“I knew it was you. Now put your gun down and I won’t kill you for your disrespect.”
“Kill me?” I laugh at him, digging my gun into the back of his head for good measure, watching Hades signal multiple times out of the corner of my eye. There are bugs everywhere in this room. Which ones are Ilya’s and which are his own or his father’s?
I make quick work of walking him over to one of the chairs, search him, and order him to sit. “Move, and I’ll start taking out parts that will make it hard for you to walk, let alone function,” I warn him. He gives me a murderous glare, but he folds his arms over his chest and nods stiffly.
I don’t trust him, but I get to work on grabbing all the bugs. With each one, he stiffens more and more. His only real tell that he really doesn’t want me to find something is when I get to his phone, which he left on his nightstand. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demands, jumping to his feet. Hades lunges, snarling, and he lets out a screech, falling back into the chair, curling himself up on it like he’s a kid afraid of being bit.
And this is who thinks he’s going to be running his father’s empire? The idea is laughable. And if he’s like this with me so openly, then his father knows it too. So whoever my father is bringing in to replace him is going to be someone even better.
I look at the phone, opening simply by inputting his birthday as the password. He really is an idiot. “What the fuck? How did you get into that?” he screeches, furious.
“You really should pick a better password, Belov.” I scroll through his apps, finding ridiculous games and a few porn sites scattered in. I arch a brow. “Does your Daddy know that you swing for the other team? Explains a lot, really.”
“I do not! I didn’t…I don’t fucking look at that. You planted that.” His face flushes with anger and embarrassment. “Get the hell out of my phone. Give it back!”
I ignore him and keep scrolling. I find nothing else until I find the unencrypted messages.
Simeon: She’s a bitch but she has no idea.
Timur: Don’t fuck this up. Get her back here. There’s too much fucking riding on this.
Simeon: She’s on to us.
Timur: Of course she fucking is. She’s been trained by the Butcher. That’s why we need her here. Get her on the plane by noon. We’ll meet you.
Simeon: She has an Italian fucker with her. He won’t let her out of his sight. She’s fucking him too.
Timur: What do you expect? A whore will take any cock they can get. No more excuses. Get her here by the end of the day or I’ll be coming to get her myself.
I look up at Simeon, gaze cold, detached. “You’re too stupid to live, and I hope you know that your father is going to kill you the moment you’re in front of him again. And I hope you know that the moment Ilya finds out about this conversation, he might be the one to kill you. Or Zakhar. Especially now that his daughter is here.”
Simeon pales, but I’ll give it to him that he doesn’t try to run off. Or that might be his fear of Hades. Either way, things are about to change, and we have to make plans. Fast.
I swipe out of the text exchange and pull up the one with Ilya. It’s nothing of interest, and one where Simeon does all the talking.
Simeon: He can’t be trusted. You need to get rid of him and those sons of bitches with him.
Simeon: Ilya, you know I’m right. Besides, she’s my fiancée, and he can’t fuck this up.
Simeon: I demand you get rid of them, Ilya.
Simeon: I don’t trust Rayea. She’s clearly lost her mind and is thinking with her cunt and not her head. Why would she allow him to come here?
Simeon: I need you to help me convince Rayea to do this. She has to play her role. This whole assassin shit? It’s wrong. She wasn’t like this with my brother.
Simeon: What, you want to fuck her? That’s all this is?
It just goes on and on. If it wouldn’t piss Ilya off, I’d kill him now and be done with it. Instead of saying that aloud, I call Ilya, who answers with a sharp, “What?”
“Bring Zakhar and Oleg to Simeon’s room. Now. We have a problem.”
I hang up without answering the barrage of questions, then I start searching more of Simeon’s texts. There’s more here, I know there is.
“Get the fuck out of my phone,” he continues to rage. “And calling Ilya up here is fucking stupid. I’m stringing my father along, he knows that. You’re wasting time. What the hell is wrong with you, Rayea? You were never this?—”
“My name is Rori, and that is the only name you will use, Simeon,” I interrupt coldly. “And you knew nothing about me when I was married to Mishka. You were out of the house doing whatever bullshit it was you were into at the time, and you left your brother to do all your dirty work.”
“And you were the one to get him killed,” he sneers coldly.
