“I’m getting hungry,” Konstantin complained.
Ruslan shook his head.
“This is human flesh cooking.”
“What’s your point?”
Tau picked up a fresh piece of coal with the tongs and pressed it against Tolam’s sole. Another roar erupted—raw and animal—his body writhing against the restraints, the movement pulling viciously on his strung arms, the position turning his own resistance against him.
“It was Sergei,” Tolam screamed, his crazed eyes finding mine across the room.“Sergei Dragunov. Betrayed by your own bloodline.”
Maniacal laughter followed. The laughter of a man who had decided that if he was going to break he was going to break with everything.
I stood there.
Sergei.
My father’s younger brother. The uncle who appeared at family occasions with the particular quality of a man maintaining an obligation rather than honouring one. Kept his distance. Visited twice a year if that. As far as anyone knew he had been legitimate for twenty-odd years—energy sector, all above board, a quiet departure from the Bratva in the early days after helping our father establish the foundations. A man who had made his exit cleanly and apparently without grievance.
Apparently.
Another howl of pain.
Tau wasn’t finished.
“He wanted his bastard son to take your place,” Tolam continued, his voice cracking between screams.“He promised me import and export routes. A coalition over European territory.”
“Ruslan.” I turned to my advisor.
He shook his head slowly.“I’ve never heard of a son.”
“The name,” Tau said, pressing the tongs down again.
Konstantin moved without instruction and crouched beside Tolam’s other foot, producing his lighter with the ease of a man who always had one.
“He never told me,” Tolam sobbed.“I swear it. I never met the boy. But he works for the Bratva. He’s inside.”
Inside.
The word landed in the room and stayed there.
I was already turning to Ruslan and Konstantin, the logistics assembling themselves—men to coordinate, locations to check, the precise urgency of moving before the rat sensed the net closing.
Sergei had kept his distance precisely because proximity invited scrutiny. He had been patient. Twenty years of patience, watching Lev pass everything to Vadim, watching the bastard son he’d fathered in secret accumulate nothing while the legitimate line accumulated everything. Burning quietly. Feeding Tolam just enough to keep the arrangement alive.
I didn’t know what was worse—betrayal by the brotherhood or betrayal by blood.
No.
I knew.
This was worse.
My own blood had tried to decimate an entire arm of the family tree. Had put a truck through my wife’s car. Had taken my son before he drew a single breath of outside air.
No one knew we had Tolam. The rat was too arrogant to run—arrogance being the specific weakness of men who had been patient for so long they mistook patience for invincibility.
I would find him.
