left me. He wants to get back at her for leaving me!"
The words come fast and furious, a rush of fear and confession that leaves a horribly bitter taste in my mouth.
When I stand, I turn my back to him, ignoring his whimpers.
"Mom! Aren't you going to do something? "
Clarissa stares down at our son for a long moment with a new look in her eyes: disgust. Has she finally seen what the rest of us have seen for years: the despicable human being our son has grown into?
"I'm leaving," I say, cold and furious. "I'm going to send Mendel and his men over here. They're going to watch this house and take away his devices so he can't contact Marius or Andrei. If either one of them tries to contact you or him, tell the guards, and they'll tell me. You are not to leave this house until I say you can. Do you understand?"
For once, Clarissa nods and doesn't fight back. She hangs her head, looking broken. I leave them behind.
It's starting to snow when I walk outside, frozen flakes drifting down from a sky as cold and gray as my mood inside. I feel as cold, as frozen, as those ice crystals. I'm going to have to become even colder to handle this problem. All my suspicions have clicked into place, and I’ll have to forget my humanity to do what needs to be done. To get Leah and her family back safely.
For my new family's sake, I'm going to have todestroy my old one.
I am the monster Leah made me out to be.
26
VIKTOR
“Andrei!”
My voice explodes across the empty office floor, and it echoes back to me, full of rage and doom. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this angry before. I’m too full of emotion, too full of fire and the desire to kill someone with my bare hands, to come to terms with what my brother has done.
Even the word feels caustic to my thoughts, an anathema to everything I believed in, to my world and the way it had always run.
I force myself to focus on getting Leah back first. And then I will figure out how to deal with my brother and my nephew.
I nearly break down the doors to my office, only to see half of myvorand my brother already inside.
“Andrei!” I growl, holding myself back from strangling him with my bare hands only through pure force of will. “What thefuckis going on? What have you done? Where is Leah?”
My brother is lounging in what I now realize is my chair at my place at the table. Even he knows better than to sit there, even when I’m not present.
Instead of jumping up and giving me the seat and the respect due to me, he lounges back, a lazy, leonine smile diffusing his face with ugly satisfaction.
“Finally figured it out, did you?”
“Where is Leah?” I demand again. “Where did Marius take them?”
Andrei doubles down, his grin growing into something nasty laced with what I can’t believe is hatred. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” He settles back in my chair as though he owns it. As though it’s his now, which only makes my rage grow until I see red.
“You think I’m going to let her escape? That whore you got pregnant with afuckingheir? I already took care of Peter. Why would I let another of your spawn come into this world and take my place? Take what should have been mine and Marius’s in the first place?”
My gun is in my hand in a heartbeat; I’m beyond rational thought. Before I can click the safety off and aim it at my brother, I’m suddenly the target of every man and gun in the room.
