“God, no. That was weeks ago. I’m here on other matters.”
“Matters that concern me?”
Grateful when a server placed a massive steak in front of me—practically blue too—I decided listening to the conversation was worth it for the food alone.
As I dug into my meal and the staff disappeared, Ilya continued, “Firstly, I think it’s important for you to know that I am no fan of the Krestniy Otets—my uncle.”
“And we have to take your word on that?” I derided with a pointed look at his knuckles, which declared him Bratva.
As he cracked them, he released a dark chuckle. “You don’t have to. But, no matter what you believe, Iamhere to help.”
“And how could you do that?”
Ilya, who hadn’t eaten that much of his meal, carefully placed his knife and fork on the plate in front of him. He did so with the precision of a man who had not been dragged up on the streets, but as someone taught to play the game by masters of it.
“I may be his heir, but there’s no love between us. What do you know of Yseult Brackton?”
“Nothing. Aside from the obvious ties to the last name.”
“Despite being the opposite of crazy, she’s in a mental health institution.” Sofia fumed, “She happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I frowned. “Explain?”
“Yseult is nosy.” Ilya laughed, but the glitter in his eyes belied his amusement. “She can’t help herself. She heard something she shouldn’t have and was sent off to Shady Pines.”
“Sounds like somewhere you go to die.”
“It pretty much is. She has more of an armed guard than the president himself. The only freedoms she possesses are because of me.”
“You care a lot about your sister?”
“Stepsister,” Ilya corrected on a growl that was as much of a claim as him biting her in front of a packed stadium.
Sofia chided, “Ilya.”
“What?” His smile appeared. Cold and bitter. “She is.”
“What does this have to do with us?” Kitty prompted.
The question had me glancing at her. But she misunderstood why. Her arched brow told me that if I expected her to stay out of this conversation, I had another thing coming. I, on the other hand, focused more on the word ‘us.’
“My position gives me power?—”
“New York has no Bratva presence. Just talking to you might be considered an act of malfeasance against my Forgotten Boys allies.” It was my turn to shoot Dmitri a pointed look. He was supposed to be Nikolai Veles’ right-hand man, for fuck’s sake. “So… why would I need your power?”
“Firstly, Ilya is no enemy of Maxim Lyanov or Nikolai Veles,” the younger man clarified.Interesting. “I can have them contact you to confirm this if you need it.”
“The usefulness of a favor never ceases,” Ilya continued like neither of us had spoken.
Seeing as we tended to hand tokens out like candy, I could attest to that.
“What kind of favor would you be offering?”
“My mother… she didn’t want to marry into the Brackton family. My uncle had her forcibly exiled from Russia when, as a teenager, she fell pregnant with me. He waited for her to give birth, murdered my father, raised me as his son and heir when he produced daughters, and only one of those made it to adulthood.” His gaze flickered off Sofia. “He plopped my mother into NYC like she was a piece on a board game.
“Her ‘mission’ was to infiltrate the Brackton family or lose access to me. She had no way of knowing that she exchanged one monster for another, and their son, my half-brother, isn’t much better.
“Graham Sr. dumped Yseult in Shady Pines many times over the years, but when, as a preteen, she became difficult to control,he made her residence permanent. My half-brother did the same thing to our mother.”
